Turklish

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Wikipedia

Turklish (a portmanteau of "Turkish" and "English") refers to the language contact phenomenon that occurs primarily where native Turkish speakers frequently communicate in English. The term was first recorded in 1994.[1]

Turklish is found in Turkish expatriate communities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, among the students of the many English speaking universities, high schools and corporations of Istanbul and other major cities. To a lesser extent, the same phenomenon can be observed in expatriate communities in Turkey.

At times, English idioms and proverbs are directly translated into Turkish, and vice versa. Also, the gender distinction between English third person pronouns in Turklish is sometimes (though not always) non-existent, a characteristic derived from Turkish, meaning the different pronouns can be used interchangeably.

Code-switching

Turklish speakers borrow a considerable amount of their vocabulary from English while speaking Turkish. It is not uncommon for a speaker of Turklish to frequently switch back and forth between the two languages, sometimes mid-sentence, a practice known as code-switching.

A study of New York City Turkish-English bilinguals found that intra-sentential code-switching was more prevalent that inter-sentential code-switching. Notably, all code-switched sentences retained grammatical rules of either Turkish or English.[2] An example of intra-sentential code-switching can be demonstrated below:

"Yani o da böyle coincidence gibi birşey." (I mean it was like a coincidence.)[2]

The role of the Internet

Turklish has a long history of being used in online communities. In 2013, Turkish-English memes became popular on X to protest the government, inspired from popular American culture movements.[3] Scholars have hypothesized these English borrowings serve to fill the gaps of new "internet-themed" vocabulary in Turkish. In posts found on X, most of the English words and phrases refer to the webpage, technology and the Internet activity.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. English World-wide, 39(1): 31. doi:10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam
  2. 1 2 Koban, Didem (2013-01-25). "Intra-sentential and Inter-sentential Code-switching in Turkish-English Bilinguals in New York City, U.S". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. Akdeniz Language Studies Conference, May, 2012, Turkey. 70: 1174–1179. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.173. ISSN 1877-0428.
  3. ↑ Gurel, Perin (2015). "Bilingual Humor, Authentic Aunties, and the Transnational Vernacular at Gezi Park". Journal of Transnational American Studies. 6 (1). doi:10.5070/T861019932.
  4. ↑ Taştan, Feride Duygu (February 2012). "Language Contact in Computer-Mediated Communication: The Use of English on Twitter by Turkish Native Speakers". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)