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57-506: The Ottoman Turkish vilayet ( ولایت‎ ) was a loanword borrowed from Arabic wilāya ( وِلَايَة ), an abstract noun formed from the verb waliya ( وَلِيَ , "to administer"). In Arabic, it had meant "province", "region", or "administration" as general ideas, but following the Tanzimat reforms the Ottoman term formalized it in reference to specific areas in a defined hierarchy. It

114-409: A kaymakam and a council composed of a secretary ( tahrirat kâtibi ), comptroller ( mal müdürü ), deputy judge, and representatives of the public works board. Each kaza was divided into parishes or communes known as nahiyes . Each nahiye was under a müdir appointed by the vali but answerable to the regional kaymakam. He was responsible for local tax collection , court sentences, and maintaining

171-461: A timar . In the Balkans, peasants on timars typically paid a tithe or a tax in kind, of around 10–25% of their farm produce; they were also obliged to pay other charges and perform corvee for the landlord, although these obligations may have been a lighter burden than in some contemporary Western European states. This system closely resembles the medieval Serb feudal system, which in turn inherited from

228-409: A Persian or Arabic active or passive participle to a neuter verb, to do ( ایتمك etmek ) or to become ( اولمق olmaq ). For example, note the following two verbs: Below table shows some sample conjugations of these two verbs. The conjugation of the verb "etmek" isn't straightforward, because the root of the verb ends in a [t]. This sound transforms into a [d] when followed by a vowel sound. This

285-401: A central goal of the reforms was to expand the tax base and reorganize tax collection, in order to increase government revenue and cover the growing military costs. Despite the efforts at reform, however, increases in tax revenue did not match the growing expenditure, so that the government more and more had to rely on foreign loans. Also, the rural population had to suffer a high tax burden as

342-650: A document but would use the native Turkish word bal ( بال ) when buying it. The transliteration system of the İslâm Ansiklopedisi has become a de facto standard in Oriental studies for the transliteration of Ottoman Turkish texts. In transcription , the New Redhouse, Karl Steuerwald, and Ferit Devellioğlu dictionaries have become standard. Another transliteration system is the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), which provides

399-529: A negative verb, and a positive complex verb expressing ability. In Turkish, complex verbs can be constructed by adding a variety of suffixes to the base root of a verb. The two verbs are یازممق yazmamaq (not to write) and سوه‌بلمك sevebilmek (to be able to love). Another common category of verbs in Turkish (more common in Ottoman Turkish than in modern Turkish), is compound verbs. This consists of adding

456-477: A possessive pronoun if needed, and copula وار var , followed by the 3rd person singular form of the verb 'to do: ایتمك etmek attached as a suffix (or separate as a stanadalone verb); as conjugated in the above section. The verbs 'not to exist' and 'not to have' are created in the exact same manner and conjugation, except that the copula یوق yok is used. Turkish being an agglutinative language as opposed to an analytical one (generally), means that from

513-583: A senior post, expecting that the cost could be amply recouped from tithes. Sometimes, the "taxation" of churches by the Ottoman authorities could be shockingly direct: in 1603 Franciscan friars in Bosnia were imprisoned until they paid an arbitrary fee of 3000 aspers for permission to stay in their monasteries. Waqfs were, in one sense, a form of tax avoidance; a perpetual trust which was not, itself, taxed. However, some were very well-endowed, and provided various local services such as education which compensated for

570-475: A set of major new reforms to the tax system, including the abolition of tax-farming. The Tanzimat reforms introduced a new income tax; they also did away with many of the complex old taxes, although cizye remained. Taxation on corporate profits, in the modern sense, only really became possible after a cadastral survey in 1858–1860; the temettu (profit tax) was set at 3% in 1860, and later raised to 4% in 1878. The two most important sources of tax revenue were

627-411: A single root verb, with the addition of a variety of morphemes and suffixes, multiple new and different verbs meanings can be expressed in single but larger words. Below table is a sample from the verb تپمك tepmek meaning 'to kick', whose root (which is also 2nd person imperative) is تپ tep . Each of the produced new verbs below can be made into an infinitive with the addition of ـمك -mek at

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684-674: A transliteration system for any Turkic language written in Arabic script. There are few differences between the İA and the DMG systems. Taxation in the Ottoman Empire Taxation in the Ottoman Empire changed drastically over time, and was a complex patchwork of different taxes, exemptions, and local customs. As the Ottoman Empire conquered new territories, it adopted and adapted

741-430: A vowel, when it comes to taking case suffixes, a letter - ـنـ [n] comes after the possessive suffix. For singular endings, the final vowel ی is removed in all instances. For plural endings, if the letter succeeding the additional - ـنـ [n] is a vowel, the final vowel ی is kept; otherwise it is removed (note the respective examples for kitaplarını versus kitaplarından ). Examples below : Below table shows

798-475: Is not different from the grammar of modern Turkish .The focus of this section is on the Ottoman orthography; the conventions surrounding how the orthography interacted and dealt with grammatical morphemes related to conjugations, cases, pronouns, etc. Table below lists nouns with a variety of phonological features that come into play when taking case suffixes. The table includes a typical singular and plural noun, containing back and front vowels, words that end with

855-424: Is reflected in conventions of Ottoman orthography as well. In Turkish, there is a verb representing to be , but it is a defective verb. It doesn't have an infinitive or several other tenses. It is usually a suffix. Negative verb to be is created with the use of the word دگل değil , followed by the appropriate conjugation of the to be verb; or optionally used as a standalone for 3rd person. Generally,

912-464: Is the latter's abandonment of compound word formation according to Arabic and Persian grammar rules. The usage of such phrases still exists in modern Turkish but only to a very limited extent and usually in specialist contexts ; for example, the Persian genitive construction takdîr-i ilâhî (which reads literally as "the preordaining of the divine" and translates as "divine dispensation" or "destiny")

969-499: Is the predecessor of modern Turkish. However, the standard Turkish of today is essentially Türkiye Türkçesi (Turkish of Turkey) as written in the Latin alphabet and with an abundance of neologisms added, which means there are now far fewer loan words from other languages, and Ottoman Turkish was not instantly transformed into the Turkish of today. At first, it was only the script that was changed, and while some households continued to use

1026-514: Is used, as opposed to the normative modern Turkish construction, ilâhî takdîr (literally, "divine preordaining"). In 2014, Turkey's Education Council decided that Ottoman Turkish should be taught in Islamic high schools and as an elective in other schools, a decision backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , who said the language should be taught in schools so younger generations do not lose touch with their cultural heritage. Most Ottoman Turkish

1083-455: The zakat , which taxed commodities and land (and similar taxes like the ağnam resmi , a tax on sheep) and the cizye tax that was paid by Christian and Jewish subjects. The restructuring of the tax system was a central goal of the Tanzimat ("ordering") reforms, even though practical implementation remained limited. The reform policies were proclaimed in the 1839 Edict of Gülhane and

1140-479: The 1927 Turkish census : Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( Ottoman Turkish : لِسانِ عُثمانی , romanized :  Lisân-ı Osmânî , Turkish pronunciation: [liˈsaːnɯ osˈmaːniː] ; Turkish : Osmanlı Türkçesi ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian . It

1197-770: The Byzantine . As well as regional variation, there were different taxes applied to different religious and ethnic groups; Muslims paid resm-i çift whilst non-Muslims paid İspençe . These taxes might be further graduated according to people's ability to pay. In 1530, the Eyalet of Rumelia had graduated taxes even between different religious subsets of a small ethnic minority; Muslim Romani paid 22 aspers per household, nonmuslim paid 25. In some cases, local taxes were imposed on nonmuslims specifically to encourage conversion; conversely, measures might be taken at other times to prevent conversion, in order to prop up tax revenues. There

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1254-685: The Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 that lead up to the Ottoman constitution of 1876 . Faced with the economic, military, and technological superiority of the Western European powers and Russia, the Sublime Porte aimed to centralize and strengthen the administration, while granting formal legal equality and self-administration rights to the members of the Millet confessional communities. In this context,

1311-535: The kadi of Janjevo complained to the Porte that the local lord had set İspençe at 80 akçes , rather than the official rate of 32 akçes. There was also a patchwork of tax exemptions called muafiyet , which might be applied to towns, social groups, or even individuals. Eastern Orthodox churches were allowed to raise taxes among their communities; this led to a position where priests would pay very large amounts —to both church superiors and Ottoman officials—to get

1368-409: The Arabic system in private, most of the Turkish population was illiterate at the time, making the switch to the Latin alphabet much easier. Then, loan words were taken out, and new words fitting the growing amount of technology were introduced. Until the 1960s, Ottoman Turkish was at least partially intelligible with the Turkish of that day. One major difference between Ottoman Turkish and modern Turkish

1425-472: The Ottoman Empire after World War I and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey , widespread language reforms (a part in the greater framework of Atatürk's Reforms ) instituted by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk saw the replacement of many Persian and Arabic origin loanwords in the language with their Turkish equivalents. One of the main supporters of the reform was the Turkish nationalist Ziya Gökalp . It also saw

1482-494: The Ottoman government's inability to provide local services funded by taxation. Some became so powerful that whole towns developed around the social services they provided; there are towns in the Balkans which include the name "Vakuf". A well-endowed vakuf might even take on the role of helping a community pay their annual tax obligations. Taxes were often difficult to collect, especially from rebellious areas. Conversely, high taxes could often provoke rebellion. The demand for taxes

1539-474: The Persian character of its Arabic borrowings with other Turkic languages that had even less interaction with Arabic, such as Tatar , Bashkir , and Uyghur . From the early ages of the Ottoman Empire, borrowings from Arabic and Persian were so abundant that original Turkish words were hard to find. In Ottoman, one may find whole passages in Arabic and Persian incorporated into the text. It was however not only extensive loaning of words, but along with them much of

1596-747: The Venetian Warr, & that now there were but 700 left all the rest having abandoned their Houses, and Vinyards, & that those which remaine fly daily because they must pay not only for themselves, but for the whole 1700 In the Balkans, Vlachs had tax concessions under Byzantine and Serb rulers in return for military service, and this continued under Ottoman rule. There was a special vlach tax, rusum-e eflak : one sheep and one lamb from each household on St Georges day each year. Because Vlachs were taxed differently, they were listed differently in defters. There could be considerable regional variance, and local lords might try to line their own pockets; around 1718

1653-414: The defterdar. A similar structure was replicated in the lower hierarchical levels, with executive and advisory councils drawn from the local administrators and—following long-established practice—the heads of the millets , the various local religious communities. Each vilayet was divided into arrondissements , subprovinces , or counties known as sanjaks , livas , or mutasarrifliks. Each sanjak or liva

1710-600: The empire, and between different communities. In the Fertile crescent , the Ottomans inherited muqasama (sharing), a proportional tax on agricultural output, from the Mamluks ; it was distinctly different from the uniform tax rates in other newly conquered territories. As farmers reacted to locally varying taxes on different farm products, this increased variations in agricultural output between areas, or even between villages; farms subject to

1767-606: The empire. In 17th–18th century, changes in warfare (favouring professional infantry over feudal cavalry) put more emphasis on taxes rather than on military duties; hence, when timars fell vacant they were taken over by the state and converted into tax-farms and private estates. Avariz , a centralised cash tax, became the norm rather than an exception. There was a shift towards fully owned hereditary estates rather than feudal lords; ciftlik were preferred to timar, because tenants had fewer rights – hence more cash could be extracted from them. The Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane declared

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1824-417: The end. Ottoman Turkish was highly influenced by Arabic and Persian. Arabic and Persian words in the language accounted for up to 88% of its vocabulary. As in most other Turkic and foreign languages of Islamic communities, the Arabic borrowings were borrowed through Persian, not through direct exposure of Ottoman Turkish to Arabic, a fact that is evidenced by the typically Persian phonological mutation of

1881-463: The equality of different ethnic and religious groups – abolishing the Kanun-i Raya – and reformed taxes. However, not all these changes percolated to the outer areas of empire. In Bosnia, haraç was not abolished until 1855, at the same time that Christians were permitted to serve as soldiers; however, a new charge in lieu of military service appeared and was levied to haraç, so the only real change

1938-508: The ethnic & religious history of parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman double-entry accounting method, merdiban , was inherited from the Abbasid empire . The primary role of the Timar system was to collect feudal obligations, before cash taxes became dominant. The Ottoman Empire had a hierarchy of different types of estate; a Hass was larger than a Zaim estate, which in turn was larger than

1995-474: The existing tax systems already used by the previous governments. For instance, at the conquest of Belgrade , the Sultan instructed an official to gather information on the pre-conquest tax system, which would be replicated post-conquest. At the start of each area's tahrir (a tax ledger) was an outline of the traditional tax laws in that area. This led to a complex patchwork of different taxes in different parts of

2052-659: The government extended its fiscal reach into the provinces. As a consequence, the Armenians suffered from a double tax burden, as well as from forceful tax collection practices and other acts of violence. Another key aspect of the tax reforms was the abolition of the Iltizam tax farming system, which had been implemented in the Arab provinces, with the Reform Edict of 1856. The system, however, remained in place in various forms and regions until

2109-444: The government was trying to reduce the budget deficit. Among the taxes levied were property and military service exemption taxes as well as tithes. The latter were usually collected by private persons who were authorized by the government to do so. This often lead to conflicts as, according to contemporary reports, the tax collectors abused their powers and exerted violence on the population. In addition, an excise tax ( Müskirat resmi )

2166-422: The grammatical systems of Persian and Arabic. In a social and pragmatic sense, there were (at least) three variants of Ottoman Turkish: A person would use each of the varieties above for different purposes, with the fasih variant being the most heavily suffused with Arabic and Persian words and kaba the least. For example, a scribe would use the Arabic asel ( عسل ) to refer to honey when writing

2223-434: The highest taxes switched to alternative crops. Discriminatory rates tend to lead to production inefficiencies. The defter was a tax register. It recorded names and property/land ownership; it categorised households, and sometimes whole villages, by religion. The names recorded in a defter can give valuable information about ethnic background; these tax records are a valuable source for current-day historians investigating

2280-405: The language ( لسان عثمانی lisân-ı Osmânî or عثمانلیجه Osmanlıca ); Modern Turkish uses the same terms when referring to the language of that era ( Osmanlıca and Osmanlı Türkçesi ). More generically, the Turkish language was called تركچه Türkçe or تركی Türkî "Turkish". Historically, Ottoman Turkish was transformed in three eras: In 1928, following the fall of

2337-433: The letter ه ـه ([a] or [e]), both back and front vowels, word that ends in a ت ([t]) sound, and word that ends in either ق or ك ([k]). These words are to serve as references, to observe orthographic conventions: Table below shows the suffixes for creating possessed nouns. Each of these possessed nouns, in turn, take case suffixes as shown above. For third person (singular and plural) possessed nouns, that end in

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2394-405: The peace. Each nahiye was divided into wards and villages ( kariye ). Each kariye was under a muhtar ("headman") chosen by its inhabitants and confirmed by the regional kaymakam. He was assisted in his duties by a local "council of elders" ( ihtiyar meclisi ). Vilayets, sanjaks and autonomies, circa 1876: Vilayets and independent sanjaks in 1917: The early Turkish Republic had 63 vilayet in

2451-399: The positive conjugation for two sample verbs آچمق açmak (to open) and سولمك sevilmek (to be loved). The first verb is the active verb, and the other has been modified to form a passive verb. The first contains back vowels, the second front vowels; both containing non-rounded vowels (which also impacts pronounciation and modern Latin orthograhpy). Below table shows the conjugation of

2508-642: The replacement of the Perso-Arabic script with the extended Latin alphabet . The changes were meant to encourage the growth of a new variety of written Turkish that more closely reflected the spoken vernacular and to foster a new variety of spoken Turkish that reinforced Turkey's new national identity as being a post-Ottoman state . See the list of replaced loanwords in Turkish for more examples of Ottoman Turkish words and their modern Turkish counterparts. Two examples of Arabic and two of Persian loanwords are found below. Historically speaking, Ottoman Turkish

2565-463: The respective ministers in Istanbul. The defterdar in particular answered directly to the finance minister rather than the vali. A separate vilayet council was composed of four elected members, comprising two Muslims and two non-Muslims. If the vali fell ill or was absent from the capital, he was variously replaced by the governor of the chief sanjak ( merkez sancak ) near the capital, the muavin , and

2622-476: The term vilayet until it renamed them il in the late 1920s. The Ottoman Empire had already begun to modernize its administration and regularize its eyalets in the 1840s, but the Vilayet Law extended this throughout the empire, regularizing the following hierarchy of administrative units. Each vilayet or province was governed by a vali appointed by the sultan . Acting as the sultan's representative, he

2679-404: The verbs 'to exist' and 'to have' are expressed using what's called an existential copula , the word وار var . The verb 'to have' is expressed in the same way, except that the object noun will take a possessive pronoun, producing sentences that will literally mean "there exists house of mine". The verbs 'to exist' and 'to have' conjugated for other tenses, are expressed in the same way, with

2736-469: The words of Arabic origin. The conservation of archaic phonological features of the Arabic borrowings furthermore suggests that Arabic-incorporated Persian was absorbed into pre-Ottoman Turkic at an early stage, when the speakers were still located to the north-east of Persia , prior to the westward migration of the Islamic Turkic tribes. An additional argument for this is that Ottoman Turkish shares

2793-400: Was a practice of making villages communally responsible for the haraç tax; if one villager fled (or converted to Islam), the others would have to pay more. In good years, community pressure would ensure compliance; but in bad years the difficulty of paying a share of other people's taxes could lead to a vicious circle, as more taxpayers fled: There were 1700 persons that pay'd Harrach before

2850-500: Was a tax increase on those Muslims not serving in the military. An 1859 decree set a tax-in-kind of one third for peasants on Agaluk (formerly Timar ) estates, which became known locally as "tretina". This was in addition to a state tithe set at 10% of crop value. Other charges would push the total tax burden over 40% – all this in a state which could not provide the social benefits that are offered in modern countries with similarly high tax rates. In 1839, Sultan Abdülmecid I pushed

2907-401: Was administered by a sanjakbey or mutasarrif personally appointed by the sultan and a council ( idare meclisi ) composed of a secretary ( tahrirat müdürü ), comptroller ( muhasebeci ), deputy judge ( naib ), and representatives of the public works board ( nafia ) and the educational system ( maarif ). Each sanjak was divided into cantons or districts known as kazas . Each kaza was under

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2964-485: Was borrowed into Albanian vilajet , Bulgarian vilaet ( вилает ), Judaeo-Spanish vilayet , and French vilaïet and vilayet , which was used as a lingua franca among the educated Jews and Christians . It was also translated into Armenian as gawaŕ ( գաւառ ), Bulgarian as oblast ( област ), Judaeo-Spanish as provinsiya , and Greek as eparchía ( επαρχία ) and nomarchía ( νομαρχία ). The early Republic of Turkey continued to use

3021-451: Was charged on the manufacture of wine and spirits. This affected only non-Muslim groups, as Muslims were not allowed to consume and produce alcohol. Another problem that came up with the reforms was that of double taxation. For instance, Armenians in the Anatolian provinces traditionally paid protection taxes to local notables and tribesmen, most of them Kurds. This practice did not vanish as

3078-500: Was higher during times of war; these factors together could provoke a vicious circle of taxation and rebellion – in 1585, 2000 villagers near Debar revolted over an increase in cizye . While the local pashas imposed new forms of requisitioning and fines, the state did the same thing on a larger scale, with a number of 'extraordinary' taxes which rapidly became both ordinary and heavy. The Ottoman state went bankrupt in 1590; this led to economic collapse and several years of revolts across

3135-410: Was notionally the supreme head of administration in his province, subject to various caveats. Military administration was entirely separate, although the vali controlled local police. His council comprised a secretary ( mektupçu ), a comptroller ( defterdar ), a chief justice ( müfettiş-i hükkâm-ı şeriyye ), and directors of foreign affairs, public works, and agriculture and commerce, each nominated by

3192-504: Was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet ( Ottoman Turkish : الفبا , romanized :  elifbâ ), a variant of the Perso-Arabic script . The Armenian , Greek and Rashi script of Hebrew were sometimes used by Armenians, Greeks and Jews. (See Karamanli Turkish , a dialect of Ottoman written in the Greek script; Armeno-Turkish alphabet ) The actual grammar of Ottoman Turkish

3249-422: Was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet . Ottoman Turkish was largely unintelligible to the less-educated lower-class and to rural Turks, who continued to use kaba Türkçe ("raw/vulgar Turkish"; compare Vulgar Latin and Demotic Greek ), which used far fewer foreign loanwords and is the basis of the modern standard. The Tanzimât era (1839–1876) saw the application of the term "Ottoman" when referring to

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