Hi Volkan! As an inhabitant of Rotterdam, which will be hosting the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), I am curious to know how you got introduced to the ESC and how your love for the contest has further developed throughout the years. 

Coming from a Turkish family, I already acquired some knowledge of the Turkish language from a very young age. However, my Turkish never gets beyond the four walls of the living room. Luckily, ever since I was a little boy, my family took me on an annual holiday trip to Turkey. I was in Turkey for plenty of weeks every year and at a certain moment in time, I thought I heard a Turkish song on the radio. The song got stuck in my head because I heard it all the time. My brother and I thought it was quite a funny song, so we made our own version of it. Then, in 2009, I discovered the ESC and I realised that the song was the Greek winning entry of 2005 (Helena Paparizou - My Number One).

Then, of course, I saw all those nations participating in the contest. More than 40 nations in recent years! I love to learn more about the world and how everything has come about, especially on a sociographic level. The ESC is therefore an amusing example of what geography is. There are dozens of nations that represent themselves in their own way, often in their own language. In most cases, when they send an entry in their own language, it has a meaning that is primarily understood by the inhabitants of that country or respective region. It is quite common to see neighbouring nations with a similar culture voting for each other (sometimes referred to as block voting). I get why. These neighbouring nations can understand the song more than others do. For instance, whenever a Turkish entry uses a typical ‘Turkish’ instrument such as a saz (a kind of guitar), then it also catches the attention of Greece, Azerbaijan and Israel, because they can affiliate to the sounds and melodies the instrument produces. 

So there are lots of different nations participating in the ESC. What could you say about the Turkish entries in relation to the other participating nations in the ESC? For instance, do you see the Turkish neighbouring nations voting for them more than other nations do?

Back in the days, somewhat before 1996, Turkey maintained a peculiar way of voting. Often they would not vote for the fan favourites and the mainstream, accessible entries. Rather, they voted for nations such as Finland, Portugal, Malta and Yugoslavia. I believe that Turkey belonged to the same pool of nations that had a weakness for representing their distinctive language. For them, it was not about voting for the classic chansons, the ballads or the bubblegum pop. 

How have Turkish voting patterns changed over time?  

In 2008 Azerbaijan participated for the first time in the ESC. Since then, almost every year the top vote from Turkey was given to Azerbaijan. Why? Azerbaijan and Turkey are so interconnected. They are both Turkic countries and therefore have strong cultural, historical and ethnic ties. This can also be observed from a linguistic point of view. Azerbaijani and Turkish speakers can communicate with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. Sometimes we (Turkish people) do have trouble communicating with an Azeri. You could compare it to Dutch in relation to the Frisian language. 

One could argue that Azerbaijani is somewhat of an outdated version of the Turkish language. This is for example reflected in the unique inverted ‘e’, also called schwa (ə). Additionally, the Azerbaijani language consists of the ‘x’, which is almost completely absent in the Turkish language. In many of the older Turkic languages such as Kazakh, Tajik and thus Azerbaijani there are still a lot of sounds in which the ‘x’ can be the perfect letter. The current regional dynamics, the strong cultural ties with Turkey and the former Soviet influence create this interesting hybridisation of Azerbaijani being a sort of Soviet/Turkish mixed language.   

Those are really nice and detailed observations on the cultural and linguistic comparisons between Azerbaijani and Turkish and how this is reflected in the ESC. So, I am also curious about the different kinds of entries Turkey has participated with at the ESC. Are they entirely in Turkish or did that change over the course of decades? 

Personally, I think Turkey is a very good example of how things should be done. From 1998 onwards every nation was allowed to sing in whatever language they prefer. Not necessarily in their own native language. Turkey continued selecting entries in Turkish for a few years, then started to select bilingual entries (English/Turkish). 

Now that you have provided us with a nice overview of the historical background of Turkey in the ESC, but also contextualizing it by adding a linguistic and geographic point of view, I am interested in hearing about your personal favourite Turkish entries!