Monthly Archives: October 2025

Obituary: Zeynep Korkmaz (1922–2025)

Zeynep Korkmaz
July 5th, 1922 – February 6th, 2025

Zeynep Korkmaz

Zeynep Korkmaz

Born in Nevşehir and raised there until elementary school, Zeynep Korkmaz completed her primary and secondary education in Urla and İzmir after her family moved to İzmir. She then moved to Ankara for her higher education and enrolled in the Department of Turkish Language and Literature in the Faculty of Language, History, and Geography (Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi) at Ankara University in the 1940–1941 academic year. During her studies, she was a student of renowned linguists such as Hasan Eren, Saadet Çağatay, Tahsin Banguoğlu, and Besim Atalay. After graduating from university in 1944, Zeynep Korkmaz (her maiden name was Zeynep Dengi) first became an assistant at the Gazi Eğitim Enstitüsü (Gazi Education Institute) and then at the Faculty of Language, History, and Geography in 1948.

While working as an assistant, Zeynep Korkmaz conducted fieldwork on the dialects of Western Anatolia. During this period, she married Mehmet Korkmaz and had a son in 1950. Her doctoral thesis, based on her fieldwork, was published under the title Southwestern Anatolian Dialects (Phonetic).

In 1954, she was sent to Hamburg, Germany, with the faculty’s budget. There, she took courses from A. von Gabain and O. Pritsak. She returned to Turkey in 1955 and became an associate professor the same year. In 1963, she was appointed professor with her work Nevşehir ve Yöresi Ağızları (Dialects of Nevşehir and its Surroundings).

In the following years, she continued her work on linguistics, Turkish suffixes, and the Turkish language reform. In addition, she conducted studies on Old Ottoman Turkish, Oğuz languages, and Oğuz Turkish, publishing the Old Ottoman Turkish Marzubannâme.

She taught not only at Ankara University but also at Hacettepe and Gazi Universities during various periods. In addition to her academic duties at the university, she also held various administrative positions in academic institutions, the Turkish Language Association (TDK), The Council of Higher Education (YÖK), and Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT). She participated in numerous conferences in Turkey and abroad with papers on Turkish language and culture. Zeynep Korkmaz, who has received many awards, received the PIAC Medal in 2003. Although she ended her teaching activities at universities in the early 1990s, she continued to participate in national and international Turkology conferences until the end of the 2010s.

Zeynep Korkmaz participated in well over a dozen Annual Meetings of the PIAC, her earliest participation on record was at the 12th Meeting in Berlin (1969), the title of her paper being “Die Frage des Verhältnisses der anatolischen Mundarten zu ihrer ethnischen Struktur.” At the 29th Meeting of the PIAC in Tashkent (1986), she was the head of the Turkish delegation.

When Zeynep Korkmaz is mentioned, the first things that come to mind are her contributions to the grammar of Turkish, the grammar book she prepared, and her pioneering work on Anatolian dialectology.

Mehmet Ölmez
October 2025

Selected Works

Güney-Batı Anadolu Ağızları Ses Bilgisi (Fonetik), AÜ DTCF yayınları: 114, Ankara 1956 (2nd edition, Ankara 1994, TDK).

Türk Dilinin Tarihi Akışı İçinde Atatürk ve Dil Devrimi, AÜ DTCF yayınları: 147, Ankara 1963.

Nevşehir ve Yöresi Ağızları, I Cilt: Ses Bilgisi (Phonetique), AÜ DTCF yayınları: 142, Ankara 1963; 2nd edition, Ankara 1977; 3rd edition, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara 1994.

Sadrü’d-din Şeyhoğlu, Marzubân-nâme Tercümesi, Giriş- İnceleme-Metin-Sözlük-Tıpkıbasım, AÜ DTCF yayınları: 219, Ankara 1973; 2nd edition, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara 2017.

Gramer Terimleri Sözlüğü, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara 1992.

Türkiye Türkçesi Grameri: Şekil Bilgisi, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara 2003.

Türk Dili Üzerine Araştırmalar, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara 1995.

Festschriften

Prof. Dr. Zeynep Korkmaz’a Armağan, Türk Kültürü Araştırmaları, vol. XXXII, 1994, Ankara 1996.

Zeynep Korkmaz Armağanı, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara 2004.

Türklük Biliminin Ulu Çınarı Zeynep Korkmaz Armağanı, ed. Leylâ Karahan, Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Ensitüsü, Ankara 2017.

Articles about Zeynep Korkmaz (also used for this obituary)

Hamza Zülfikar, “Hocam Prof. Dr. Zeynep Korkmaz”. Zeynep Korkmaz Armağanı, Ankara 2004: 1–24.

Leyla Karahan, “95 Yılı Geride Bırakmış Bir “Ulu Çınar”ın Hayat Hikâyesi”. Türklük Biliminin Ulu Çınarı Zeynep Korkmaz Armağanı. Ankara: Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, 2017: 3–12.

Leyla Karahan, Türkçeyle Yaşamak, Zeynep Korkmaz Kitabı. Ankara: Bengü Yayınları, 2018.

Leyla Karahan, “Hocam Prof. Dr. Zeynep Korkmaz’ın Ardından / After the Passing of My Professor, Prof. Dr. Zeynep Korkmaz”, Dil Araştırmaları / Journal of Language Studies, Year: 19, Period: 2025- Spring, Number: 36: 271–278.

Obituary: Sigrid Kleinmichel (1938–2024)

In Memoriam
Sigrid Kleinmichel
April 29, 1938 – September 06, 2024

Sigrid Kleinmichel, born April 29, 1938, died in Berlin, Germany, after short illness, on September 06, 2024.

In 1956, the German Democratic Republic sent Sigrid Kleinmichel to study Turkology in Leningrad, Soviet Union, a quite unusual field for a young woman from Germany to engage in. Yet it must have been a very good match, and until the end of her life, Sigrid Kleinmichel was a philologist with heart and soul who pursued the field of Turkology passionately. After graduating in 1961, she returned to Germany and became a member of the Humboldt University in Berlin where she taught and researched in the field of Turkic Studies for twelve years. In 1971, under the supervision of Prof. György Hazai (1932–2016), she completed her doctorate at Humboldt University with a linguistic study on the Marzubān-nāme, a mid-15th century text of the “mirrors of princes” genre, written in Old-Ottoman Turkish.

In 1974, Sigrid Kleinmichel moved to the Academy of Sciences of the GDR where she became a scholar at the Central Institute for the History of Literature (1969–1991). After learning Uzbek and Kazakh on site in Central Asia, she worked on the literatures of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Soviet Union and of Turkey. Her expertise spanned a broad field in terms of time and genres, encompassing various Turkic languages, with a focus on Uzbek literature. By the time of the political changes in the 1990s, she built up an unusually large international network of Orientalists and scholars from other disciplines in various countries.

From 1994 to 2011, Sigrid Kleinmichel was affiliated with the Institute of Turkology, Free University of Berlin, where she continued her research and taught Uzbek and Kazakh language and gave seminars on Uzbek, Chagatay and Uyghur literature. Engaged in supporting students with her advices on theses and dissertations, always ready to share her extensive knowledge with colleagues; combined with her friendly and modest manner, Sigrid Kleinmichel was an appreciated conversation partner.

After the political changes in Germany in the 1990s, Sigrid Kleinmichel began to publish her research results and to implement innovative research approaches. In 1993, her first monography, a groundbreaking study on Uzbek literature appeared: Awakening from Oriental poetry traditions: studies on Uzbek drama and prose between 1910 and 1934.¹ This work deals with the Jadid Muslim national reform movement and the fate of Uzbek writers murdered during the Stalinist terror.

In 2000, Khalpa in Khorezm and ātin āyi in the Fergana valley: on the history of reading in Uzbekistan in the 20th century, an interdisciplinary study that focuses on women who recite religious texts, was published.² Located in the disciplines of ethnology, religious and cultural studies, literature and linguistics, popular Islam in Central Asia and the transmission of knowledge among women are analysed. The study represents a milestone in Central Asian literary research reaching far beyond the proper discipline of Turkic Studies.

In 2009, The Birth of the Prophet Muḥammad: three poems from Central Asia, a comprehensive work on Mevlid poetry in popular piety and scholarly literature since the Islamic Middle Ages followed.³ And finally, in 2016, the book Ijob between Self-Incrimination and Protest: poems from Central Asia, 19th to 20th century, a philological work, editing, translating, and commenting on a corpus of 86 Chagatay poems on Ijob, was published.⁴

Sigrid Kleinmichel attended four Meetings of the PIAC, in 1969, 1972, 1988 and 1991.

Sigrid Kleinmichel was a committed person with many social contacts. After her retirement, she volunteered to teach German as a Foreign Language, supported female Usbek students, and initiated and hosted a private literary salon in her home. Behaving humanely, taking social and historical circumstances into account, imparting culture and literature, and developing language skills were always important for her. With gratitude, we look back at her work and the time we could spend with her. We miss her as a conversation partner, as a very friendly person with an enormous knowledge who brought different worlds together.

Karin Schweißgut*
October 14, 2025

Anetshofer, Helga et al. (eds.): Über Gereimtes und Ungereimtes diesseits und jenseits der Turcia : Festschrift für Sigrid Kleinmichel zum 70. Geburtstag. Schöneiche bei Berlin : Scrîpvaz-Verl., 2008. Contains a bibliography of Sigrid Kleinmichel’s publications (pp. 19–28 op. cit.)

[1] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Aufbruch aus orientalischen Dichtungstraditionen : Studien zur usbekischen Dramatik und Prosa zwischen 1910 und 1934. Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1993. https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/Aufbruch_aus_orientalischen_Dichtungstraditionen/titel_432.ahtml

[2] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Ḫalpa in Choresm (Ḫwārazm) und ātin āyi im Ferghanatal : zur Geschichte des Lesens in Usbekistan im 20. Jahrhundert. Berlin : Das Arabische Buch, 2000 und Berlin : Klaus Schwarz, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112400227

[3] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Die Geburt des Propheten Muḥammad : drei Dichtungen aus Mittelasien. Wiesbaden : Reichert, 2009. https://reichert-verlag.de/buchreihen/geographie_reihen/geographie_iran_turan/9783895006760_die_geburt_des_propheten_muhammad-detail

[4] Kleinmichel, Sigrid: Hiob zwischen Selbstbezichtigung und Protest : Gedichte aus Mittelasien (19. bis 20. Jahrhundert). Wiesbaden : Reichert Verlag, 2016. https://reichert-verlag.de/buchreihen/geographie_reihen/geographie_iran_turan/9783954901494_hiob_zwischen_selbstbezichtigung_und_protest-detail

* ORCID-ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0222-8522