THE CURSE OF THE TOWER OF BABEL: LANGUAGE AWARENESS IN THE NEW LANGUAGE MOVEMENT

Abstract

In political nationalism, while language is a means of imparting national identity to citizens, romantic nationalism accepts a
collective identity whose nation is defined by language. In Turkish nationalism, where the influence of romantic nationalism
is observed, language is a prerequisite for being a nation. Ziya Gökalp states that “Language independence is the pioneer of
political independence’’
The staff of the National Literature, which attaches the highest importance to the language under the influence of romantic
nationalism, benefited from the images of heedlessness in terms of the acceptance of this idea in the cultural field and the
adoption of its principles. This is because how an idea or a standard can be put into effect is through the imagination of its
absence or its deficiency; in other words, the way to do this is through the images of heedlessness. The images of lightness
are therefore the only source of legitimacy for propaganda. The National Literary Artist also tried to provide enlightenment
about Turkish by mentioning the ignorance and insensitivity of intellectuals and society on this subject.
This study aims to determine and examine the views and savings of the New Language and National Literature movement on
the internal and external planning of Turkish.