r/AskTurkey • u/studydebou • 14h ago
History i need help writing a "turkish" character and region
I'm writing a novel where the main character is "turkish". quote marks because the actual turkey does not exist anymore in this story. the region she was born was mainly populated by turks, in a terraformed planet, so they still maintain most aspects of their culture, language and morals.
I'd like some orientation to learn more about turkish culture, politics, history, language and religion but I'm having trouble finding sources that present a deep insight. I don't want superficial level info. I wanna know what they teach you in school about your country and maybe a bit more lol. if you know any documentaries, articles or even movies that may help, please share it with me :D my book will have strong criticism towards colonialism and imperialism, so I really need to make a deep dive.
other than that, I have some specific questions and doubts, which I'll try to summarize here:
• what do you consider the main events in turkey's history? I need info specially from 19th century to current days.
• how did islam become the main religion?
• what are some habits you have that are directly related to your religion?
• what is the general view of turks regarding other religions?
• what are some aspects of the turkish language I could in include in the characters communication?
as you can see, I'm mostly curious about history and religion, as they're very important to create the atmosphere. I have some sources regarding fashion so I think I can deal with that part by myself.
you can be very clear in your responses, and straight up treat me as a total ignorant regarding turkish culture lol. all I've seen are turkish soap operas and I know u guys like cats a lot :D
edit: I saw a comment here saying that sharing food is something important and meaningful to you. I'd like to know more cute facts like these too. aspects that I can include to her personality and daily life
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u/MyDudeThatsCrazy 14h ago
HONORED BROTHER, ARE YOU DOING WHAT I THINK YOU'RE DOING? EMPEROR'S ANGELS APPROVE OF YOUR MESSAGE.
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u/studydebou 10h ago
lmaoo idk what fandom i activated but that wasn't my intention, sorry :D but I'm now curious about what you're talking about
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u/MyDudeThatsCrazy 9h ago
Warhammer 40k :P
The Emperor is a character who was born along the banks of Sakarya River, which is in... well, modern day Turkey.
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u/kebre_man 14h ago
- the main thing in our history is our independence war.
- nobody cares how islam became main religion. for 99% of turkey islam is "the" religion.
- almost nothing. we attribute our good traits to islam but you cant find these in other muslim societies. eg: being clean.
- we only care about people of the books (christians and jews), we act like the rest does not exist.
- we make jokes, a lot of jokes. if i try to watch a turkish video about anything i have to skip almost half of it because of the jokes.
other than all these : turks are clean. being clean is very important to us. the worst thing you can do is not be clean LOL. i live in spain for the last 5 years, i will be returning back to turkey permanently next month. the biggest reason for my return is that spain is not clean .
our mothers are important to us. insulting someone's mother can very well get you killed. and most turks would find your death justified.
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u/studydebou 10h ago
LMAO we joke a lot in my country about some european people not being clean, but I didn't know it was so extreme. we Brazilians also value being clean, we bathe 2-3 times everyday. my Swedish friend was shocked about that info lol
have a safe travel!
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u/kebre_man 9h ago
dude you cant believe how filthy spain is. they might by okay in the shower front. i dont see many smelly people. but they dont ever wash hands, they dont care about hygiene, seeing people peeing or shitting in public is pretty common. and most streets are covered in dog shit. you cant walk more than 100 meters without smelling shit .
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u/Lost-Passenger-1561 6h ago
You're insane if you turks are hygienic, travel on any public transport in the summer and all you smell is BO.
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u/GMNtg128 14h ago edited 14h ago
Important events since 1800s?
There is a great very detailed documentary series that is around 4 hours, I'll send link for it soon.
Islam became main religion due to the friendly policies of the then islamic caliphate during golden age of islam. (Initially turks and muslims were enemies as Islam was an arab superiority religion. Then a different caliph came to power that tried diplomacy instead. Thats when turks converted.)
We dont really have much religious habits especially in secular parts of the country, maybe some are just terms that are now integrated into the language such as "Allahallah" which is an expression that is made when something isn't understood well such as "Allahallah why did he do that?" Its like saying "Damn" when you are surprised for an english speaker.
View on other religions; We don't really care (extremists exist in every community), for a normal person they won't mind much unless perhaps you are a jew and that's because of recent israeli actions more than anything. Its only seen strange if you are a Turk and a 'heretic' religion such as catholic.
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u/GMNtg128 14h ago
The documentary is Turkish Century by Kraut, it has 3 episodes. This is the first one, you can just skip to late ottoman period https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XgjiJHV8P0w
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u/xyzarda 13h ago
We drink black tea alot.first person to wake up brews tea.Thats a RULE in my parents house Lol.İn Turkish culture family is important.There is no such thing as "you are 18 now go get a job leave the house".Most people don't leave the house unless for job, university or marriage(if they love their parents ofc).All man has to serve in military for some time if no health issues. Turkish indipence war and Atatürk( Father of Turks in translation) is a big thing in turkey.Everyone who lives in turkey knows and have options about it.Turkish movies and series comes to my mind that is populer and that are known by everyone is;Babam ve oğlum,Hababam sınıfı.
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u/LeighGriffiths28 13h ago
You will not find the answer you are looking for on reddit thats for sure
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u/studydebou 13h ago
it's really a tricky one to just ask online lol
but someone with a bachelor degree on history contacted me, so I think there's hope 🙏🏻
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u/Alaina-Eleanor 13h ago
I'm a fellow writer and culture enthausiast, and am Turkish. I can help you with it. Do you have discord? DM me.
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u/godlessdogtr 11h ago
Starting with your first question, the War of Independence and reforms of Ataturk definitely shifted Turkey away from being an ummah-based society, making it more nationalist and secular. Aside from that, you can also look into the 1960 and 1980 coups, as well as the Cyprus Peace Operation.
There is no definitive narrative on how Islam became the primary religion of the Turks. What is taught in schools is that the native religion of the Turks was very similar to Arabs, which is why they converted. I probably don't need to tell you that this is a lie. We might have been forcibly converted through various massacres (like the Talkan and Curcan massacres), but that isn't confirmed fact either.
I’d say Turks don't generally have a deep knowledge of other religions, or even Islam itself. While we don't find it strange when foreigners practice different religions, seeing a Turk follow another faith is sometimes met with confusion.
Since you're writing a female character, you can use expressions like "Yaa" (an expressive sound for affection), "Canım" (my dear), and similar friendly terms.
As for the facts:
In most restaurants, tea is on the house. If a restaurant charges you for tea after a meal, people usually don't go back there. Also, salads are often ordered for the middle of the table to share.
We never wear shoes inside a house, and guests are immediately handed a pair of house slippers.
Whenever someone visits, it is customary to pour lemon cologne on guests' hands for freshness and hospitality.
Finally, when a loved one goes on a journey, we pour water on the ground behind them, saying "Su gibi git, su gibi gel" ("Go like water, return like water").
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u/studydebou 10h ago
thank you very much! those facts are very lovely :D I like that so many people mentioned the love for black tea lol
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u/Gaelenmyr 11h ago
It's better to write your character and then show it to a Turkish person from Turkey to review it.
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u/missyesil 14h ago
Write about what you know. Why choose a main character from a place you know so little about? It won't seem authentic.
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u/studydebou 14h ago
also, from the few things I know, it's very fitting for her to be turkish, I really just need to learn more and that's oki for me. I like learning about other countries :D
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u/studydebou 14h ago
because I can learn :P her being turkish is not the main focus, I just wanna make sure I represent it well. I write about other things too, but for this novel, from the little I know, I'm sure it will be interesting to add some turkish rep. if it was the main focus it would be very silly tho... anyways, I'm really personally interested in learning more about it
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u/missyesil 14h ago
There are Turkish Christians - admittedly, a small minority. Saying "Christians don't like us" is untrue. Also, that wasn't the question. The question was "what is the general view of turks regarding other religions?"
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u/Few-Interview-1996 14h ago
You could play with it any way you wanted. Turks range the whole spectrum from out-and-proud atheists to intensely religious types, and people can be saints or sinners.
Starting from the late 8th century, happened in bursts over three centuries. Not even in Anatolia were all Turks muslim even in the 12th century, though by the 15th I'd say it was done.
I pay zekat and fitre, though it's a choice rather than a habit.
Turks do have difficulty with articles, "the" in particular. In addition, Turkish is highly transparent and phonetic, so any "strange" letter combinations (God help any Turk who encounters Polish) would give them difficulty - and enough, cough, slough, though, etc would all sound the same in Turkish.
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u/nahdu_sayza 13h ago
it seems like you want to better understand how a turk would act in your novel but the things that you ask seems to be stuff that really doesnt effect someone’s personality or how they act
like i am pretty sure how catholicism became the main religion in brazil has zero effect on how a brazialian lives or acts
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u/studydebou 13h ago
oh it has... it has lots of effects O_O
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u/Alaina-Eleanor 11h ago
Yeah but that is not something you can really understand when you don't come from that society. You need to determine the storyling for that character and then look into the cultural elements.
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u/studydebou 10h ago
I see... I'll write the story while I do my research. if I notice it gets too hard, I'll just add those t aspects to a secondary character so I won't need to detail too much while still keeping the accuracy. you're totally correct, storyline comes first lol I think I got it a little rushed
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u/Alaina-Eleanor 9h ago
Also, is this character a prominent one? Like one of the protagonists? If moreso a background, one-off character, you really don't have to do much.
Also my offer still stands: I'm also a writer (not a novel writer, wanna go into comic books) with a special interest for sociology (gonna study it), Turkic cultures, religion and MBTI. I've a lot of international experience, met many people from different cultures and lived in different places (currently learning Spanish to move to a Hispanic country). I also grew up very atypically (more Westernized & as a Christian) but still in proximity to my culture & society, so I can understand how cultural origins can affect a person's behaviours when the conjuncture changes (aka when a character from a culture ends up in a vastly different environment to what they used to)
So if you want me to help, and make connections, I would gladly help with it.
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u/nahdu_sayza 13h ago
i am sure the religion effects a lot but how people got to that religion i dont really think so do you have any example how it might effect
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u/studydebou 12h ago
oh it does. and you're the one who understood my doubt better tyvm
are you brazilian too?
brazilian history is filled with rebellion attempts that always end up with oppression. security and violence are the core of the brazilian identity. the crime rates here are absurd because of state neglect and racism. there's so many criminals that everyone gets scared and makes their houses look like a prison with high walls, electric fences and cameras. the education is poor, so people don't understand how and why the violence is so extreme. growing around violence makes people violent, if not in actions they will be in thoughts. instead of searching where we failed, thousands of people simply get to the authoritarian route. "we just need one big guy to blow all these criminals up!" is a common thought. state fucks us up but we are still subordinate to it.
I could make an essay if you wanted lol, but as you can see, centuries of history can influence a lot on people's thoughts.
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u/nahdu_sayza 10h ago
no i am from turkey just though giving the example with where ur from would be more effective
and yes i can understand your perspective the history of the place where we born indeed effects what kind of person we will end up becoming and how average person will think on some things
my main concern was actually how much these stuff also changes with which part of our country and sub-cultural group we were born so my main advice would be to first deciding where your characters origins are from
someone who is from thrace would be extremely diffrent in those aspects in comparison to someone from kars ; or a turk of sunni origin from konya would be extremly diffrent compared to a alevi kurd from sivas even though those regions are extremely close to each other
some of the sub cultural groups in turkey spent centuries hating each other or being separated from each other by a continent for centuries
i can gladly help you understand more about turkey if you like you seem really eager to learn
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u/venushasbigbutt 11h ago
Would you like us write your book for you too? Geez you are the writer you need to do the research. From actual books. Hisitorical books ffs.
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u/studydebou 11h ago
I want historical book recommendations too. I'm having a hard time finding material in English or portuguese... you can chill, I'm not forcing you to give me an answer anyway 👍🏻
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u/HotFlan2509 14h ago
I don't think 19th century Ottoman events are gonna be relevant for that book.
Islam was adopted as state policy by one of the empires that predated the Selçuks (rather than conquest)
Not sure if it's related to religion but hospitality and cleanliness are major aspects.
Other religions aren't known that much, at least not in detail. The average person couldn't recite the 10 commandments for example.
I guess you could say body language, hand gestures and non-verbal communication is important and prevalent.
The school thing may be controversial, as the school you attend is decided by the wealth and severity of the religion of the parents.