Agop Dilaçar

Agop Martayan Dilaçar (May 22, 1895 – September 12, 1979) was a Turkish Armenian linguist who specialized in Turkic languages and the first Secretary General and head specialist of the Turkish Language Association.

Biography

Agop Dilaçar was born in İstanbul, as Agop Martayan, in 1895. He graduated from the Robert College in 1915. In addition to Armenian and Turkish, he knew English, Greek, Spanish, Latin, German, Russian and Bulgarian. He worked as a lecturer of the English language at the Robert College, and of Ottoman Turkish and ancient East languages at Sofia University in Sofia, Bulgaria.

He was invited on September 22, 1932, as a linguistics specialist to the "First Turkish Language Congress" held in Dolmabahçe Palace supervised by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, together with two other linguists of Armenian ethnicity, İstepan Gurdikyan and Kevork Simkeşyan. He continued his work and research on the Turkish language as the head specialist and Secretary General of the newly founded Turkish Language Association in Ankara. Following the issue of the "Law on Family Names" in 1934, Atatürk suggested him the surname "Dilaçar" (literally meaning "language opener"), which he gladly accepted.

He taught history and language at Ankara University between 1936 and 1951. He also was the head advisor of the "Türk Ansiklopedisi" ("Turkish Encyclopedia"), between 1942 and 1960. He held his position and continued his research in linguistics at the Turkish Language Association until his death in 1979.

Publications

* Les bases Bio-Psychologiques de la Theorie Güneş Dil (1936)
* Azeri Türkçesi (Azerbaijani Turkish, 1950)
* Batı Türkçesi (Western Turkish, 1953)
* Lehçelerin Yazılma Tarzı (Writing Style of Dialects)
* Türk Dil ve Lehçelerinin Tasnifi Meselesi (Classification Issue of the Turkish Languages and Dialects, 1954)
* Devlet Dili Olarak Türkçe (Turkish as a State Language, 1962)
* Wilhelm Thomsen ve Orhon Yazıtlarının Çözülüşü (Wilhelm Thomson and Encoding of the Orkhon Inscriptions, 1963)
* Türk Diline Genel Bir Bakış (A General Look at the Turkish Language, 1964)
* Türkiye'de Dil Özleşmesi (Language Purification in Turkey, 1965)
* Dil, Diller ve Dilcilik (Language, Languages and Linguistics, 1968)
* Kutadgu Bilig İncelemesi (Research of the Kutadgu Bilig, 1972)
* Anadili İlkeleri ve Türkiye Dışındaki Uygulamalar (Native Language Principles and Applications Outside Turkey, 1978)

ee also

* Turkish language
* Turkish Language Association
* Atatürk's Reforms
* Sun Language Theory

External links

* [http://www.dildernegi.org.tr/TR/BelgeGoster.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF25D0DC3895E26DA4 Dilaçar's biography] tr icon