MEHMET AKIF ERSOY AND TURKISH

In our history of literature, mehmet akif ersoy has professionally produced poems, prose, and he has also had important ideas. at the same time he is an expert on poems, prose and using turkish correctly. he has produced excellent and original examples of the most natural and the plainest turkish as seen in his works. his turkish and the style of using turkish according to his own point of view is worthy of study. he is a very good poet in terms of knowing turkish, which is spoken by all turkish folks in very different communities. he has not only used literary language which is spoken in istanbul where he was born and grew up, but because he has been to rumelia and anatolia for his job, he has transferred words and idioms used by people in rumelia and anatolia to his poems. therefore it is possible to see words and sayings, even slang, used by folk beside the most elegant words and forms of expressions of literary language. thus, poems of akif can also be evaluated as rich language material. this study will evaluate his use of turkish in safahat. in the introduction we briefly discuss how he started studying literature, the state of language used in his era and discussions related to language. we then describe his behaviour against these discussions. the chapter mehmet akif’in dil anlayışı frames his ideas in discussions about turkish in his own era. the chapter safahat’ta türkçenin kullanımı uses examples to demonstrate mehmet akif’s success in reflecting the richness of turkish and his proficiency in using turkish in his poems. the conclusion evaluates how he has made contributions to the development of turkish by way of the language he has used in poems.