Ottoman Turkish itself was a particularly interesting language, comprised of Turkish base with abundant Persian and Arabic vocabulary laid on top:
It borrows extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian and its speakers used the (Perso-Arabic) Ottoman Turkish alphabet for written communications. During the peak of Ottoman power (c. 16th century CE), words of foreign origin in Turkish literature in the Ottoman empire heavily outnumbered native Turkish words, with Arabic and Persian vocabulary accounting for up to 88% of the Ottoman vocabulary in some texts.
It's almost analogous to the story of English and words of Latin or Greek origin. Just as the Arabic words in Ottoman Turkish were originally adopted via Persian (and not directly from Arabic), most of the Latin-origin words in English were adopted via French, Italian, and other European languages.
As in most other Turkic and other foreign languages of Islamic communities, the Arabic borrowings were not originally the result of a direct exposure of Ottoman Turkish to Arabic, a fact that is evidenced by the typically Persian phonological mutation of the words of Arabic origin.
Funnily enough, Ottoman Turkish was also written with an alphabet woefully unsuited to express its sounds and grammar, just like English.
The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a Turkish form of the Perso-Arabic script. Well suited to writing Arabic and Persian borrowings, it was poorly suited to native Turkish words. When it came to consonants, Arabic has several consonants that do not exist in Turkish, making several Arabic letters superfluous except for Arabic loanwords; conversely, a few letters had to be invented to write letters in Persian and Turkish that Arabic did not have (such as g or p). In the case of vowels, Turkish contains eight different short vowels and no long ones, whereas Arabic (and Persian) have three short and three long vowels; further complicating matters was that in the Arabic script, only long vowels are usually expressed.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_language
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language_influences_in...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_alphabet
It borrows extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian and its speakers used the (Perso-Arabic) Ottoman Turkish alphabet for written communications. During the peak of Ottoman power (c. 16th century CE), words of foreign origin in Turkish literature in the Ottoman empire heavily outnumbered native Turkish words, with Arabic and Persian vocabulary accounting for up to 88% of the Ottoman vocabulary in some texts.
It's almost analogous to the story of English and words of Latin or Greek origin. Just as the Arabic words in Ottoman Turkish were originally adopted via Persian (and not directly from Arabic), most of the Latin-origin words in English were adopted via French, Italian, and other European languages.
As in most other Turkic and other foreign languages of Islamic communities, the Arabic borrowings were not originally the result of a direct exposure of Ottoman Turkish to Arabic, a fact that is evidenced by the typically Persian phonological mutation of the words of Arabic origin.
Funnily enough, Ottoman Turkish was also written with an alphabet woefully unsuited to express its sounds and grammar, just like English.
The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a Turkish form of the Perso-Arabic script. Well suited to writing Arabic and Persian borrowings, it was poorly suited to native Turkish words. When it came to consonants, Arabic has several consonants that do not exist in Turkish, making several Arabic letters superfluous except for Arabic loanwords; conversely, a few letters had to be invented to write letters in Persian and Turkish that Arabic did not have (such as g or p). In the case of vowels, Turkish contains eight different short vowels and no long ones, whereas Arabic (and Persian) have three short and three long vowels; further complicating matters was that in the Arabic script, only long vowels are usually expressed.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_language
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language_influences_in...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_alphabet