The Turkology in the Balkans Workshop, held in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, started with the theme of “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Turkology Studies in the Balkans”.
Academicians and students working in the field of Turkology from Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Romania and North Macedonia attended the event, which was organized in cooperation with the Sarajevo Yunus Emre Institute (YEE) and Konya Karatay Municipality.
Karatay Mayor Hasan Kılca, in his opening speech, said that they aimed to identify the basic current problems in the field of Turkology and contribute to them with solution suggestions.
Stating that the Balkans offer a unique area for Turkology studies, Kılca said:
“Different dialects of Turkish are spoken in the Balkans, and a life kneaded with traces of Turkish literature and Turkish culture is lived. In the workshop, in addition to the works presented so far, topics that have not yet been studied will be evaluated in detail. The events in this geography have shaped the cultural identities of not only the Turkish people but also all other ethnic groups in the region. This geography also has a complex history and political past. Therefore, it is very important to understand this complexity and diversity and to address it from a comprehensive perspective when conducting Turkology studies in the Balkans.”
Drawing attention to the importance of the program in strengthening the brotherhood of Turkish in the Turkic world, Kılca stated that the agreement to be reached at the workshop will make them stronger.
Kılca said, “I would also like to underline that we have an obligation to preserve our language with all its originality in a world where technology is rapidly advancing and digitalization has spread to every area of life. Our Turkish, which has steeled our national will, is also the name and guarantee of our march towards the future.”
7 thousand students in Bosnia and Herzegovina are learning Turkish as a foreign language
Faruk Berat Akçeşme, Education Counselor at the Turkish Embassy in Sarajevo, stated that Turkish has been used as a language of communication, culture and journals throughout history.
Stating that Turkish is used as a “cultural language” today, Akçeşme said, “We are trying to contribute to Turkish with the current studies of YEE, the Turkish Maarif Foundation, and the studies of academics assigned from Turkey in this region. We have Turkish Language and Literature departments in Tuzla, Sarajevo, and Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nearly 100 of our students are receiving undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate education in these departments.”
Sarajevo YEE Turkish Coordinator Ersin Akbulut said that they believe Turkish will be the language of the century in line with the “Turkish Century” vision.
Akbulut, who reported that Turkish was preferred as a foreign language in 170 primary and secondary schools across Bosnia and Herzegovina within the scope of the “My Choice is Turkish” project, noted the following:
“Within the scope of the ‘My Choice is Turkish’ project, where approximately 7 thousand students are currently learning Turkish, approximately 100 of our teachers who graduated from the Turkology departments in Bosnia and Herzegovina are working. We are honored to host you in our program, which we expect to make a great contribution to the world of Turkology in our center, which inspires the studies carried out both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in other countries.”
The workshop, which will cover topics such as phonetics, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, rhetoric, lexicology, translation, teaching, Turkish literature, Turkish folklore, Turkish culture, language policies of the Balkan countries, and the current status and needs of teaching Turkish, will end tomorrow.
