How would the Balkans look like nowadays had the Ottomans enforced the Turkish language?
Posted by crivycouriac@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 44 comments
For comparison, the native languages of the Balkans would be in a similar situation to the indigenous languages of Latin America
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
It was impossible for them to do so because they didn’t find any primitive indigenous peoples.
They found fully developed civilizations and were only interested in collecting their taxes.
WinstonSmith27@reddit
Not quite think so. Developed civilizations can alter other developed civilizations cultures. Think of eastern part of old Polish reigions. Those reigions are now asimilated into Russian culture due to asimilation polities. Same logic goes for Edirne and Istanbul too. Those places were crutial key points for Ottoman expansion, so Turks asimilated those places. As like you said further teretories used as "tax income" due to lack of nationalisim at that age and Ottoman policies. However, if asimilation polites would have used, Balkans probably would be effected by Turkish culture more than Slavic culture today.
agrlekk@reddit
What kind of assimilation happened east of Poland? East Poland is more religious than West
WinstonSmith27@reddit
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's east reigons severed high "Rusification" when conquered by Russia.
About relegion part, it is due to Cold War I think
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
The only way they could achieve this was by imposing it by force. They weren’t fools. They knew this and were afraid to do it.
They did it methodically and in specific areas.
It wasn’t their primary objective, especially for the Balkans, which they had always treated as vassals.
However, the fact that these communities were already organized according to the standards of the time was a decisive factor in preventing any easy Turkification.
Furthermore, the Ottomans themselves needed modernization but lacked the means to achieve it. They had to acquire expertise from outside sources in order to ensure their own survival first and foremost.
WinstonSmith27@reddit
There is 2 way to asimilate a culture. By force or placing your population in there. Turks would probably aslimilate by slowly putting their population in Balkans if we are based on their past policies (Thats how they asimilated Thrace). But we can also asume force option too since it is fiction.
Ottomans didn't use force to asimilate. Their general police was placing Turks there as I explained.
That part is true, but in the real historical part. However we are curently arguing about "what if they asimilated" so does not make sense.
"Organized communites" started forming in early 19th centuary due to nationalisim caused by French Revelation. Before that there wasn't such communites. Istanbul's asimilation is the biggest proof. Capital of Byzintine and Orthodox world easly asimilated without any revolt. If such groops were existed they would have rioted also in Greece but that only started in early 19th centuary.
Ottomans were quite well developed more than Europe until late 16th centuaries. First modernisation periods "Turlip Area" started in mid 17th centuary and Greek revolt started in early 18th centuary. There were few decades between those events so I can't say 500 years of Ottoman rule can not asimilate Greeks just because 60 years of decline periot.
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
There is also a third way of assimilation, and that is what colonialism did.
Countries with massive industrial development, a legal system, and resources for growth assimilated peoples in Africa and South America within 50 years. Of course, there was also violent imposition, but not everywhere.
As for the Greeks, they already had a written language, schools, and a legal system highly organized by Roman-Byzantine law as well as the Canon Law of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
One idea for the Greek Revolution was to start it in Constantinople. At that time, over a third of its population consisted of Greeks. Then Patriarch Gregory was beheaded.
The Orlov Revolt had also preceded this.
As for how the Ottoman Empire influenced the Bosnians: they belonged to a heretical church that collapsed, and they gladly embraced the new religion of Islam—and I’ll tell you, they did well.
But yes, the Ottoman Empire itself placed more emphasis on expansion for the sake of revenue and glory for the Sultan and his corrupt court than on spreading anything to others.
Young_Owl99@reddit
Russia made Armanians and Georgians speak Russian and I doubt you would consider them primitive, they are very old civilizations. Most of them know to speak Russian even though they didn’t lost their own language.
If Ottomans could make speaking Turkish beneficial, they would make the language that all the Balkans at least know. Turkish remained unimportant for people in Balkans.
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
They did it by force. Especially under Stalin.
Young_Owl99@reddit
Ottomans could do the same. My point is it is not about being primitive or not. Ottomans didn’t care about it. The state structure was different.
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
That's exactly what I said.
Young_Owl99@reddit
In your original comment you said it was impossible for Ottomans to do it, my point is they could, they didn’t because they didn’t see being a state as Russians did.
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBalkans/s/fXy8wj78HW
Young_Owl99@reddit
This was your original comment, I am not tracking the debates you are making with other people.
Bilmemkineyapsam@reddit
The eurocentric self pampering.. 🤣
crivycouriac@reddit (OP)
Pretty sure most of the Balkans was less civilized than the Aztecs or Incas
Just based on nowadays
Deep-Ad4183@reddit
No, it wasn't.
Poglavnik_Majmuna01@reddit
It would just mean that Turkey would be geographically larger given that current Turkey is already made up of assimilated natives.
ATAKURT1453@reddit
But,albanians and bosniaks spoke their own languages and were never assimilated.
Poglavnik_Majmuna01@reddit
Yeah because the Ottoman Empire did not enforce Turkish.
The question of the post is a scenario where this did occur.
ATAKURT1453@reddit
actually, my answer is related to the scenario. what i meant was the bosniaks and albanians living in turkey who speak turkish. even though they don't know their own languages, they are still bosniaks and albanians
on the other hand, gagauz turks. they are devout christians, and they never connected with the ottoman Empire or identified as turks just because they spoke turkish
shadowdance55@reddit
Tell that to my čekić and my čizme.
Dear_Wrongdoer7271@reddit
Linguistically pretty much and Turkey would have a much bigger influence like Russia has in Belarus or used to have in Ukraine.
LibertyChecked28@reddit
Russia as it is in its current borders has +192 nationalities of whom at least +175 arent slavic in under any way shape or form. Russia has +35 official languages most of whom aren't Russian, but the official one across the entire federation is Russian.
Dave_meth_Mustard@reddit
I don’t think so. Russian is mutually intelligible with Ukrainians/Belorussian, so when Russian was imposed there, it was felt as though Ukrainian and Belarussian was an informal/dialectal Russian. Balkan languages are nothing alike Turkish, so it would be much harder. But i think a new pidgin/creole could had been possibly created
Early-Show2886@reddit
The ideas you guys come up with for questions... it's unbelievable. 😄
RustCohle_23@reddit
Çok Güzel
altahor42@reddit
The reason the Ottomans were able to maintain their hold on the Balkans for so long was that they did not interfere with the language and religion of the conquered peoples. It is no coincidence that rebellions broke out and Balkan states began to gain independence immediately after the centralizing reforms that came with modernization.
Wild_cmpt6406@reddit
Enforced on whom? Sultans and upper classes themselves?
By whom. How.
_whatever_idc@reddit
Easy, make all official documents in Turkish. It has been done before.
Wild_cmpt6406@reddit
"Easy."
Mate read up on some history and the strife and rebellions, insurgency, guerrilla, etc. Also about origins of viziers, the cuthroat court factionalism, about some of the city captains, or vassal state leaders, etc. It was many things but easy, lol.
Official document could say this firest, hill and river belong to "Ali" bey, but would he have the courage to leave his town and come personally to test that ofgicial document with or without a few hundred troops. And would he go back with his head on his shoulders..
iheartloud420@reddit
Most people didnt know how to read during ottoman reign doubt that would have an impact
OkoMushrooom@reddit
Not really the languages and the cultures were kept alive by the monasteries and churches and unless they close those down they won’t change much. The only downside is that instead of being some couple of decades behind the rest of Europe we’d be behind by a century living in a warped reality bound to fail in one way or another.
Substratas@reddit
https://i.redd.it/o2fhe5uvpa4h1.gif
Massive_Emu6682@reddit
If you ever traveled in this region you would know that it would look similar. The only difference would be that they would talk Turkish lol.
No-Championship-4632@reddit
Shittier.
Young_Owl99@reddit
The answer is Russia.
whiteoba@reddit
Probably yeah
GokTengr-i@reddit
Bigger Turkey, Less Balkanization
nobody1568@reddit
Among other languages the Ottomans found during their conquests were Farsi, Arabic, Greek and Slavic, all with a longer and more established literary history than Turkish itself. If they had tried to enforce Turkish they would have collapsed far sooner.
Similar-Speech2371@reddit
The point is that before national states (19th century invention of one state-one people-one language) basically all of the empires weren't really 0 f-cks given about the language. Even up til the 20th century multiethnic empires like Austria-Hungary or the Ottoman empire didn't really enforce a monolingual language policy. The mandatory monolingualism is a byproduct of the French revolution, it spread then to the rest of Europe and the world. What happened with colonialism in North (and south) America or Russia was basically killing almost all the natives and those who weren't killed were assimilated, it wasn't language policy it was just kill & assimilate. That didn't happen i.e. in Africa, there the natives weren't killed/assimilated/replaced by colonists like in America & Russia
DropItLowjessy83@reddit
It would just be a much larger version of Cyprus or Albania where everyone still holds a grudge against their neighbors anyway. Religion and local identity were always going to be stronger factors than language policy in this region.
UnhappyBreadfruit607@reddit
I think not much would be changed as even without enforcement local people always adopted parts of upper classes language and customs. For example French influence in the English language due to William the Conqueror's Norman heritage and his destruction of the old English nobility and appointment of Norman nobility while they didn't bring French with them they influenced English a lot. For similar case we could argue that Turkish has been influencing balkan languages for years and in turn balkan languages influencing Turkish language for years(for example word kral comes from one of the slaving languages for the king and Turkish adopted it and for opposite example words haydi and siktir is popular in balkans). Additionally for long time Ottoman tolerance was above the standards of the time and this resulted for longer Ottoman presence. If Ottomans tried to enforce language the empire would break way earlier additionally balkan countries after gaining independence did some kind of language "purification" by removing Ottoman sourced Turkish, Arabic and Persian words so there wouldn't be much change.
Empty-Pace-4228@reddit
This question was already asked. And I already answered.
Turkey could have done it if it properly managed its expansionist policies. Turkey staying in the edge of the Balkans; Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania, could give them enough space to control the region and properly "integrate" the locals by force.
However, Turkey was too Rome wannabe and instead of governing the regions that it has seized, Turkey preferred to enlarge exponentially. It became a tax collector empire like the Mongol Empire, since it surpassed it's capacity to rule after crossing the central balkans. Ottomans choose Mongol mentality; Be our subjects (Pay taxes and don't object our obligations) and we'll let you be. It was mostly relative to it's size after a certain point.
The most rational thing for Turkey to stop after conquering Albania and concentrate on inner politics during 16th century and afterwards. In that way, Turkey could have become something like the UK today.