THE EFFECTS OF LANGUAGE SIMILARITIES ON TURKISH LEARNING PROCESSES OF STUDENTS FROM THE BALKAN COUNTRIES

Interactions between Turkish and Balkan languages began with Hun raids to Europe and reached a peak level during the Ottoman Period. Even though Balkan languages and Turkish belong to different language families, similarities exist between these languages along with many common words (cognates). This is because these nations shared the same political system from the 14 th century until 1912, and have had common or similar cultures up to now, influencing each other in all aspects of life. As language is a living entity shaped by culture, it is inevitable for cultural interactions resulting from centuries of co-existence to be reflected in language. The purpose of the study is to determine the effects of the similarities between Turkish and Balkan languages on Turkish-learning processes of students from Balkan countries and on their attitude towards Turkish. The study was conducted on a group of students with Balkan nationalities learning Turkish at Istanbul University Language Center. The data was obtained by means of “The Scale of Attitude to Turkish” which was designed by the researcher. In addition, the students involved were individually interviewed so as to determine to what extent similarities between their native languages and Turkish affect their Turkish learning process. It is thought that the results of the study will provide facilitating clues not only for students coming to Turkey from Balkan countries and learning Turkish but also for instructers teaching Turkish.