Linguistic Landscapes and superdiversity in

Kumkapi, Istanbul
Telavi State University 2019

John Wendel
Dokkyo University
Bağcilar—commercial center T,K
Kuzguncuk—former J,A,G
Istiklal—former ‘European’ G,A,L
Galata—former ‘European’ G,A,J
Fener—former G, J
Kumkapı—former A,G,J
Harbiye—former G,A,L (Vatican Embassy)
Haseki—commercial center
Aksaray—commercial center
Sultanahmet—historical/tourism center
(Byzantine & Ottoman)
 Skopje,
Macedonia
 Skopje
(June 2017)

Menu from restaurant

at the Skopje Pazar…
--Macedonian
--Albanian
--English
--Turkish
Barcelona,
Spain
Barcelona El-Prat International Airport, March 2016
Tokyo, Japan
Shin-Okubo,
Tokyo
May 2015
Polson,
MOntana
USA
Polson, Montana – Flathead Indian Reservation (2010)
Tbilisi, Georgia
Tbilisi, Georgia March 2017
Tbilisi,
Georgia

March
2017
telavi, Georgia
Istanbul,
Turkey
Çihangir, Istanbul, Oct 2016
Blue Mosque at the exit – December 2017
May 2016
August 2016
Bağcilar—commercial center T,K
Kuzguncuk—former J,A,G
Istiklal—former ‘European’ G,A,L
Galata—former ‘European’ G,A,J
Fener—former G, J
Kumkapı—former A,G,J
Harbiye—former G,A,L (Vatican Embassy)
Haseki—commercial center
Aksaray—commercial center
Sultanahmet—historical/tourism center
(Byzantine & Ottoman)
Percentages of sign types across 10 Istanbul districts
Bağcilar—commercial center T,K
Kuzguncuk—former J,A,G
Istiklal—former ‘European’ G,A,L
Galata—former ‘European’ G,A,J
Fener—former G, J
Kumkapı—former A,G,J
Harbiye—former G,A,L (Vatican Embassy)
Haseki—commercial center
Aksaray—commercial center
Sultanahmet—historical/tourism center
(Byzantine & Ottoman)
 ‘Superdiversity’ (Vertovec 2006)
“Diversity in Britain is not what it used to be”

• “diversity within diversity”

• Connection to home countries
• Little pressure to assimilate or adapt to local cultures, values
and language
Kumkapı
 Kumkapı
• Historically Armenian and Greek neighborhood

• “Istanbul's Mogadishu” and “Somalia Street

• Large Kurdish population since 1980s.

• Mixed population today—Turkish, Kurdish, Uzbek,

Uyghur, Central Asian, African, South Asians
 (January 2017)

Figure 3. Numbers of signs according to language

in Kumkapı. (Jan 2017)
Languages on signs of Kumkapı (January 2017)
 January 2017
‘For Rent’
Turkish = 65
Russian = 4
Uzbek = 3
Arabic = 1

Figure 4: ‘For Rent’ signs—languages on signs

 A second survey – JULY 2018
Kumkapı ‘For Rent’ signs

January 2017 vs. July 2018

What are the differences across visits?

 July 2018
Uzbek = 83
Turkish = 49
Arabic = 1
Russian = 0

Figure 5: ‘For Rent’ signs—languages

 Latin (n=37)

Cyrillic (n=46)

Figure 6: Uzbek ‘For Rent’ signs—

Cyrillic/Latin script vs. Print/Handwritten
“Uzbek bolalar uchun … “There is a (kindergarten)
(detsad) bor. for Uzbek children. All
conditions good.”
Hamma sharoitlar yaxshi.”
 UZBEK restaurant
Kumkapi, ISTANBUL
Uzbek and Turkish
 Bilingual
Urdu-English sign

• Urdu = ‘We have rotis’

• English = “We have
making Pakistani bread”
 Conclusions
• Emerging Uzbek and Central Asian community
– accomodations, restaurants, babysitting services,
kindergarten, food markets
– transitory populatioms of Africans, South & Central Asians
– underground market for living spaces
• Implications for linguistic resources
– multilingual repertoire
– fragmented, highly specific bits of language
– collaborative communication
– inequality among linguistic resources
• STATUS
• PRESTIGE
• REACH AND UTILITY
 How to explain the language choice?

Spolsky’s Maxims
a social-communicative perspective
(Spolsky & Cooper 1991)

1. Write in a language you know.

2. Prefer to write in a language that your readers are
able to read.
3. Prefer to write in your own language or a language
with which you wish to be identified.
Case #1—’Native’ writer
 Who are these For Rent signs for?
Who is making these signs?
1. Targeted populations (JULY 2018)
• Signs written in Uzbek target Uzbeks
Uzbek signs indicated “Uzbeks” = 30%
• Turkish signs indicated“Uzbeks” or “yabanci” = 33%

2. A few Cyrillic signs produced by ‘native’ writers (i.e., Uzbeks)

3. Many Cyrillic signs produced by ‘non-native’ writers (i.e.,
Turks)

4. Several signs have both Turkish and Uzbek—language

mixing.
5. Several signs have non-standard spellings // grammar.
 Superdiversity
implications for linguistic resources

• multilingual repertoire
• highly specific bits of language—fragmented, incomplete,
truncated speech
• collaborative communication
• linguistic resources are all equal – power differentials
– status
– prestige
– reach and utility
 Conclusions—across surveys
• Emerging Uzbek and Central Asian community
– living quarters, restaurants, babysitting services, kindergarten
– transitory populatioms of Africans, South & Central Asians
• Sociolinguistic regime
– Turkish dominates the LL
– Uzbek is most useful
– Others languages: Turkmen, Oyghur, Amharic, Urdu, French, Russian
(maybe fleeting use…)
– English of limited use
– Kurdish (proscription, discrimination, and literacy contribute to its
absence from LL)
• Safe underground market for rentals.
– no documents required, no permanent Internet trail
– no legally-binding lease
– barter work for living space
Case #2—’Non-native’ writer
 Case #3 = language mixing
Case #4 = non-standard spelling // grammar

“KİRALIK” = Turkish
“UY” = Uzbek

“ERKAKLERGA…” but in Uzbek “…İŞ BOR”

should be “ERKAKLARGA” “İŞ” = Turkish orthography
“ISH” = Uzbek orthography
 How to explain Turkish authorship?

Spolsky’s Maxims
a social-communicative perspective
(Spolsky & Cooper 1991)

1. Write in a language you know.

2. Prefer to write in a language that your readers are
able to read.
3. Prefer to write in your own language or a language
with which you wish to be identified.
 Further evidence of emerging community

1. Baby-sitting signs – Uzbek, Cyrillic (July 2018)

2. Kindergarten school for Uzbek children– Uzbek,

Cyrillic (July 2018)

3. Urdu signs: one in Urdu, the other in Urdu+

English --“We have making Pakistani Bread” (July
2018)

4. More ethnic restaurants across visits.

• 4 ethnic restaurant in January 2017
• 10 ethnic restaurants in July 2018
 Conclusions (1)
– Turkish and sociolinguistic regimes—the dominant
language throughout, unchallenged. But districts have
distinctive sociolinguistic regimes.

– English—used for its accents of cosmopolitanism and

modern chic (much like French was/is); not used for
informational purposes except in context of commerce
and tourism. English does not function as a political
language, or for solidarity or identity.

– Kumkapı—A “superdiversity” community… evidence

that Uzbeks are settling in to the Kumkapı district.
Uzbek community is emerging.
 Conclusions (2)
– Official languages for tourism language—niche—
Municipal and national bodies have increased the
number of languages for tourism and have become
context sensitive. English, Arabic, others

– Armenian, old Greek, Hebrew—Languages of times

past. Landscape reminders that there were other
language groups firmly entrenched in these districts
and quarters.

– Kurdish—3-4 million Kurds in Istanbul, but no

visible language recorded or seen. (two exceptions)
Kumkapı sociolinguistic regime (Jan 2017)
• Total signs =327
– TURKISH frequency = 274 (84%)
– ENGLISH frequency = 53 (16%)
• Top-Down = 6% (20 signs)
– Turkish is principal top-down language = 14 signs
– English top-down only for TOURISM = 2 signs
– Armenian & Arabic = each 2 signs (4 signs)
• Bottom-up = 94% (307 signs)
– English—main focus is on commerce.
– All other languages (except Armenian) focus on commerce.
 For Rent signs (January 2017)

• 73 of 327 “For Rent” signs = 24%

– Turkish: 65 (89%)
– 4 Russian
– 3 Uzbek
– 1 Arabic
• Content analysis: 65 Turkish signs
– “Yabanci” = 20%
– “Yabanci”, “Uzbek” or “Turkmen” = 33%
– Targeting ‘foreigner’ population. Expectation that they
speak/read some Turkish.
Classification of Signs
Function and Agency
 Language and Society
• Language is a social phenomenon—it is tightly connected
with the social structure and value systems of society
(Trudgill 2000). i.e., not just for communication.
– identity, unity, solidarity
– prestige, status
• Language is power—An instrument of social control
(Bourdieu 1991)
– language creates & reinforces inequalities. There is a
correlation between political and linguistic dominance.
• Language varieties are unequal resources (Blommaert
2015)
– different levels of mobility
– allow unequal access to social, economic, educational, political
resources.
 Linguistic Landscapes
Not all languages are equal…
Not all spaces are equal…

Language is the prototypical marker of ethnic

identity.
Public space is the prototypical arena in
which issues of identity and control are
contested, negotiated, or decreed.
 “sociolinguistic regimes”

Defined by Jan Blommaert (2014) as the

“assumptions, expectations, and behaviors
that people have about the languages they
may use or must use.”
 Past LL studies
• ‘Globalized’ cities
– Jerusalem (Spolksy and Cooper 1991)
– Montreal (Landry and Bourhis 1997)
– Tokyo (Backhaus 2010)
– Bangkok (Huebner 2007)
– Antwerp (Blommaert 2015)
• Comparisons
– Paris and Dakar (Calvet 1990)
– San Sebastian vs. Friesland (Cenoz and Gorter 2006)
• Historical
– LL of 17th Century Istanbul (Csató, Bernt, et. al. 2010)
– Kiev (Pavlenko 2006)
 Agency—the social significance
Ben-Rafael (2010)

(Top-down vs. Bottom-up)

TOP-DOWN— Signs are expected to reflect a

general commitment to the dominant culture.

BOTTOM-UP—Signs are expected to be designed

more freely according to individual strategies and
show greater autonomy.
 Things to consider about signs…

• The number of languages that appear

• The order of languages
• The font size, color,
• The kind of material to make the sign
• Information function or symbolic function
• Top-down or bottom-up