Sun Language Theory
Turkish nationalist pseudoscientific theory
The Sun Language Theory (Turkish: Güneş Dil Teorisi) was a Turkish pseudolinguistic, pseudoscientific quasi-hypothesis developed in Turkey in the 1930s that proposed that all human languages are descendants of one proto-Turkic primal language. The theory's promotion of Turks as a progenitor race led to it finding favour among Turkish ultranationalists, who used it to justify their nationalist ideology.
It claims that primal language had close phonemic resemblances to Turkish and, because of this, all other languages can be traced back to Turkic roots. According to the theory, this primal language originated among Central Asian worshippers who created it as a means to salute the omnipotence of the sun and its life-giving qualities, hence the name.
Origins
Influences on the theory included:
the ideas of the French historian Hilaire de Barenton, expressed in "L'Origine des Langues, des Religions et des Peuples" ("The Origin of Languages, Religions and Peoples"), that all languages originated from hieroglyphs and cuneiform used by Sumerians. Turkish linguists claimed a Turkish origin for the Sumerians, and therefore the origin of language was Turkish.
a paper of the Austrian linguist Hermann F. Kvergić of Vienna entitled "La psychologie de quelques éléments des langues Turques" ("The Psychology of Some Elements of the Turkic Languages"). He also conducted some research on the theory with support of the Turkish Embassy in Vienna.
During ten months in late 1935 and early 1936 Turkish linguists from the Turkish Language Society developed the Sun Language Theory which was presented as the source of all languages in the Third Turkish Language Congress.
History
The theory counted on the approval of the first president of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who not only gave the theory official backing and material support but was also an important contributor to its development.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sun Language Theory” is turkish nationalist pseudoscientific theory. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Language, Theory and Turkish, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sun Language Theory” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.