What if the Ottoman Court Language was Persian instead of Ottoman Turkish.

Ottoman Turkish borrowed heavily from Persian and Arabic, so what if the Ottoman had adopted Persian as court and administrative language. Would it have any greater effect at all?
 
Ottoman Turkish borrowed heavily from Persian and Arabic, so what if the Ottoman had adopted Persian as court and administrative language. Would it have any greater effect at all?

More influence and words of Persian in the Balkans languages. Not more big effects. However... this might even give a boost on the whole Ancient Greece vs Persia idea in Europe with the Ottomans filling the role of the Persians.
 
More influence and words of Persian in the Balkans languages. Not more big effects. However... this might even give a boost on the whole Ancient Greece vs Persia idea in Europe with the Ottomans filling the role of the Persians.
Skanderbeg is the Alexander? A bit early.

Edit:Skanderbeg fits the Spartan stereotype more.
 

althisfan

Banned
Ottoman Turkish borrowed heavily from Persian and Arabic, so what if the Ottoman had adopted Persian as court and administrative language. Would it have any greater effect at all?
This is like saying "English borrowed heavily from French and Latin, so what if the British had adopted French". It isn't going to happen because what defined the British after the Hundred Years War was "we're not French" and the French would be the enemy for 500 years. The Ottomans and the various Iranian dynasties are continuing an rivalry as old as Rome versus Persia. The Ottoman Empire just can't adopt Persia because Persia being the enemy is one of the defining identities of the Ottoman Empire.
 
This is like saying "English borrowed heavily from French and Latin, so what if the British had adopted French". It isn't going to happen because what defined the British after the Hundred Years War was "we're not French" and the French would be the enemy for 500 years. The Ottomans and the various Iranian dynasties are continuing an rivalry as old as Rome versus Persia. The Ottoman Empire just can't adopt Persia because Persia being the enemy is one of the defining identities of the Ottoman Empire.
The various Iranian dynasties were Turkic in their origins as well, I'm not sure there was any real ethnic conflict, it was mostly down to religion.
 

althisfan

Banned
The various Iranian dynasties were Turkic in their origins as well, I'm not sure there was any real ethnic conflict, it was mostly down to religion.
Only two dynasties that were Turkic are the Afsharid dynasty (1736–1796) and Qajar dynasty (1789–1925) but both quickly became "Persianized", with the Safavids being partially composed of Turkish but also Kurdish (Kurds are Iranian). All other dynasties were of Tajik (an Iranian ethnic group), Pashtun (Iranian ethnic group), or Kurdish (Iranian-cousin, certainly not Turkish), or Persian itself (not to be confused with Iranian, there's a difference, not all Iranians are Persians).
 
Only two dynasties that were Turkic are the Afsharid dynasty (1736–1796) and Qajar dynasty (1789–1925) but both quickly became "Persianized", with the Safavids being partially composed of Turkish but also Kurdish (Kurds are Iranian). All other dynasties were of Tajik (an Iranian ethnic group), Pashtun (Iranian ethnic group), or Kurdish (Iranian-cousin, certainly not Turkish), or Persian itself (not to be confused with Iranian, there's a difference, not all Iranians are Persians).
I mean counting them together don't you end up with Turkic or semi-Turkic rule from 1500 to 1925?

Ultimately though the Safavids were more Turkic than Kurdish controlled, the Kurds rebelled a couple of times and the territory where they were deported from were resettled with more loyal Turkic tribe groups.
 
To some extent you get an analogue of the Russian court using French. More borrow words will filter down, but the great mass of Turks will still use Turkish, and non-Turks will have more borrow words, and educated non-Turks or merchants will have to speak Persian as well as Turkish to deal with Ottoman overlords and bureaucracy. Given how the mass of people who lived in the Ottoman Empire were illiterate, and many used languages other than Turkish primarily, I don't see the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, let's assume for a moment modern Turkey, speaking Persian. Of course there are butterflies, but using Persian as the court/administrative language most likely won't affect the decision to go from Arabic alphabet to Latin.
 
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