212ist_LANGUAGE AND POLITICS

Avrupalilaştiramadiklarimizdanmısınızcasına?

As we arrive in Istanbul with the UK Trade and Industry for the 2014 Great Festival of Creativity / Creative Future Cities mission, it seems appropriate given Turkey’s apparent aspirations for European ascension to recall this local phrase meaning “as if you are reportedly of our those that we were unable to Europeanise?”. Often cited as an example demonstrating the synthetic quality of the Turkish language with it’s high morpheme-to-word ratio, this phrase is politically trumped however by the longest word in Turkish: Muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine meaning: “you are talking as if you were one of those we can not easily turn into a maker of unsuccessful ones, right?” Given the intertwining of linguistics and politics, Prime Minister’s QuestionTime requires some verbal dexterity.

WHAT_architecture_TUK

SAY WHAT_!?

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