Linguistic purification of the 1924 Constitution of Turkey

Since the Turkish language revolution, our legal language has been through a significant linguistic purification. This purification has been still going on day by day. This transformation in the legal language started with the linguistic purification of the language of the constitution with the effect of intensive works throughout the language revolution of the 1930s. The linguistic purification of the first constitution of the Republican era, the "1924 Teşkilât-ı Esâsiye Kanunu" (1924 Constitution of Turkey), with the Law No. 4695 dated 10 January 1945, has also been the official milestone of the revolution of the legal language. After this amendment, many legal terms have been replaced by their newly produced Turkish equivalents. The most frequently used terms of the legal language such as "Anayasa" (Constitution), "yasama" (legislation), "yürütme" (executive), "yargı" (judiciary), "savcı" (prosecutor), "milletvekili" (deputy), "bakan" (minister), "Cumhurbaşkanı" (the President), "Yargıtay" (Court of Cassation), "Danıştay" (Council of State), "Sayıştay" (Court of Accounts) have all entered the legal language with this amendment. When the course of transformation of the Turkish legal language is analysed, it is understood that the linguistic purification of the constitutional language in 1945 was the last and sharpest turning point. However, this historically important process has not yet been clarified in all its points. In this study, the linguistic purification in 1945 of the 1924 Constitution of Turkey is discussed in all its aspects and the effects of this change on our legal language are analysed. It is aimed that this research, in which maximum attention is paid to the use of primary sources, will contribute to the clarification of the most important stage in the transformation of the Turkish legal language.