President Erdoğan: Our strongest line of defense against cultural imperialism is to preserve our language
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of “Our Yunus” Year at the Presidential Complex.
Recalling that UNESCO had declared 1991 as Yunus Emre Year of Love, President Erdoğan said that the 700th anniversary of the death of Yunus Emre was now included by UNESCO in its list of anniversaries with which UNESCO would be associated in 2020-2021, and expressed his thanks to the representatives of Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Uzbekistan at UNESCO for their support.
“WE CANNOT PROTECT OUR NATIONAL IDENTITY UNLESS WE PRESERVE THE TURKISH LANGUAGE”
Drawing attention to the importance words, notions and expressions, which he described as the carriers of a language and century-old experiences, President Erdoğan said: “Our strongest line of defense against cultural imperialism should primarily be to preserve our language. Societies that cannot speak their mother tongues in the most proper and the best way will not be able to contribute to others. We can neither protect our national identity nor maintain strong ties with the Turkish world or achieve our global goals unless we preserve the Turkish language.”
