Bachelor of Turkish Language and Literature (Turkish) is a deeply intellectual and culturally prestigious four-year undergraduate program that immerses students in the entire historical, literary, linguistic, and critical richness of the Turkish language from its oldest written monuments in the 8th-century Orkhon inscriptions through Ottoman court literature, Tanzimat and Servet-i Fünun reforms, Republican literature, and contemporary Turkish writing while producing graduates who become master teachers, researchers, editors, translators, and cultural custodians of the nation’s literary heritage.From the first semester, students study Old Turkish (Göktürk), Uygur, Karahanlı Turkish texts, classical Ottoman poetry and prose (divan literature, Fuzuli, Baki, Nedim, Şeyh Galip), folk literature (Karacaoğlan, Âşık Veysel, Yunus Emre, Dede Korkut, Battal Gazi), Tanzimat and Servet-i Fünun novels and theater (Namık Kemal, Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil), Republican and contemporary literature (Halide Edib, Yakup Kadri, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Yaşar Kemal, Orhan Pamuk, Elif Şafak, Ahmet Altan), modern poetry (Nazım Hikmet, Necip Fazıl, Orhan Veli, Turgut Uyar, Cemal Süreya), literary theory and criticism, Turkish linguistics (historical and contemporary grammar, dialectology, sociolinguistics, lexicology), and research methods with original manuscripts and critical editions.Practical training is intensive: students prepare critical editions of unpublished Ottoman manuscripts, write scholarly articles published in journals such as Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları, Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergisi, and Hece, organize national literature symposia, and complete extensive teaching practice in the best high schools. Fourth-year graduation theses regularly win TÜBA and TÜBİTAK undergraduate research awards and form the basis of master’s studies at Boğaziçi, Bilkent, İstanbul, Ankara, and Hacettepe universities, followed by fully funded PhDs at Harvard, SOAS, Leiden, and Chicago for top graduates.Graduates are appointed through KPSS as Turkish Language and Literature teachers in the most prestigious high schools and Anatolian lycées nationwide, become editors and translators at major publishing houses (Yapı Kredi, İletişim, Can, Everest), researchers at Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu, literary critics and columnists at Cumhuriyet, BirGün, and Karar, script consultants for historical Turkish series, or academic faculty members. Salaries for teachers in private college high schools and experienced editors rank among the highest in the humanities; successful literary critics and university professors reach the top income brackets with lifelong cultural influence.The profession enjoys profound social respect as guardians of the Turkish language and soul: these are the teachers who introduce generations to the beauty of Yunus’s ilahi, the power of Namık Kemal’s theater, and the depth of Tanpınar’s prose; the scholars who keep Ottoman Turkish alive; and the critics who shape contemporary literarytaste.Inn short, the Bachelor of Turkish Language and Literature offers one of the most intellectually enriching, nationally significant, and culturally prestigious careers in Turkey, combining lifelong immersion in the nation’s greatest literary treasures with the daily privilege of transmitting the beauty and depth of Turkish to new generations and preserving the language’s richness for centuries to come.
