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This book investigates, on a linguistic and cultural basis, the connections between language, society and history in the Ottoman Empire with regard to the first long-term impact of European concepts. The Tanzimat period (1840–1870) was a time of reforms based on European socio-political ideas. At the peak of its power, the Ottoman Empire had felt superior to its neighbours, thereby missing the developments forming a new Europe well into the eighteenth century (the Reformation, the Age of the Enlightenment, and technological progress). By then, the Sublime Porte could not help relaise that the Ottoman Empire was in a state of decline. On the one hand, efforts were undertaken to translate European literary and scientific works into Ottoman-Turkish. On the other hand, a period of reforms in the administrative, legal and judicial fields was initiated. These reforms were modelled on European examples. For this purpose, however, new words and notions were needed in order to express ideas hitherto unknown. These dynamic developments within the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman language took place against a twofold background. The national movements, especially those in South-eastern Europe, forced the Ottoman Empire to react. At the same time, however, the Ottoman Empire also had to deal with the interference of the European powers. As a consequence, the Ottoman Empire was one of the first Muslim countries to mediate between Islam and European modernity. The present book shows how this was reflected in the Ottoman language, the sources being extracts from newspapers and, more importantly, the reform decrees of 1839 and 1856, as well as the first Ottoman constitution of 1876. The investigation focuses on how and when new words for a number of prominent notions were introduced, e.g. the rule of law, parliamentarianism, modern administration, liberty, equality, and the nation-state.
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