1.
Turkish language
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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.
Sipahi
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Sipahi were two types of Ottoman cavalry corps, including the fief-holding provincial timarli sipahi, which constituted most of the army, and the regular kapikulu sipahi, palace troops. Other types of cavalry which were not regarded sipahi were the irregular akıncı, the sipahi formed their own distinctive social classes, and were notably in rivalry with the Janissaries, the elite corps of the Sultan. It was also the given to several cavalry units serving in the French. The word is derived from Persian sepāhī, meaning soldier, the term is also transliterated as spahi and spahee, rendered in other languages as, spahiu, spahis, spahija or spahiya. The word sepoy is derived from the same Persian word sepāhī, the term refers to all freeborn Ottoman Turkish mounted troops other than akıncı and tribal horsemen in the Ottoman army. The word was used almost synonymously with cavalry, the provincial governors, or beys, were rotated every few years, preventing land inheritance. The provinces, or sanjaks, were not all equal since Anatolia, the entwinement of land, military, politics, economics and religion was a way of life. The timar system, where the sultan owned all land but individual plots of land, the sipahi did not inherit anything, preventing power centres from growing and threatening the supreme power structure. The locals on the timar used the land and all it produced, the Timarli Sipahi or timariot was the holder of a fief of land granted directly by the Ottoman sultan or with his official permission by beylerbeys. He was entitled to all of the income from that land, the peasants on the land were subsequently attached thereto. Timarli Sipahis status resembled that of the knights of medieval Europe, unlike medieval knights, they were not legally owners of their fiefs. The right to govern and collect taxes in a fief was merely given to a Timarli Sipahi by the Ottoman State. And in return, tımarli sipahis were responsible for security of the people in their timar, enlisting and training cebelu soldiers for the army. A timar was the smallest unit of land held by a Sipahi, providing a revenue of no more than 20,000 akçe. A ziamet was a unit of land, yielding up to 100,000 akçe. A has was the largest unit of land, giving revenues of more than 100,000 akçe, and was only held by the highest-ranking members of the military. A tîmâr Sipahi was obliged to provide the army with up to five armed retainers, a ziamet Sipahi with up to twenty, the sipahi were traditionally recruited among Turkic landowners, and thus, the non-Turkic provinces such as Arabia and Maghreb did not have sipahi. Recruitment of non-Turkic sipahi was banned with a 1635 ferman, in contrast to the Janissaries, Timarli Sipahis from that time onwards were Turks
3.
Military of the Ottoman Empire
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The history of military of the Ottoman Empire can be divided in five main periods. The earliest form of the Ottoman military was a cavalry force. This was centralized by Osman I from Turkoman tribesmen inhabiting western Anatolia in the late 13th century and these horsemen became an irregular force of raiders used as shock troops, armed with simple weapons like bows and spears. They were given fiefs called timars in the lands, and were later called timariots. In addition they acquired wealth during campaigns, Orhan I organized a standing army paid by salary rather than booty or fiefs. The infantry were called yayas and the cavalry was known as müsellems, the force was made up by foreign mercenaries for the most part, and only a few Turks were content to accept salaries in place of timars. Foreign mercenaries were not required to convert to Islam as long as they obeyed their Ottoman commanders, the Ottomans began using guns sometime at the 15th century. Ottoman Classical Army was the structure established by Mehmed II, during his reorganization of the state. This is the reorganization following Orhan I which organized a standing army paid by salary rather than booty or fiefs. This army was the force during rise of the Ottoman Empire, the organization was twofold, central and peripheral. Following a century long reform efforts, this Army was forced to disbandment by Sultan Mahmud II on 15 June 1826 by what is known as Auspicious Incident, the main theme of this period is reforming the Janissaries. The Janissary corps were made up of conscripted young Christian boys who became military educated under the Ottoman Empire. During the 15th and 16th Centuries they became known as the most efficient, aside from the Janissary infantry, there was also the Sipahi Cavalry. They were, however, different from the Janissaries in that they had military and administrative duties. Within these agricultural lands, the Sipahi were in charge of collecting the taxes which would serve as their salary, at the same time they were responsible for maintaining peace and order there. They were also expected to be able to serve in the military whenever the Sultan deemed their service necessary, western cavalry military people were imported as advisors but their abilities to enact change on the Classic Army were limited. The Ottoman Empire made numerous efforts to recruit French experts for its modernization, another officer François Baron de Tott was involved in the reform efforts for the Ottoman military. He succeeded in having a new foundry built to make howitzers and he built fortifications on the Bosphorus and started a naval science course that laid the foundation stone for the later Turkish Naval Academy
4.
Fief
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The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal land tenure, these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade. In ancient Rome a benefice was a gift of land for life as a reward for services rendered, originally, in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service continued to be called a beneficium. Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the documents, the first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below. The most widely held theory is put forth by Marc Bloch that it is related to the Frankish term *fehu-ôd, in which means cattle and -ôd means goods. When land replaced currency as the store of value, the Germanic word *fehu-ôd replaced the Latin word beneficium. This Germanic origin theory was also shared by William Stubbs in the nineteenth century, a theory put forward by Archibald R. Lewis that the origin of fief is not feudum, but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Astronomuss Vita Hludovici. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious which says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant, a theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū. Samarrais theory is that early forms of fief include feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others, Samarrai, however, also advises medieval and early modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically fanciful roots in order to claim the most outlandish things to be of Arabian or Muslim origin. It lacked a precise meaning until the middle of the 12th century, in English usage, the word fee is first attested around 1250–1300, the word fief from around 1605–15. In French, the fief is found from the middle of the 13th century. In French, one also finds seigneurie, which rise to the expression seigneurial system to describe feudalism. Originally, vassalage did not imply the giving or receiving of landholdings, by the middle of the 10th century, fee had largely become hereditary. The eldest son of a deceased vassal would inherit, but first he had to do homage and fealty to the lord, historically, the fees of the 11th and the 12th century derived from two separate sources. The first was land carved out of the estates of the upper nobility, the second source was allodial land transformed into dependent tenures. The process occurred later in Germany, and was going on in the 13th century. In England, Henry II transformed them into important sources of royal income, the discontent of barons with royal claims to arbitrarily assessed reliefs and other feudal payments under Henrys son King John resulted in Magna Carta of 1215
5.
Cuirass
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A cuirass is a piece of armour, formed of a single or multiple pieces of metal or other rigid material which covers the front of the torso. In a suit of armour, the cuirass was generally connected to a back piece, cuirass could also refer to the complete torso-protecting armour. As parts of the military equipment of classic antiquity, cuirasses and corsets of bronze, iron. Secondary protection for the breast was worn in earlier times by men-at-arms in addition to mail hauberks and it was not until the 14th century that the plate armour became an established part of medieval armour. The Roman emperor Galba donned a cuirass just before he went to his death. Suetonius records in 12 Caesars that, As was offering sacrifice on the morning before he was killed and he did however put on a linen cuirass, though he openly declared that it would afford little protection against so many swords. The cuirass was almost universally worn throughout its lifespan as a form of armour, the cuirass was always made long enough to rest on the hips. If it had been suspended by the shoulders, its weight would have exhausted its wearer. In the second half of the 15th century, the cuirass was occasionally superseded by the brigandine jacket, in essence, the brigandine jacket was constructed of metal plates sewn into a fabric jacket. About 1550, the breast-piece of the cuirass was characterized by a central ridge, called the tapul. Somewhat later, the tapul was moved lower on the breast, eventually, the profile of the plate began to resemble a pea pod and, as such, was referred to as the peascod cuirass. Corslets provided with both breast and back pieces were worn by foot-soldiers in the 17th century, while their comrades were equipped in heavier and stronger cuirasses. These defenses continued in use longer than any single piece of armour. Both the French and German heavy cavalry wore cuirasses in parade leading up to World War I, in the early part of that conflict, they painted their cuirasses black and wore canvas protection covers over the neo-Roman style helmets. Some years after Waterloo, certain historical cuirasses were taken from their repose in the Tower of London and adapted for service by the Life Guards, for parade purposes, the Prussian Gardes du Corps and other corps wore cuirasses of richly decorated leather. During the Heian period, Japanese armourers started to use leather as a material, by the end of the Heian period, the Japanese cuirass had arrived at the shape recognized as part of iconic samurai armor. Scales of iron and leather, bound together by silk lace, were used to construct samurai armours, the introduction of firearms to Japan in 1543 resulted in the development of a cuirass constructed of solid iron plates. The use of the samurai cuirass lasted until the 1860s when an army using conventional uniforms was established
6.
Beylerbeyi
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Beylerbeyi is a neighborhood in the Üsküdar municipality of Istanbul, Turkey. It is located on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, to the north of the Bosphorus Bridge, directly across the Bosporus is the Ortaköy neighborhood of Istanbuls Beşiktaş municipality. The main landmark of the neighborhood is the Ottoman Beylerbeyi Palace, near the palace are various pavilions or kiosks, including the two small seaside pavilions, imperial stables, a sunken pavilion, and a yellow pavilion. Another highly visible site within the neighborhood is the plaza on the Otoyol 1 highway for the Bosphorus Bridge. Some of the wealthiest people in Turkey own homes in the Beylerbeyi neighborhood, schools in the neighborhood include the Naval Petty Officers Preparatory School, Beylerbeyi Hacı Sabancı High School, Beylerbeyi Elementary School, and Lütfi Ercin Elementary School. Cultural centers in the include the Akbank Beylerbeyi Art Gallery. Mosques in the include the Bostancıbaşı Abdullah Agha Mosque, Hamid-i Evvel Mosque. Cemeteries in the include the Beylerbeyi Küplüce Cemetery. Tekkes in the include the Badawi Tekke of Beylerbeyi. URL, https, //web. archive. org/web/20101214024507/http, //archnet. org/library/sites/one-site. jsp. site_id=7704 Retrieved 1 November 2009, URL, http, //www. greatistanbul. com/beylerbeyi. htm Retrieved 1 November 2009
