Turkish Language Reform and American Language Planning: A Comperative Research

The linguistic forms, which are distilled from the pronunciation, sentence formation, and expression of well-educated people, play an integrative role in society. Language planning, as a response to socio-political needs, is an effective and important element of the processes of state building and nationalization. Just as in the Turkish Language Revolution, language planning emerges in the process of a nation-state formation, aiming at linguistic homogenization of a particular country. Language policy practices can be one-off or short-term solutions to problems, or they can adopt long-term goals. In this respect, the aim of this study is to compare the phenomenon of language planning in the US with the Turkish Language Revolution. The language planning in the US, directed at European immigrants, differs from its applications towards people from colonies, for Native Americans, and for African-Americans. Thus, this study shows that the interventions made by both countries have similarities as well as differences, in some aspects, but they are quite distinct from each other. For instance, while policies towards European immigrants in the US are more commonly applied as structural assimilation regarding “integration,” the language policy for African-Americans has been implemented as behavioral assimilation regarding “domestication.” The Turkish Language Revolution is focused directly on integration