Turkish

Fülszöveg

TEACH YOURSELF
TURKISH
Turkish is a member of the Turkic branch of the Altaic family of languages, spoken by some fifty million people, from the south-east of Europe to the upper reaches of the Yenisei and the borders of China. The languages of this branch do not differ among themselves anything like as much as the languages of our branch of the Indo-European family. English, Dutch and Norwegian are all Germanic, but this fact would be small comfort to the Londoner who suddenly found himself in Amsterdam or Oslo, On the other hand, anyone who has mastered the contents of this book would find little difficulty in making himself understood in Adrianople, in the Turkish-speaking parts of Cyprus, in Chinese Turkestan or Samarkand.
Those who require a knowledge of Turkish for commercial, military, diplomatic or scholarly purposes will need no persuasion to awaken their interest. But there is a reason of another sort for learning the language. The structure of Turkish is simple and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

TEACH YOURSELF
TURKISH
Turkish is a member of the Turkic branch of the Altaic family of languages, spoken by some fifty million people, from the south-east of Europe to the upper reaches of the Yenisei and the borders of China. The languages of this branch do not differ among themselves anything like as much as the languages of our branch of the Indo-European family. English, Dutch and Norwegian are all Germanic, but this fact would be small comfort to the Londoner who suddenly found himself in Amsterdam or Oslo, On the other hand, anyone who has mastered the contents of this book would find little difficulty in making himself understood in Adrianople, in the Turkish-speaking parts of Cyprus, in Chinese Turkestan or Samarkand.
Those who require a knowledge of Turkish for commercial, military, diplomatic or scholarly purposes will need no persuasion to awaken their interest. But there is a reason of another sort for learning the language. The structure of Turkish is simple and logical (it has only one anomalous verb and only one irregular noun); it is, moreover, quite different from the structure of the Indo-European and Semitic languages. Anyone who is seeking a new form of intellectual stimulus will find it a refreshing change to see how Turkish-speakers clothe the ordinary human thoughts and feelings in a completely new garb.
The aim of this book
is to present a picture of the Turkish language as it is now generally spoken in Istanbul and written by the best contemporary Turkish stylists. Nearly all the examples have been chosen from modern Turkish books and newspapers.
It is not possible in a book of this size to give exhaustive word-lists, nor indeed is it desirable, because very few people are capable of learning a language by memorising in advance all the words they are likely to need. An appendix of military terms has, however, been included, much of the information in which is not to be found in any other work. There is also a list of essential verbs which the reader will need to know, whether his business in Turkey concerns tobacco, Hittite tombs, microfilms of Arabic manuscripts or airfields.
"This is an extremely useful work. The author has crammed an immense amount of valuable information into a small space. I have searched for mistakes, but have been quite unsuccessful."
Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Vissza