Turkey Top 10 Concepts: The People

11/09/2021

611

Cover Photo: Street From Fatih Park From Fire Brigade to Taş Mektep (Stone School) December 21, 1974

The meanings of the word bodun (folk), which is the most used concept in Turkish Inscriptions, are surprisingly important. The concept is mostly used in Bilge Kagan, Kul Tigin, Tonyukuk Inscriptions. Turks have two sources of inspiration: the sky (god) and bodun (the people). Bodun is the one who is made public by the right. According to Ziya Gökalp, the founding sociologist of our republic, the people are geniuses.

The struggle for independence of the Turks, who fell under the yoke of the Chinese since 646, was realized with the rebellion movement that started as a result of the feelings and thoughts aroused in Ilteriş Kagan and Tonyukuk by the endless complaints of the people. This is how the people, who could not honor and accept the cruel captivity by the Chinese, expressed their feelings in this way. In the state administration, the practices, successes and failures of the kagan were followed and expressed by the public.

The opinion formed as a result of these, the idea about the practices of the kagan, can go up to the appreciation or dismissal of the kagan. The most important creation of the people has been the vocabulary, namely our language. It is the people who are the creators of Turkish. Because the people are talkative, they are in communication, and within the framework of oral culture, legends, epics, poems and folk songs have been expressed.

The people stay alone in the steppe, they talk to the tree they come across. There are two important sources in the source of public opinion. The sky he looks at when he raises his head and the place where he steps. At midnight, he looks at the sky and dreams, develops thoughts, and during the day he is constantly in motion and dynamic in the steppe.

As a result of the intense and dynamic contact of the people with the earth and the heavens, people have created a huge dictionary and oral culture. The words of ancestors in Turkish express very deep meanings. Therefore, when we read the inscription of Bilge Tonyukuk, which is our first written work, we are in for a great surprise, because the words and expressions expressed reveal a very rich language.

When the dictionary and oral culture that the people built by speaking became written for the first time, this accumulation that has been created for millennia will of course surprise us. The most distinctive feature of Turkish culture is the Turkish language. This is thanks to the people. The people keep themselves alive in the language forever. Nomadism is our most valuable resource. Nomads also left place names to the places they went to.

Today, the language that gives the most place names to countries other than their homeland in the world is Turkish. There are Turkish place names in 100 countries. When you map the Turkish language and the geographies where Turkish is spoken, we get a map of millions of square kilometers.

• People; is our source of inspiration.
• The folk song dimension of our thought life is the genius of the people.
• The concepts of People and Rights are intertwined. It is the voice of right; People. It is conscience. It is indestructible.
• The West has nothing to do with demos (people).
• The field of interest of anthropology; nation, people.
• The area of interest of ideology; elites, intellectuals.

Copyright of Photograph by Levent Ağaoğlu, 1975
Copyright by Levent Ağaoğlu

@agaoglulevent