Ottoman to Modern Turkish: Persian Izafet and Its Colloquial Variations

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

Persian izafet constructions were widely used in the literary and official language of Ottoman Turkish, which represents a historical period of Western Turkish. In spoken language, some Persian phrases adapted to the phonetic structure of Turkish by modifying the izafet particle over time. However, most of these phrases continued to follow Persian micro-syntactic rules until the Republican era. The limited changes in Persian phrases, which were often obscured by Ottoman orthography, can only be observed in the writings of either “careless” copyists or Western authors who recorded spoken language as they heard it. This study examines the status of the izafet particle in Persian phrases found in various Ottoman Turkish sources and Latin-script transcription texts. It also highlights notable examples where the izafet particle was omitted, providing insights into the adaptation of Persian grammatical structures in Turkish.