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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer does not corroborate what this article's NY Times quote asserts. The people who inhabited modern-day Iraq predated the Chinese word "Turk" by a long time. The Sumerian civilisation in Mesopotamia, if it came from Central Asia/Mongolia, needs to have its origins added. This should all be referenced and indicated in the article. COYW (talk) 20:33, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Ha ha ha!!! it is like a joke!
What is this joke of a theory? Once again, turkish patriotic propagandists try to sneak in disinformation. This has no basis whatsoever, and the layers of stupidity are just too many for me to even bother with. Geo, June 2014 -- 14:57, 25 June 2014 31.45.119.62
So one source tells that the origin was one guy and the other source says that it was the other? Lets just mention both of them. Correct me if I am wrong. 1936 NYT is an important document but still journalists tend to mix things up and the Turkey of 1936 was a reasonably exotic place (I guess the NYT author read French better than Turkish). Unless there are study showing that one info is wrong lets keep them both Alex Bakharev 00:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
ISTANBUL Feb. 7-In the presence of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and members of the Cabinet the new school of history, geography and literature recently was opened at Angora. Its immediate purpose is to make the capital the cultural center of the republic and, combined with the law school, it will be the nucleus of a complete university, sister of the one at Istanbul.
The significance of the new foundation, however, is much wider and more ambitious, for its object is to expound new theories on Turkish history and language for which no less a person than Mr. Ataturk is responsible.
The President of the Turkish Republic, besides being a statesman and soldier of remarkable abilities, has considerable knowledge about history and linguistic matters. As the result of many years of labor in these directions, he has propounded certain theories which will be taught in the new school at Angora. They are somewhat difficult to explain, but their broad outlines are as follows:
Work done by various scientists during the last fifty years goes to show that the Turkish race has been grossly maligned by older historians biased by racial or religous prejudices. The Turks are far form being a predatory race of barbarians. The Turks reached, in remote ages, a high state of culture which, during migrations into China, India, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, they spread among the less enlightened peoples.
They should threfore really be considered the fathers of civilization and possessors of one of the greatest and most glorious histories in the world. As regards language, the new theory is called the "sun language."
Starting with the conclusion reached by the French scientist Hilaire de Baranton in his book "L'Origine des Langues, des Religions et des Peuples," published in Paris three years ago, that all languages originated from hieroglyphs and cuneiforms used by Sumerians, the Turkish theory claims that the Sumerians, being Turks, originating in Central Asia, all languages also consequently originated there and first used by the Turks.
the first language, in fact, came into being in this wise: Prehistoric man, i.e., Turks in the most primitive stage, was so struck by the effects of the sun on life that he made of it a deity whence sprang all good and evil. Thence came to him light, darkness, warmth and fire, with it were associated all ideas of time: height, distance, movement, size, &c., and give expression to his feelings the sun was thus the first hing to which a name was given. It was "ag" [pronounced agh], and from this syllable all words in use today are derived.
This, briefly, is the theory about the "sun language," and with the new conception of Turkish history it will be taught in the new Angora school. Specialists will also teach Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Hittite, Chinese, French, English, German, Russian and Hungarian
This sounds like nonsense, and the article implies it is nonsense by mentioning that it "fell into oblivion", but it really needs to say why it is nonsense, eg state the basic flaws of the proposition and give (very brief) details on accepted origin of language theories. RegRCN 10:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The following information seems to be a fringe statement, since it just reflects the personal opinion of Atay[who?]:
"As Atay (1965) suggests, Atatürk did not mind the Turkish Language Society leaving foreign words in the language, so long as it could demonstrate that they were in fact Turkish". [1] According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, "it is possible that the Sun Language Theory was adopted by Atatürk precisely in order to legitimize the Arabic and Persian words which the Turkish language authorities did not manage to uproot. This move compensated for the failure to provide a neologism for every foreignism/loanword."[1]
In adddition, it adds no value to the current status of the article. So, i'm removing it. E104421 (talk) 20:22, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
"TURKS TEACH NEW THEORIES Source:The New York Times Date:Feb. 9, 1936 ISTANBUL Feb. 7-
“ | In the presence of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and members of the Cabinet the new school of history, geography and literature recently was opened at Angora. Its immediate purpose is to make the capital the cultural center of the republic and, combined with the law school, it will be the nucleus of a complete university, sister of the one at Istanbul. The significance of the new foundation, however, is much wider and more ambitious, for its object is to expound new theories on Turkish history and language for which no less a person than Mr. Ataturk is responsible. The President of the Turkish Republic, besides being a statesman and soldier of remarkable abilities, has considerable knowledge about history and linguistic matters. As the result of many years of labor in these directions, he has propounded certain theories which will be taught in the new school at Angora. They are somewhat difficult to explain, but their broad outlines are as follows: Work done by various scientists during the last fifty years goes to show that the Turkish race has been grossly maligned by older historians biased by racial or religious prejudices. The Turks are far form being a predatory race of barbarians. The Turks reached, in remote ages, a high state of culture which, during migrations into China, India, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, they spread among the less enlightened peoples. They should therefore really be considered the fathers of civilization and possessors of one of the greatest and most glorious histories in the world. As regards language, the new theory is called the "sun language." Starting with the conclusion reached by the French scientist Hilaire de Baranton in his book "L'Origine des Langues, des Religions et des Peuples," published in Paris three years ago, that all languages originated from hieroglyphs and cuneiforms used by Sumerians, the Turkish theory claims that the Sumerians, being Turks, originating in Central Asia, all languages also consequently originated there and first used by the Turks. the first language, in fact, came into being in this wise: Prehistoric man, i.e., Turks in the most primitive stage, was so struck by the effects of the sun on life that he made of it a deity whence sprang all good and evil. Thence came to him light, darkness, warmth and fire, with it were associated all ideas of time: height, distance, movement, size, and give expression to his feelings the sun was thus the first thing to which a name was given. It was "ag" [pronounced agh], and from this syllable all words in use today are derived. This, briefly, is the theory about the "sun language," and with the new conception of Turkish history it will be taught in the new Angora school. Specialists will also teach Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Hittite, Chinese, French, English, German, Russian and Hungarian." | ” |
Regards.--Nepaheshgar (talk) 01:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
References
I recently commented that the quote from the NYT article of 1936 wasn't even written in proper English. User Lambian then made corrections to the quote's grammar. Given that Lambian says "unverified" in his (?)edit summary, I have to assume that the corrections are interpolations, and not from the source. But we can't just guess, no matter how plausible and easier on the eyes Lambian's guesses are. So I am reverting the edit. If I am wrong and the corrections are based on reading the actual article, my apologies, and please restore them.μηδείς (talk) 01:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Dingir (in Sumerian) = Tengri (Old Turkic) > Tanrı (in Turkish)= "God" so the theory was not so wrong! Böri (talk) 11:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Not only Dingir, but more than two hundred words have been proven to exist in both Turkic and Sumerian by Dr. Osman Nedim Tuna. These findings are defined as "impeccable" by scientific authorities. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind0308&L=language&P=2828626&E=2&B=--------------050000000408020202070501&N=Sumerian-Tuna.pdf&T=application%2Fpdf This means Sumerian and Turkish are two languages that have more similar words than any other language in the world. While Dr. Osman Nedim Tuna didn't have any goal (as far as I know) of supporting Sun Language Theory, the results of his work unintentionally supported the theory. http://www.tdkdergi.gov.tr/TDA/1989/1989_7_Tuna.pdf Ancalimonungol (talk) 12:23, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
AnonMoos: I guess it's not impossible that Turks were also living in Anatolia back then. Most probably conquered and their culture usurped.Ancalimonungol (talk) 16:27, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
The similar words found in Sumerian and Turkic are not just similar words. Osman Nedim Tuna created laws using comparative method (regular sound correspondences) He detected 32 regular sound correspondences between Sumerian and Turkic and 16 of them were tested. You can also reach the rest of them but they are not peer reviewed. For example when A Turkic word starting with K entered Sumerian, the "K" changed into "m". Only the irregular words in Sumerian were chosen for this research. So Turkic language actually is the oldest surviving language with written records on stone tablets. Turkic and Sumerian were in contact when there was no mention of an Indo European word in Anatolia. The kurgans (before being labeled as Indo-European) are enough proof of Turkic presence in Europe and Anatolia before Indo-European presence. These 16 laws are other supporting evidence.
You can find the laws here starting from page 9: https://www.scribd.com/doc/64297815/Osman-Nedim-Tuna-Sumer-ve-Turk-Dillerinin-Tarihi-%C4%B0lgisi
Here are the other regular sound correspondences that were not peer reviewed and published: http://sumeryan.blogspot.com.tr/2010/06/turkic-sumerian-cognates-from-dr-osman.html Ancalimonungol (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
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After 10 years (see #This article does not evaluate the topic effectively), this article still does not assess debunking the theory. 165.91.12.190 (talk) 10:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
This article is very biased and wrong. The Sun Language theory isn’t hostile to any other race. It is pseudoscientific and pseudo-linguistic, but it’s not racist just because some scholars describe it as such. It is anti-Turkish propaganda to call the theory racist and ultranationalist as a fact. LeonChrisfield (talk) 08:20, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
The Sun language theory is Turkish nationalist, but it wasn’t promoted to discriminate against other races. LeonChrisfield (talk) 08:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
That’s frankly ridiculous. My country, as part of the western world, literally had racial laws and policies that parties across the political spectrum supported. The 1930s was an era of fascism, and racial nationalism was rampant, including all western liberal democracies. Turkey never had this kind of racial laws, and they classify every Turkish citizen who identifies themselves as a Turk as Turkish. Classifying the Sun Language theory as racist and ultranationalist means every western country’s education back then had a much more extreme form of ultranationalisn. I found Wikipedia pages always have strong anti-Turkish biases like this when intentionally ignoring the racist policies of countries that opposed Turkey. LeonChrisfield (talk) 06:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)