Prof. Dr. Cengiz TOSUN
Description:
Edward Sapir has asserted that something existed as substance and concept in a society is reflectedlikewise in its language. Cultural and historical heritage is only transferred by language to furthergenerations. Language is something like the encyclopaedia, or treasure, or dictionary of cultural contents.In order to understand the richness of a language, as it depends on that of culture to a great extent, it isnecessary to study it carefully. Turkey, for instance, has carried the vestiges of East-Asian culturehistorically and linguistically.The three Turkish linguists and scientists, Prof. Dr. Sayılı, Prof. Dr. Aksan and Süer Erdem, agree mostlyon some of the criteria to prove the richness of language. The criteria are respectively:1) The richness in vocabulary,2) The richness in concepts,3) having the most ancient written works4) having been spoken in large geographical area.Changes in language and culture can be considered natural. Nevertheless, the borrowed rules from otherlanguages spoil the structure of the language in which it is applied in terms of reading, writing,pronunciation, morphology, phonetics and semantics. Such a fact brings the degeneration into a language.The recent borrowed words from European countries and mostly from English and rules seen in Turkishmar Turkish and causes degeneration.