President of the Turkish Language Association Prof. Dr. Gürer Gülsevin came together with students at Selçuk University. Gülsevin explained the place of Turkish among the world languages and gave important messages about Turkish culture and Turkish.

The conference on "The Place of Turkish among the World Languages" organized by Selçuk University Faculty of Literature, Department of Turkish Language and Literature and Institute of Turkic Studies was held at Sultan Alparslan Cultural Center.

"DO NOT MINIMIZE THE TURKISH LANGUAGE AND THE CONCEPT OF NATION"

Following Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sefer Solmaz, Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies and Prof. Dr. Mustafa Toker, Head of the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at the Faculty of Letters, Prof. Dr. Gürer Gülsevin, President of the Turkish Language Association, took the floor. Defining Turkish as "the language spoken by Turks", Gülsevin said: "Turk is not the name of a tribe, it is the name of a nation. Nation is not a biological unity, it is a sociological unity, a concept above anthropology. People of every ethnicity can be found within the nation. Turkish language and culture is nourished by all of Eurasia, its culture, language, religion, alphabet, cuisine and music. Do not minimize the Turkish language and the concept of nation." 

"TURKISH IS EXPERIENCING ITS BEST DAYS TODAY"

Stating that there are 6 thousand spoken languages in the world and 194 countries registered with the United Nations, Gülsevin said, "The oldest language among living languages is Chinese. Turkish lives in an area of 12 million square meters in the world. It is very important to feed from different geographies. The number of Turkish speakers in the world is 95 million. Since the oldest known day of history, we are a nation that has been wandering, feeding and nurturing its presence in the whole Eurasia in the old world. One should not ignore the civilization of words and be ethnocentric. Turkish is living its best days today. It is respected. It is among the top 5 most demanded languages. If the state, culture and economy have prestige, language also has prestige. TIKA is a very important organization. It supports Turkology activities. Yunus Emre Institute teaches Turkish to those who demand it outside Turkey. 50-year-old and 20-year-old people abroad want to learn Turkish. Students from Asia and Africa come to Turkey and learn Turkish. Turkish TV series are watched abroad. We are in second place after the USA in movie exports."