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Portuguese and Turks Throughout History
 From a Turk's point of view

 October 2007


I wonder, how many people on earth is curious about such an unusual subject. For example, who cares about the historical relations between Norwegians and Greeks, or Brazilians and Japanese. This seems odd but these unusual subjects have great influence in history and also have echoes in our present life.

Vikings tried to invade Constantinople various times. There are lots of Byzantine myths on this issue. Even there's a "Goth Pillar" in "Topkapi Palace" in today's Istanbul.

On the other side, there are millions of ethnic Japanese people living in Brazil. They immigrated there in 18th century. Some of them returned to Japan and constituted a large Portuguese speaking ethnic minority in Japan.

Like these unusual stories, Portuguese and Turks have lots of common affairs in history.		 Portuguese Caravel
A Portuguese caravel
Henry the Navigator, the quest for Africa

 

Henry the Navigator
Henry the Navigator
In the 15th century, Turkish sailors and Ottoman Empire had absolute power and influence over Mediterranean Sea. The trade between Europe and far east had been carried through the famous "Silk Route". The Italian states (especially Venice) had the monopoly on this trade by paying regular and very high taxes to the Ottoman Empire.

Because of the taxes and the monopoly, the goods from far east had enormous prices. Black pepper, silk and other goods are the commodities only available for only the very rich ones.

But the needs of the growing middle-class contradicted this status quo. The European explorers were seeking short-cuts to India.

One of them was the famous Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator.

He initiated consequent expeditions to Africa that finally lead to the exploration of an alternative route to India.
`Bilad Ghana' – the Land of Wealth

For long years, since 12nd century, the discoverers swept out the western coast of Africa. It was quite obvious that the coast went on with barren desert. Some discoverers claimed that the rest of the coast was just like this, maybe going this way to the "Hell". But some others thought that, after this barren coast, there lied a fertile and prosperous land.

This land was named "Bilad Ghana" by the Arab geographer Al Idrisi. This term had also been used by Italians and later by Portuguese. And the term evolved to "Guinea".

Today, 4 countries are called with the variations of the term Guinea (Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea), named by western colonizers as they regarded these territories as "Bilad Ghana" - "The Land of Wealth".
"Bilad Ghana" legend was one of the strong motivations of the Portuguese sailors in the Age of Discovery.
Learning Portuguese

I always admired Portuguese language because it's poetic nature. I started to learn Brazilian Portuguese. These are some links that would be useful if you wish to learn Portuguese:

Marko's Brazilian Portuguese Web Site

eLanguage School
Brazilian Players in Turkey

 

Roberto Carlos


There are quite many Brazilian players in Turkey's "Super League". Especially, in Fenerbahce, there are 6 Brazilians, and even the official web page of Fenerbahce has a Portuguese version.

site oficial de clube de Fenerbahce.

The most famous among them are : Roberto Carlos (Fenerbahce), Alex de Souza (Fenerbahce), Lincoln (Galatasaray).
Portuguese Speaking World

Because of the Portuguese explorers and conquistadors, Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken language in the world.

The influence of Portuguese comes from both the speakers and the wide geographic distribution.

Apart from 9 countries that has Portuguese as their official languages, there are lots of creoles (a mixed language with local tongues) spoken in very interesting places such as:

Goa, Daman, Diu in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Macau China and Surinam.
Battles of Indian Ocean
After "Vasco da Gama" reached Calicut, Portugal established the alternative route to India, without paying any taxes to Ottoman Empire. This was simply unacceptable for the Ottomans. This exploration turned out to be the very first step of the decline of the empire.

Sultan of the Ottomans (Sultan Beyazid II) gathered a large armada in the Red Sea harbors of Egypt and sent them to the Indian Ocean.

The Ottomans and the Portuguese navies battled a couple of times in the Indian Ocean. The first one was "Battle of Diu" in 1509.

When I was a high school student, these intercourses were taught in a section of the history lessons. It was being told that the Ottoman navy fought bravely and swept the Portuguese out of the Indian Ocean.

This information was quite wrong. Maybe they succeeded the Portuguese stay away from Red Sea and Ottoman occupied land, but we all know that Portuguese forces thrived all over Indian Ocean.

The battles of Indian Ocean at the end turned out to be a real failure for the Ottoman Empire . They could only watch the Portuguese and the other European forces enjoy this alternative route to India. The Ottoman navy was strong, but compared to new technology Portuguese caravels, they stood no chance.

In the Second Battle of Diu in 1538, the Ottoman Empire was severely defeated and it was the last confrontation of Turks and Portuguese in Indian Ocean.

Deprived of huge tax income from the "silk route", the Ottoman Empire started to tumble and lose power.
Favela and Gecekondu

A favela (Portuguese for slum) is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. The corresponding term in Turkish is "gecekondu". Like the favelas of Brazil, there are huge areas of shanty towns around large cities of Istanbul. The poverty, hardship and poor conditions are nearly same in both "favela" and "gecekondu". When I listened to the song of Bezerra da Silva, "Eu sou favela" (I am favela), I once again noticed how similar our cultures are.

 

Eu Sou favela I am favela
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