Birth of a Dialect

Research shows that Turkish as spoken by Turks in the Netherlands is diverging from Turkish as spoken in Turkey. ( Source in Dutch.) The gist: the study was focused on spoken language. They found that under influence of the Dutch language the local version of Turkish is changing. Not by individual speakers who start to make mistakes for lack of contact with Turkey, but uniformly in the whole group. Over the past 40 years it has in fact changed enough that a Turk in Turkey can apparently recognize the speaker as a Dutch Turkish speaker. No changes in grammar have been found (and I don't think they looked for pronunciation), but many phrases have changed. Examples given in the article: the original Turkish for "to take the train" is "trene binmek" (to step on train). Dutch Turks say "tren almak" (to take train). For taking an exam, Turks in Turkey say sinava girmek (to enter exam; first "i" without a dot). Dutch Turks say sinav yapmak (to do exam).

Really intersting shilgia, thanks for posting. Now I have an excuse if I say anything weird in class "but I speak Dutch Turkish!"

interesting indeed. thanks. may i now start wondering about german turkish (and belgian turkish and french turkish...?)

About German Turkish: yes. I don't think Belgium and France have as large a Turkish population as Germany and the Netherlands do, do they?

Yes. In that sense, it's an interesting era we live in.

Many of the immigrants into the European countries in the 20th century have now entered their 2nd or 3rd generations (4th/5th), whilst keeping, at least in some communities, their original language as a secondary or even primary means of communication. However, over time, there were changes relating to the environment in which they now live, along with the lack of sufficient info on the modern trends of their own language "back home".

The French speaking Quebecois/e somehow speak in a more pre-20th century style than their Paris counterparts, much, I guess, for the same reasons.

I wonder which influences are dictating this "Dutch Turkish" diversion.

Funny you guys should mention German Turkish. Here's an article about it, in English....;)

Immigrants Help Create New Type of German Language
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2989308,00.html

my view on belgium might be skewed since i lived smack in the turkish quarter when i was in gent. if the information i have is correct there are 50,000 turks in belgium. any idea whether proportionnally that comes close to the NL?
for france it is definetely proportionnally less, but might still be enough of them. or of course arabic should be considered

thanks orange also!

I looked it up. 364,000 people of Turkish descent in the Netherlands as of January 1, 2006.
Total population of the Netherlands: 16M. Belgium: 10.5M.

Which means: 0.5% of the population in Belgium; 2.2% in the Netherlands.

But 50,000 is still a large number. I didn't know that; thanks.

But I guess this kind of thing would also depend on the way the group is spread. (Evenly over the country vs. concentrated in smaller areas.)

50,000 Turks in Belgium seemed quite low to me, and indeed this document
seems to confirm that would only include Turks not having Belgian citizenship. So I guess the difference with the Netherlands is not that big.

In (Belgian) Dutch there's something similar to the Turkish-influenced German that Orangutan mentions. It's called "Algemeen cités" and is the Dutch as spoken in central Limburg with heavy influences of Italian. (There are some former mining towns in that area with a sizable immigrant population.)

I've found this hilarious example on youtube. OK, it's hilarious to me because I grew up there and there are actually quite some people who talk like that. Even if you don't understand Dutch, you will probably agree that it sounds and looks like Italian.

The scientific background can be found here (in Dutch).

your article says "algemeen cites" is spoken with the corners of the mouth down and sounds macho which opens the question whether ít's a gender-lect (?) ?

Edited by: mathilda

Great article, dikkie. (For those who haven't looked at it yet, it's not really about the scientific background, but rather a list of examples with a translation.)

{quote:title=shilgia wrote:}{quote}
Research shows that Turkish as spoken by Turks in the Netherlands is diverging from Turkish as spoken in Turkey. ( Source in Dutch.) The gist: the study was focused on spoken language. They found that under influence of the Dutch language the local version of Turkish is changing. Not by individual speakers who start to make mistakes for lack of contact with Turkey, but uniformly in the whole group. Over the past 40 years it has in fact changed enough that a Turk in Turkey can apparently recognize the speaker as a Dutch Turkish speaker. No changes in grammar have been found (and I don't think they looked for pronunciation), but many phrases have changed. Examples given in the article: the original Turkish for "to take the train" is "trene binmek" (to step on train). Dutch Turks say "tren almak" (to take train). For taking an exam, Turks in Turkey say sinava girmek (to enter exam; first "i" without a dot). Dutch Turks say sinav yapmak (to do exam).

I can imagine that Turkish has evolved in Dutch or German environments, but the examples given are not particularly striking. "Sınav yapmak" is used in Turkey alongside "sınav olmak" and "sınava girmek". And even if "tren almak" isn't used, many similar Anglicisms exist in Turkey Turkish: "duş almak" (to take a shower) is often used exactly as in English pattern instead of "duşa girmek".

An expression that has annoyed some is "sana döneceğim" (I will return to you), which is a direct translation of the English "I'll get back to you" (said on the phone). Almost everyone says this now. There are loads of other examples of bad subtitles on TV and in movies entering the language. One that probably won't make it into Turkish is "to drop acid", which I saw translated word for word in Apocalypse Now. It meant nothing to the Turks watching it. Why should it have?

It's quite interesting. Thanks!

Now, I'm not sure up what extent things have changed so that the Turkish spoken other than in Turkey can be considered as a dialect. These things are really delicate, coz it appeals at beliefs, national identities, etc. I should take this very carefully. Something similar is happening now in Spain.

Thanks, boxxla. Good to hear from a reporter 'on the ground'.

In response to Mathilda's question whether "Algemeen cités" is a gender-lect.
The typical speaker of this dialect is a young man. The vocabulary and the video I posted earlier confirm this; they both contain lots of sexual references, like in rap music. In fact the Dutch Wikipedia considers "algemeen cités" slang, not an ethnolect. But in my experience, most of the language features described in the document can be found among women speakers too, but probably without the profanity.

"Dutch" is a West Germanic language spoken in a country called "the Netherlands" (that is in Europe).