Internalized Orientalism or World Philology? The Case of Modern Turkish Studies

This article argues against some widespread beliefs concerning imperialist and orientalist influences on modern humanities in the non-Western world. Specifically, it contests the idea that modern Turkish philology in the reforming Ottoman Empire was shaped by the hegemonic categories of Western European historical-comparative linguistics, by comparing and contrasting Arthur Lumley Davids’s modern Turkish grammar (1832) with Ahmed Cevdet Pasha and Fuad Pasha’s Kavâ’id-i osmaniyye (1851) and the works derived from it. It appears that premodern local traditions of learning have played a more important role in the creation of modern Turkish philology than has hitherto been assumed. These findings raise wider questions concerning the role of particular modes of power and knowledge in the development of (quasi-)colonial humanities.