Abidin Karasu
Istanbul Medeniyet University (Turkey)
https://doi.org/10.53656/for2024-05-01
Abstract. Among the Turkish dialects, Bulgarian dialects hold a special place and importance. Bulgarians who ruled over Ottoman territories for many years spoke Turkish effectively. Considering the approximately six centuries of Ottoman rule in the Balkan lands, the Balkan peoples learned Turkish effectively. This situation is clearly indicated in written sources from the Balkan lands. Bulgarians, as a community living in the Balkan geography, have been under the influence of Turkish culture and language for many years. In the work titled “The Second Journey of Bacho Kiro” written by Bacho Kiro in 1874, an 18-page section is written in Turkish using the Cyrillic alphabet. This work provides significant clues about the state of Turkish at that time and Balkan Turkish dialectology. In this study, the structure of the work has been morphologically analyzed and its vocabulary has been examined in detail. The similarities and differences between modern Turkish spoken in Turkey and Balkan dialects have been highlighted in the work. The article employs the method of content analysis and includes a literature review.
Keywords: Bacho Kiro, morphology, lexical, Turkish dialectology, Bulgarian