ABSTRACT
During January 1997, the most debated issue in Turkey was a draft bill on the Turkish language, submitted by a Minister of State to the Council of Ministers. Claiming to be based on the third Article of the Turkish Constitution, which states that the language of the Turkish Republic is Turkish, the bill set out to provide the legislation to support the Article by regulating “the usage of the Turkish language within the boundaries of the Turkish Republic”. It was conceived as a measure to protect Turkish against the invasion of foreign words and the influence of foreign sentence structures which had been overwhelming it since the 1980s. Its articles covered most areas of language use, such as trade and industry, public meetings, language education, written and oral media. It also proposed language-watch committees, outlined sanctions for incorrect use of the language, and proposed a tax on all advertising to cover the costs of language-watch activities.
