The competing worlds of written Turkish
December 12, 2013 Updated: December 12, 2013 17:55:00
The commemoration in Istanbul for a long-dead Ottoman official came to a close. Once everyone had made their way from the graveside, a curious cemetery guard approached and tried to puzzle out the single word of Ottoman Turkish inscribed on the back of the headstone. “Was his name Ali?” the guard asked and then craned his neck around to check the modern Turkish on the front of the grave; he was happy to see he’d correctly read the Ottoman swirls.
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