BVT 625 - Ottoman Turkish I

Course Objectives

1. To teach Ottoman Turkish grammar, orthography, syntax and vocabulary,
2. To introduce basic Arabic word construction and grammar in Ottoman Turkish,
3. To teach Ottoman usages of Persian words, constructions etc.,
4. Practice reading and comprehension of Ottoman Turkish texts hand written in Rik‘a script

Course Description

This course aims to teach students basic grammar, orthography, syntax and vocabulary of Ottoman Turkish. For this purpose, the course will first cover Turkish sentence and word structure and the auxiliary letters used for Turkish vowels. Arabic and Persian elements in Ottoman Turkish will follow in this order. As for the reading material, hand-written text will be used as much as printed ones. Students will gain intermediate reading and comprehension skills at the end of this course and will be ready for moving on to archival material manuscripts and other historical evidence in the second part of the class.