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ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Few collections of folk tales and folk poetry from medieval Anatolia have been translated into English. Thanks to Professor Talat Halman, a new book has recently been published that provides examples of both. According to Halman, the material came from books, anthologies, and special publications, as well as story-telling sessions in rural areas
Turkish folklore has not been collected and studied for as long as othethe folk tales of other countries. Some studies have done nothing other than recount the stories, who told them, where they were collected and when.
The Vedas of India, or sacred texts, have been considered the origin of many folk tales, and some parts of them date back as far as 1500 B.C. Stories from Egypt come from approximately the same time, so one cannot be very sure of origins. The Greek fable-teller Aesop told some fabulous stories in the fifth century B.C., and there is reason to believe he did not make some up; rather, he may have retold stories he heard growing up. Scholars have even traced the origin of some of his fables back to Sumer and Akkad. Similar folk stories can be found in material from Australia, New Zealand and the Americas. This makes it unlikely, if not impossible, that these tales originated from a single source.
Another theory proposed in modern times was that the tales resulted of humans’ explanations of nature. They attributed life to everything in nature including stones, the earth and more. This is commonly found in cultures all over the world and suggests a common origin – even where one would think there could be no resemblance. Stories involving legal cases occurring in both early Athens and in modern times among natives of a Southeast Asian island, considered a javelin as the murderer rather than the person throwing it.
The javelin in both cases is given an animated nature, something we would never think of today in modern jurisprudence.
One could place the second theory even further back to the customs and practices of early humans worshipping animals and beliefs that they were descended from animals. Taboos or prohibitions may have occurred from the same source.
In the end, scholars decided that it was hopeless to attribute a common point of origin for folk tales as it is impossible to determine sources for any instances mentioned, and people are mostly stereotyped and can be found in a lot of places.
Read the rest on Hurriyet Daily News by clicking HERE. It will open in a new window.
Folklore and love combined – a different look at medieval Anatolia
GÜL DEMİR - NIKI GAMMISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Few collections of folk tales and folk poetry from medieval Anatolia have been translated into English. Thanks to Professor Talat Halman, a new book has recently been published that provides examples of both. According to Halman, the material came from books, anthologies, and special publications, as well as story-telling sessions in rural areas
Turkish folklore has not been collected and studied for as long as othethe folk tales of other countries. Some studies have done nothing other than recount the stories, who told them, where they were collected and when.
The Vedas of India, or sacred texts, have been considered the origin of many folk tales, and some parts of them date back as far as 1500 B.C. Stories from Egypt come from approximately the same time, so one cannot be very sure of origins. The Greek fable-teller Aesop told some fabulous stories in the fifth century B.C., and there is reason to believe he did not make some up; rather, he may have retold stories he heard growing up. Scholars have even traced the origin of some of his fables back to Sumer and Akkad. Similar folk stories can be found in material from Australia, New Zealand and the Americas. This makes it unlikely, if not impossible, that these tales originated from a single source.
Another theory proposed in modern times was that the tales resulted of humans’ explanations of nature. They attributed life to everything in nature including stones, the earth and more. This is commonly found in cultures all over the world and suggests a common origin – even where one would think there could be no resemblance. Stories involving legal cases occurring in both early Athens and in modern times among natives of a Southeast Asian island, considered a javelin as the murderer rather than the person throwing it.
The javelin in both cases is given an animated nature, something we would never think of today in modern jurisprudence.
One could place the second theory even further back to the customs and practices of early humans worshipping animals and beliefs that they were descended from animals. Taboos or prohibitions may have occurred from the same source.
In the end, scholars decided that it was hopeless to attribute a common point of origin for folk tales as it is impossible to determine sources for any instances mentioned, and people are mostly stereotyped and can be found in a lot of places.
Read the rest on Hurriyet Daily News by clicking HERE. It will open in a new window.