Speak Turkish (or Speak Softly): Pragmatic Oppression in the One-Party Era

Nicholas Danforth, Georgetown University

The following document is an order issued by the Governor of Siirt in 1939 that appeared in translation as part of a 1945 US report on the status of Kurds in Turkey. Though the report's author is decidedly unsympathetic to the Turkish government's policies, the translation appears accurate and the document genuine. It reads:

DECREE

By the Governor of Siirt to the Siirtians

Every Turk's Descendants should speak Turkish. To make Turkish culture supreme in the provinces is the foremost goal and duty of every teacher, official, father, mother and citizen, and a special national obligation for every Turk. the municipal Council will guide and assist you in this task. The following decree, which will apply from August 1, 1939, for a period of three years, is designed to raise you to a level appropriate to true sons of the country and provide for instruction in Turkish without hardship to anyone.

I shall expect all Siirtians, teachers, officials, mothers, fathers and especially students and school-children, to consider this problem a matter of national loyalty. 

May you enjoy good health!

 ORDER

Date 28/6/1939

No. Issue 492

In order to eliminate foreign languages which are the remnants of bad habits, and to make Turkish the only spoken language, it has been decided to enforce the following rules, infringements of which will be punished by fines varying in accordance with Provision 65 of the Statue of Provincial Administrations (Vilayetler Idaresi)...

1.     Turkish lessons will be held daily in the Halk Evi.

2.     Those who speak Turkish are required to use it in public places.

3.     Peasants and townspeople up the age of forty are required to learn Turkish, the former within a period of three years, the latter within a year.

4.     Only the Turkish language will be allowed in public places such as coffee-houses, markets, restaurants, inns, baths, cinemas. Those who speak only Arabic or Kurdish must keep their voices low as to be inaudible to third persons.

5.     Families having children of school age are strictly forbidden to speak anything but Turkish at home. For such families the time prescribed for learning the language is one half of that allowed by Provision 3.)

6.     This order will enter into force in August 1, 1939.

There is something to the pragmatism and seemingly accommodating tone of the order - "without hardship to anyone" - that only underscores the impractical, brutal, and ideological nature of the policy itself. Rule 4 is particularly striking: "Only the Turkish language will be allowed in public places such as coffee-houses, markets, restaurants, inns, baths, cinemas. Those who speak only Arabic or Kurdish must keep their voices low as to be inaudible to third persons." More than anything else, this hints at the performative aspect of nationalist assimilation in early 20th century Turkey. The state expected its citizens to speak Turkish when others were within earshot, just as it expected them to use the Latin alphabet in official business even if they continued to write their notes or diaries in Ottoman. Tellingly, the only people who are forbidden from speaking non-Turkish languages at home are those with young children to hear them. There is a tendency to treat the zealous nationalism of early Republican leaders who were themselves of Balkan, Caucasian or even Kurdish origin as a form of profound hypocrisy. In fact, it seems possible that because these men felt they had done their part in a grand civilizational project by learning a new language and adopting a new identity, they felt even more justified in their contempt for others who refused to make the same sacrifice.

Source: NARA, Classified Records of the Ankara Embassy, RG 84, Box 91

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