1.
Turkish language
–
Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
2.
Golden Horn
–
The Golden Horn, also known by its modern Turkish name as Haliç, is a major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. Its Greek and English names mean the same, while its Turkish name, Haliç, simply means estuary, throughout its storied past, the Golden Horn has witnessed many tumultuous historical incidents, and its dramatic vistas have been the subject of countless works of art. The Golden Horn is the estuary of the Alibeyköy and Kağıthane Rivers and it is 7.5 kilometers long, and 750 meters across at its widest. Its maximum depth, where it flows into the Bosphorus, is about 35 meters, at present, the Golden Horn is spanned by five bridges. Moving from upstream to downstream, these are as follows, The first crossing is the Haliç Bridge, completed in 1974, which connects the neighborhoods of Sütlüce and Defterdar. Originally dating back to 1912, the structure is no longer used for vehicular or pedestrian traffic. The third is the Atatürk Bridge, aka Unkapanı Bridge, completed in 1940, the fourth is the Golden Horn Metro Bridge — a pedestrianized railway crossing, completed in 2014, that extends subway line M2 of the Istanbul Metro across the Golden Horn. The fifth bridge is the fifth and most current incarnation of Galata Bridge, completed in 1994, the Byzantine Empire had its naval headquarters there, and walls were built along the shoreline to protect the city of Constantinople from naval attacks. At the entrance to the Horn on the side, a large chain was pulled across from Constantinople to the old Tower of Galata to prevent unwanted ships from entering. Known among the Byzantines as the Megàlos Pyrgos, this tower was destroyed by the Latin Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In 1348, the Genoese built a new tower nearby which they called Christea Turris, there were three notable times when the chain across the Horn was either broken or circumvented. In the 10th century the Kievan Rus dragged their longships out of the Bosphorus, around Galata, and relaunched them in the Horn, in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Venetian ships were able to break the chain with a ram. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II resettled ethnic Greeks along the Horn in the Phanar, Balat continued to be inhabited by Jews, as during the Byzantine age, though many Jews decided to leave following the takeover of the city. This area was repopulated when Bayezid II invited the Jews who were expelled from Spain to resettle in Balat, in 1502, Leonardo da Vinci produced a drawing of a single-span 240-metre bridge over the Golden Horn as part of a civil engineering project for Sultan Bayezid II. Leonardos drawings and notes regarding this bridge are displayed at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia in Milan. Until the 1980s, the Horn was polluted with waste from the factories, warehouses. It has since been cleaned, and the fish, wildlife. Nowadays, the Golden Horn is settled on both sides, and there are parks along each shore, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce is also located along the shore, as are several Muslim, Jewish and Christian cemeteries
3.
Sea of Marmara
–
The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black Sea and the Dardanelles strait to the Aegean Sea. The former also separates Istanbul into its Asian and European sides, the sea has an area of 11,350 km² with the greatest depth reaching 1,370 m. The sea takes its name from the island of Marmara, which is rich in sources of marble, from the Greek μάρμαρον, marble. The seas ancient Greek name Propontis derives from pro- and pontos, deriving from the fact that the Greeks sailed through it to reach the Black Sea, Pontos. The surface salinity of the sea averages about 22 parts per thousand, which is greater than that of the Black Sea. The water is more saline at the sea bottom, averaging salinities of around 38 parts per thousand. This high-density saline water, like that of the Black Sea, water from the Susurluk, Biga and Gonen Rivers also reduces the salinity of the sea, though with less influence than on the Black Sea. With little land in Thrace draining southward, almost all of these rivers flow from Anatolia, the sea contains the archipelago of the Prince Islands and Marmara Island, Avşa and Paşalimanı. The south coast of the sea is heavily indented, and includes the Gulf of İzmit, the Gulf of Gemlik Gulf of Bandırma and the Gulf of Erdek. During a storm on December 29,1999, the Russian oil tanker Volgoneft broke in two in the Sea of Marmara, and more than 1,500 tonnes of oil were spilled into the water. The North Anatolian Fault, which has triggered many major earthquakes in recent years, such as the August and November 1999 earthquakes in Izmit and Düzce, respectively, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Sea of Marmara as follows, On the West. The Dardanelles limit of the Aegean Sea, a line joining Cape Rumili with Cape Anatoli
4.
Istanbul
–
Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
5.
UNESCO
–
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
6.
World Heritage List
–
A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
7.
History of Istanbul
–
The city today known as Istanbul has been the site of human settlement for approximately three thousand years. The settlement was founded by Thracian tribes between the 13th and 11th centuries BC, whose earliest known name is Lygos and it was colonised by the Greeks in the 7th century BC. It fell to the Roman Republic in AD196, and was known as Byzantium until 330, during late antiquity, the city rose to be the largest of the western world, with a population peaking at close to half a million people. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which ended with the Muslim conquest in 1453, Constantinople then became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved from Constantinople to Ankara, since 1930, the native name Istanbul has been the sole official name of the city in Turkish and has since replaced the traditional name Constantinople in most western languages as well. Humans have lived in the now known as Istanbul since at least the Neolithic. The first human settlement on the Anatolian side, the Fikirtepe mound, is from the Copper Age period, in nearby Kadıköy a port settlement dating back to the Phoenicians has been discovered. The first name of the city was Lygos according to Pliny the Elder in his historical accounts, Lygos and Semistra were the only settlements on the European side of Istanbul. On the Asian side there was a Phoenician colony, on the site of Lygos, the later Byzantium was located, thus Lygos is accepted as the city which gave rise to Istanbul. Byzantion, Latinized as Byzantium, was the name of the city. The name is believed to be of Thracian or Illyrian origin and it may be derived from a Thracian or Illyrian personal name, Byzas. Ancient Greek legend refers to a legendary king Bizas as the leader of the Megarean colonists, Byzantion was established on the site of an ancient port settlement named Lygos During the period of Byzantion, the Acropolis used to stand where the Topkapı Palace stands today. After siding with Pescennius Niger against the victorious Septimius Severus the city was besieged by Rome, Byzantium was rebuilt by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and quickly regained its previous prosperity, being temporarily renamed as Augusta Antonina by the emperor, in honor of his son. Byzantium was officially proclaimed the new capital of the Roman Empire in 330, following the death of Theodosius I in 395 and the permanent partition of the Roman Empire between his two sons, Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was the center of the Greek world and for most of the Byzantine period, after the end of his reign in 337, Constantine declared his three sons as joint heirs of the Roman Empire in a system of co-emperorship. Unfortunately, the sons couldn’t govern together peacefully and their war raged rivalry split the empire on the line along the Balkan Peninsula. The territory was split in 395 when Theodosius I died leaving his son Arcadius emperor of the eastern half of the empire. According to historians this flourishing Eastern Roman Empire was then classified as the Byzantine Empire to distinguish it from the Roman Empire, the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople, spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, remains
