A Collective Overview of the Sense-Making Studies of General Proverbs and Idioms Dictionaries in Turkey

Abstract

In the manuscripts that have been transferred since 1480; the phrase of ancestors in the Ottoman period, which is expressed under the general title of "Oghuzname", the proverb-idiom and its meanings are not given, but in the poetry of the divan either its meaning or its reflection is supported by couplet and so that the list lexicography phase was experienced. In 1819, the stage of commentary of proverbs was started with Turfetü'l- Emsâl. In the second half of the 19th century, the tradition in manuscripts was developed and continued in printed works, prose pieces were added to poetic examples, and the number of words was increased with compilations (such as the work of A. Vefik Pasha). List lexicography and using verse examples, not giving meaning are the basic features of printed works. Between 1923-1950 of the Republic period, it was seen that M. Esat İleri, M. Halit Bayrı, Ömer Asım Aksoy, M. Nihat Özön and M. Ali Ağakay took important steps for the dictionary distinction in their studies and brought meaning to the agenda. The attempt to give meaning, which started in the 1924 Kinâyât of M. Esat İleri and developed in the local proverb idiom dictionaries are moved to an advanced stage with the Türkçe Tâbirler Sözlüğü (Turkish Phrases Dictionary) of Mustafa Nihat Özön in 1943 and in 1949 Mehmet Ali Ağakay's Türkçede Mecazlar Sözlüğü (Dictionary of Metaphors in Turkish). In the years when the dictionaries of Özön and Ağakay were published, the work Halk Tâbirleri (The Public Locutions) prepared by Hüseyin Şevket Aydüz and the Türkçe Deyimler Sözlüğü (Turkish Idioms Dictionary) prepared by Hulusi Sadullah Tirişoğlu entered the Turkish Language Association (TLA) Library. In these studies, meanings of idioms are given and their use in sentences is shown. There are similar unpublished studies in the Turkish Historical Society (THS) Library. Proverbs and idiom compilations of TLA between 1953-1959; extensive, general, given meanings, proverbial idioms have been made more robust, which has contributed significantly to the preparation of dictionaries. In addition, the dictionaries of Müstecip Ülküsal and A. Battal Taymas which printed in Ankara and related to Turks living abroad were also useful. During the period when TLA reached the final stage in 1971 and 1976 thanks to Ömer Asım Aksoy for his dictionary of general proverbial idioms; H. Fethi Gözler, Ali Doğanay and Aydın Su (Yusuf Ziya Bahadınlı) also published dictionaries that accelerated the process.