The Most Valuable Treasure Of Us: “TURKISH LANGUAGE”

I believe that wherever Turkish businesspeople live and work around the world, their most unique assets are language and culture

At first glance, it may seem like quite a challenge to relate cultural interaction with business. Such was the world under the rules of the past, which taught us about the structure of the world of business, separated by sharp boundaries and divided into categories, which made us memorize as if it were a law of nature that different lines of work were rivers flowed in their own bed without interfering with each other due to insurmountable barriers. Culture, language and art lived in their own ivory palaces with individualistic impunity as giants such as commerce, law, and economics existed in separate worlds with aspects touching mass movements. One was looking for ways to make the world meaningful, while the other was looking for ways to make the world rich and prosperous. This was the case until it was discovered that the invisible world made up of human psychology, social inclinations, sciences, questions like “who do people want to trade with and why?”, “what kind of product do they prefer?”, in short, plays a vital key role in trade. Eventually, scientific attempts to unravel consumer behaviour led to the realisation that behind social tastes, “megatrends”, and brands driving the masses, there are cultural identities skillfully and patiently constructed. Thus, the existence of a surprising web of connections between happiness and the search for meaning, well-being and cultural diversity, fashionable trends and “cultural brands” became clear. Today’s most striking formula might be the notion that the effectiveness of a product cannot be based solely on its own power; the source making it more powerful, effective, and admirable than its competitors is the “country image”, “nation brand”, or “soft power” it carries behind it.

In 2015, a report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research referred to the surprising effect of favourable perceptions of countries on the growth of export volumes. In fact, the title of the report in question summarises the current situation with a sharp, if somewhat crude, formula: “Like Me, Buy Me”.

But is everything really that black and white? Does the modern tide of production-consumption promise a world where only those who create an effective image win? Then what is the place of humans, what is the value of being human? At the point we stand today, the key elements contributing to Türkiye in becoming an influential, attractive and persuasive power as a country, in the long run, lie in its determination, persistence and courage, but above all in its humanitarian profile. The resource capable of providing this is human resources, which is the most valuable treasure we have. Businesspeople of Turkish descent living outside Türkiye make the most valuable contribution to the trustworthy and respected qualities of our country. They do this by reflecting their cultural background, the characteristics rendering them different and their humanitarian sensitivities to the way they do business, not by being subject to colourless and ubiquitous patterns within the general rules of trade. It will not suffice to know the rules of the game, therefore, if you can implement the rules with your own style, this makes you distinctive and remarkable. This is made possible through culture. Here at Yunus Emre Institutes, we work with the aim of discovering exactly what makes us different and sharing our discovery with all people. However, we also see and know that the most effective and widespread representatives of this culture, in which we are born and raised, which we experience and shape all our thinking and behaviour patterns without awareness, are Turkish businesspeople operating around the world, and one of our most powerful tools in this regard is the Turkish language.

A field study published by our Institute a while ago demonstrated that one of the most critical factors in the increase in interest in the Turkish language and our culture worldwide is the widespread influence of Turkish TV series on societies belonging to various cultures. The results show that the TV series have increased the curiosity and interest of viewers who are not familiar with Turkish culture in Turkish language, culture, music, architecture, family traditions and lifestyle, and human relations.

For this reason, I believe that wherever Turkish businesspeople live and work around the world, their most unique assets are language and culture. Through this value, with our close family ties, our sincere and friendly human relations, our Mediterranean temperament that can easily connect with our interlocutors, our “sympathetic” morality, our centuries-old experience of living and solidarity in expatriation, we have the opportunity to convey the fact that Türkiye is a stronger and more reliable friendly country every day, beyond borders, overseas, to many societies that are not familiar with us. The experience of our businesspeople, their entrepreneurship, humanitarian attitudes, the positive relations they have developed with their interlocutors, the friends they have made, in short, the ties built on the cultural qualities we carry, support the progress of Turkish institutions operating around the world, such as Yunus Emre Institute, without worrying about the fact that in a world with many problems, only countries with many partners will gain. As each of us, with a natural and intrinsic motivation, endeavours to “please others” in this world, as Yunus says, we have no doubt that Türkiye will be successful in the distant horizons.

President of Yunus Emre Institute, Prof. Dr. Şeref ATEŞ