Harvard summer school offers Ottoman Turkish classes on Cunda Island

Harvard and Koç University’s summer school hosts local and foreign students for Ottoman Turkish classes every year on Turkey’s Cunda Island, off the Aegean coast Since 1997, an institute on Ayvalık’s Cunda Island affiliated with Harvard University has drawn great interest from foreigners and locals who want to learn Ottoman Turkish during the summer.

The Intensive Ottoman and Turkish Summer School hosts students from countries such as the U.S., the U.K., Norway and Greece every year between July 1 and Aug. 15.

One of the founders of the school, Gönül Tekin said the classes first opened in 1997 and had been run in collaboration with Koç University since 2002. She said that although there were other schools in Turkey teaching Ottoman, their school drew more interest as it is affiliated with the prestigious Harvard University. It is also popular for its picturesque location near the Turkish town of Ayvalık, and with the Greek island of Lesvos visible on the horizon.

Tekin said people who already speak Ottoman were also choosing the school to conduct field research.
“Especially those who want to conduct research in the fields of history, history of arts and architecture.

Archive documents are available here. At first, we had around 10 students every year, but it has been around 20-22 over the last five years. The school is in great demand but we have a limited capacity and we can only accept up to 22 students at most … Most of our students come from abroad,” she said.

One of the institute’s instructors, Greek citizen Eva Gelyavalyta, said she taught the Karaman, Turkish and Greek languages at the school. “The Ottoman Empire had...