ottoman

• 

  Traditional Turkish Puppet Shadow Theater Karagoz Hacivat

  Written by Umut on January 31st, 2011 in Turkish Culture, World Heritage3 Comments
  
  One of the greatest memories of my childhood belongs to the times when I watched traditional Turkish puppet shadow play “Karagöz & Hacivat ”. Popularized during the Ottoman period, Karagöz and Hacivat are the lead characters whose contrasting interaction is the central theme of the play. Karagöz represents the ignorant but street smart people while Hacivat is using a literary language as a member of the educated class. Their fights are somehow funny that make audience laugh and enjoy the play. The legend of Karagöz is believed to have begun in Bursa during the construction of the Ulu mosque in...

  Read Full Entry
• 

  The Turkish-French connection

  Written by Melissa on September 6th, 2010 in Turkish Language2 Comments
  
  Although French was not technically my first language, it was the language I spoke at school from the age of five. When you learn a language as a young child, you develop an innate rather than a mechanical sense of how things work and how words fit together. Although I can’t particularly explain French grammar in any meaningful way, I know what sounds right and what doesn’t. And when I look at French words written down, I don’t have to think about how they would be pronounced – it just comes automatically, even if the spellings may look illogical to...

  Read Full Entry
• 

  The Ottoman Kitchen

  Written by Valantis on April 22nd, 2010 in Eat & Drink, History, I was in Turkey, Travel2 Comments
  
  For all those traveling to Turkey and Greece, you may find that several of the foods resemble tastes, aromas, and most importantly names.  This commonality between the two countries dates back over 500 years to the Ottoman conquest ruling most of modern day Greece, as well as the entire eastern Mediterranean.  With the empirical regime brought an establishment of the Silk Road, offering new recipes and spices from Central Asia to the Aegean. Flash forward to today, and the eastern influence still holds strong in both Greece and Turkey.  As a descendent of Greek Izmir, the food in our household...

  Read Full Entry