A New Database of Turkish Vocabulary
50th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Kazan 2007
As it is known, the words, expressions, proverbs and terminology of a language all constitute its vocabulary. The vocabulary of a language depends on the capacity of the nation’s notion of the world. The notion of the world and culture of a nation draw the borders of the nation’s language. If the users of the language are able to express their feelings, ideas and plans; and translate from other languages, it means that this language is self-sufficient.
So, it is not suitable to classify the languages as rich and poor in respect of their vocabulary.
Every language is rich within itself.
When we think of the vocabulary of Turkish throughout the historical periods, it is seen that Mahmud al-Kaşgarî could put 8.500 words into his work which is the first Turkic languages dictionary, Divanü Lügati’t-Türk. On the other hand, the number of the vocabulary of a well known dictionary of Kamus-ı Türkî by Şemsettin Sami published in the beginning of last century is 26 000. The Language Revolution issued by Ataturk had aimed to develop, enrich and purify the language with the works of word reviewing, editing and derivation. The vocabulary in the 9th edition of Turkish Dictionary published in 1998 was about 75 000.
Now the vocabulary of the literary language of Turkey Turkish exceeds 120 000. The most advance Turkish dictionary of today is Up-to-date Turkish Dictionary which is served by Turkish Language Institution in an interactive environment. We initiated a work aiming to make Turkish Dictionary available for the users on the Internet. Our aim was to prepare an electronic dictionary on the internet.
The Current Turkish Dictionary became the most reliable and the largest dictionary of Turkish and it is enriched day by day by the working group having the same name with the dictionary. The Current Turkish Dictionary improves rapidly thanks to contributions and critics of the volunteers from the whole world in addition to the works of scholars and experts in the working group. While the Current Turkish Dictionary Working Group was meeting once a month at the beginning, then began to meet twice a month due to the frequency of messages and e-mails and subsequently the group began to come together once a week. The necessity of controlling the dictionary by reading through and evaluating and replying about 20 messages in a day made compulsory to meet twice a week. Now, the working group comes together three times a week also.
Just as, approximately 125 000 local expressions are included in 12 volumes dictionary of Turkish Language Institution named as the Derleme Sözlüğü Dictionary of Compilation’. Besides, many users search for the meaning of some terminology about science and art. As an illustration, a person, who searches for the meanings of terminology of law due to receiving an official notification coming from the court, can not find the meanings of these words.
By adding the vocabulary of the written languages of Turkish other than Turkey Turkish to the database, the richest and the most improved dictionary will be available for the Turkologists, Altaists and linguists on the internet.