Turkish Language Studies

Kapadokya

Göreme, Kapadokya

Why study Turkish at Princeton?

  • Because Turkish is a fun and beautiful language. Turkish has vowel harmony, which makes it very melodious, and it is an agglutinative language, whose Lego-like structure means that by adding or removing “bricks” (i.e. suffixes) you will be able to create new words or change meanings of existing words.
  • Because Turkish and closely-related Turkic languages are spoken by almost 200 million people in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
  • Because Turkish has been deemed a critical language by the US Department of State.
  • Because learning Turkish opens up the written legacy of seven hundred years of Turkish and Ottoman culture and is essential for studying the history of the Arab world and the Balkans.
  • Because Turkey is a beautiful country, and its people are welcoming and hospitable.

Hoşgeldiniz!

Turkish Courses

  • Elementary (TUR 101/102)
  • Intermediate (TUR 105/107)
  • TUR 305:  Advanced Turkish, Selected Readings in Historical and Literary Texts.
  • Nilufer Hatemi also offers reading courses upon request.  
  • Completion of two years of Turkish (TUR 101 through TUR 107) fulfills the university’s foreign language requirement.
  • Advanced undergraduates may also wish to consider NES 504:  Introduction to Ottoman Turkish.  Please contact Dr. Nilufer Hatemi for further information.

Language Placement

Students who wish to take a placement test for the Turkish language should contact Dr. Nilufer Hatemi

Summer Study

Students concentrating in Turkish may attend summer(link is external) or year-long language programs(link is external) at Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, as well as an eight-week summer program in Istanbul(link is external) sponsored by The University of Arizona. The Tömer Turkish Language Program https://www.avrasyatomer.com/en/ at various locations in Turkey is another option.

Several summer programs in Turkey also offer intensive training in Ottoman Turkish:

Additional Useful Sites:

American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) Summer Fellowships for Advanced Turkish(link is external)

CLS Turkish (link is external)

Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association(link is external)

University of Pittsburgh(link is external)

Arizona State University(link is external)

Contact

Please contact Dr. Nilufer Hatemi with any questions.  

Language Table