Abstract
The Effect of Devshirme on The Development of The Ottoman Poetry Language
The devshirme system, which was developed by the Ottoman Empire to collect, train and employ Christian children, who were its subjects, in line with a certain program, usually comes to the fore with comments directed to the elites assigned to the Ottoman upper management.Despite the diversity of sources and documents on the subject, with a few exceptions like Mimar Sinan, the role of devshirme in Ottoman cultural and artistic life is not emphasized much. In fact, it is natural not to dwell on whether a calligrapher, muralist, musician or architect who works in arts other than poetry is a devshirme. However, since poetry is an art based on language, it is remarkable that a devshirman can be present in the language he has learned and produce quality works. The number of poets presented as Abdullahoğlu in the biographies is remarkable. The role of devshirme and other poets whose origins are based on devshirme families in shaping the Ottoman poetry language within the framework of classical aesthetic understanding cannot be ignored. Because among the divan poets, there is no group that we know directly related to the Ottoman farmer or villager other than the devshirme. The contributions of Necâtî Bey, who broke new ground with his poetry style woven with proverbs and idioms, and Nazmî from Edirne, who made an extraordinary move with his Türkî-i Simple experience, to the Ottoman poetry language are very important in terms of Turkish language history. Therefore, it is necessary to seek answers together to the questions of how the language acquisition process of the devshirme works and how the devshirme poets contributed to the development of the Ottoman poetic language.
Keywords
Devshirme, Abdullahoğlu, Kuloğlu, Necâtî Bey, Türkî-i Basit, Edirneli Nazmî, Janissary.