Meninski’nin Türk Dili ve Kültürü Üzerine Görüşleri: Bir Değerlendirme

Franciscus à Mesgnien Meninski (1628-1698), the Polish orientalist and linguist of the French origin, is one of the leading pioneers of the oriental studies that began to flourish in the West in the sixteenth century and acquired much more momentum in the seventeenth century. His writings as well as the writings of other seventeenthcentury orientalists on the Ottoman Empire and, hence on Turkey, clearly demonstrate to what extent Edward Said was mistaken in his best known book Orientalism (1978) as regards his perception of the Orient, which, for him, comprises only the Arab geography of the Middle East, and also his view that orientalism in Europe began in the eighteenth century. Evidently, Meninski’s Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium Turcicae, Arabicae [et] Persicae […]: Lexicon Turcico-Arabico-Persicum[…]& Grammatica Turcica, which was published in Vienna in 1680, and his Complementum Thesauri Linguarum Orientalium seu Onomasticum Latino-Turcico-Arabico- Persicum, which he published in 1687 also in Vienna as an appendix to his former work, is to be considered among the most significant sources of seventeenth-century European orientalism concerning Turkey. Moreover, Meninski’s work is also to be regarded as a serious and major contribution to the attempts at the time to study and learn about all aspects of the Ottoman Empire, since a full understanding of the Ottoman Empire was among the fundamental and strategical aims of the European oriental studies. In other words, the European attempts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to learn about the whole system and power of the Ottoman Empire by focusing on its various aspects such as its social life, culture, language, history, geography, demographic and ethnic structure, politics, economy, administration, institutions, army, navy, transportation, architecture, historical sites, and archaeological remnants, ought to be seen in relation to a basic strategical purpose rather than as a purely humanistic and academic approach of the period’s orientalists. Indeed, in his dedicatory statement, addressed to the Habsburg emperor Leopold I, Meninski did include remarks that refer to this purpose. In this regard, besides being a humanistic and academic study on the Turkish language, Meninski’s Turkish lexicon and grammar become a serious and comprehensive study that both contains his views on Turkish identity and culture and reflects the Turkish antagonism common throughout Europe at the time. So this article is mainly concerned with Meninski’s views on the Turkish language and culture, which is approached within the context of European oriental studies concerning the Ottoman Empire.