The Place of Turkish Literature: 894.35

Or should we have said 813?

Towards the end of the year, I did something crazy. I dusted and rearranged the books in my bookcase. This gave them the maintenance they hadn't had in a long time and allowed me to rearrange them, creating a new visual appeal. It definitely changed the whole atmosphere of the room. However, as I began, I asked myself a question that everyone has asked themselves several times: “How should I arrange these?” Once I had found an order that made sense to me, I approached the task with pleasure and patience. After finishing this endeavour with a sore back, another question came to mind: “How do they officially do this in libraries?” Out of curiosity, I researched the answer and, in writing this article, took on the role of a librarian — one of the professions I had dreamed of as a child.

When it comes to books, everyone has their own preferences, whether emotional or functional. In fact, these preferences determine the style of our bookshelves. Our personality affects how we arrange our books: by colour, genre, author surname, alphabetically, by height or thickness, or in the order we plan to read them. This time, for example, I did things completely differently. As well as arranging a series of books by publication date, I prioritised them by putting the ones I had read at the back and the ones I hadn't read at the front. This way, my eye is drawn to the new ones, helping me choose more quickly, and I won't get lost among the ones I've read before.

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We are familiar with this structure from our personal libraries. However, when carrying out an official task, we need to think more analytically. The important thing is to approach the books with the same logic, rather than relying on personal preference, so that we can quickly decide where the ones we are looking for might be.

Chronological order immediately came to mind when thinking about this topic. As we know, we use the day, month and year sequence. This is because it makes sense to go from the most specific to the least specific. I am glad that we do not use an unusual system, such as month, day, year. However, our system is not entirely adequate either. Ideally, it should go from general to specific, like the Japanese system of year, month, then day. The best way to understand the benefits of this structure is to think about the folders on your computer. Nested files take you from the general to the specific, from the whole to the detail, ultimately leading you to the right place.

Photo by Will van Wingerden on Unsplash

After racking my brains and making some guesses, I did some research and came across several systems. I will discuss the most widely accepted one.

In 1876, Melvil Dewey addressed this issue and proposed a classification method. It was quite simple at first, of course, but it has been continuously updated since then. The 23rd edition was published in 2011, and the digital version, WebDewey, is still being updated. Given that the amount of information currently available is constantly and rapidly increasing, I believe this is a smarter approach.

Now, let us look at how the Dewey Decimal Classification system works.

As I emphasised at the beginning of my article, it works from the general to the specific. Accordingly, ten main categories have been defined:

• 000 – General works (computer science, information, journalism)

• 100 – Philosophy and psychology

• 200 – Religion

• 300 – Social sciences (sociology, law, economics)

• 400 – Language

• 500 – Natural sciences and mathematics

• 600 – Technology (medicine, engineering, agriculture)

• 700 – Arts and recreation (painting, music, sports)

• 800 – Literature

• 900 – History and geography

The first number refers to the main class, the second to the section, and the third to the subsection. As you might expect, we will be discussing literature based on this article. I will also share with you the website that I have examined. As we delve into the specifics, there will inevitably be gaps, which I will attempt to fill by conducting research and verifying information with the help of artificial intelligence.

This means that when searching for or tagging a book as a librarian, we deal with numbers starting with 800. Now, let's get into the specifics.

The eighth option is literature, and the subsequent selections continue as follows:

• 810 – American literature (English, US-origin works)

• 820 – English literature (English, UK/British-origin works)

• 830 – German literature (German works and German literature)

• 840 – French literature (French works and French literature)

• 850 – Italian literature (Italian works and Italian literature)

• 860 – Spanish and Portuguese literature (Spanish and Portuguese works)

• 870 – Latin literature (Classical Latin works and Latin-based literature)

• 880 – Classical Greek literature (Ancient Greek works and Hellenistic literature)

• 890 – Literature in other languages

Yes, it would be better to say what I was going to say later here. While its practical and flexible structure, logical and acceptable form, constant updates and technical user-friendliness can be considered advantages, its universality has been compromised. As can be seen, there are also debatable regulations. I don't know how easy or necessary it would be to reshape the main categories that gather all the information, but the current structure is what it is.

I won't explain why I made this addition. We will now select 890 for Turkish literature.

Above, we selected examples of literature from around the world. Now, we will continue with a more detailed selection, which is clearer in the context of 890. Our options are as follows:

• 891 – East Indo-European and Celtic languages literature (Hindi, Persian, Bengali, etc.)

• 892 – Afro-Asiatic languages literature (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.)

• 893 – Non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic literature (Ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Berber languages, etc.)

• 894 – Ural-Altaic languages literature (Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, Mongolian, etc.)

• 895 – East and Southeast Asian languages literature (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.)

• 896 – African languages literature

• 897 – Literature of the indigenous languages of North and South America

• 898 – Literature belonging to the indigenous languages of South America (South American languages)

• 899 – Literature of Oceania and other languages (Australian indigenous languages, Polynesian languages, etc.)

As you know, our language belongs to the Ural-Altaic language family. This means that we can continue down the staircase from 894. Therefore, we now clearly know which region and language family's literature to focus on. However, we need to make another choice to select a specific language within this family. We indicate this by separating it from the class (800), section (890), and subsection (894), all of which we have now completed. We make it decimal by adding a full stop next to 894.

• 894.1 — Korean literature

• 894.2 — Mongolian literature

• 894.3 — Turkic languages literature (Turkic languages)

• 894.4 — Tungusic literature

• 894.5 — Uralic languages literature (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, etc.)

• 894.6 — Hyperborean languages (this is a bit tricky, I'll leave the research to you)

• 894.8 — Dravidian languages literature (South Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu)

• 894.9 — Other South Asian languages literature

• 
  

Let's continue by selecting our language group one last time to access Turkish literature.

• 894.31 — Azerbaijani Turkish literature, works from North and South Azerbaijan

• 894.32 — Turkmen literature

• 894.33 — Generally empty or general Oghuz group

• 894.34 — Literature of Central Asian Turkic languages of the Karluk group, such as Kyrgyz and Kazakh

• 894.35 — Turkish literature (including Ottoman and modern Turkish)

• 894.36 — Uzbek literature and sometimes the Kipchak group, such as Tatar and Bashkir

• 894.37 — Uyghur literature (East Turkestan)

• 894.38 — Chuvash or other Oghur group

• 894.39 — Literature of other Turkic languages (e.g. Yakut/Sakha, Tuva, etc. Siberian Turkic languages)

The literary aspect of the matter is as follows: In other words, we have now reached the stage of selecting poetry, fiction or satire from Turkish literature. Accordingly:

• 894.351 — Poetry: Divan poetry, folk poetry, modern free verse, etc.

• 894.352 — Drama/Theatre: Theatre works, plays

• 894.353 — Fiction (Novels, stories, novellas): Turkish classical and modern novels

• 894.354 — Essays and criticism: Essays, literary criticism

• 894.355 — Oratory: Speeches, addresses

• 894.356 — Letters: Epistolary literature

• 894.357 — Satire and humour: Caricatures, satirical works

• 894.358 — Miscellaneous writings: Diaries, memoirs, biographies, etc.

• 894.359 — Expanded with period additions (e.g. extra numbers for the modern period)

Let us take a work of fiction as an example: Reşat Nuri Güntekin's novel “Çalıkuşu” (The Wren). This means that the novel would be classified under number 894.353. Moving down to a sub-section, we encounter the periods in which the works were written. Accordingly, works classified under 894.3533 are generally from the modern period (after the 1900s).

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Let me share my source and add to it. Although this system is referred to as DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification), the site I reviewed also uses the abbreviation MDS (Melvil Decimal System), presumably due to copyright issues with the name.

This link is for the novel “Çalıkuşu”, which we used as an example: You can see the number 894.3533 in the information section at the top right.

I will conclude with a few pieces of information.

In addition to the above number, there is a system called “Cutter-Sanborn”, which is also used to classify books. This system arranges books alphabetically by the author's surname using a combination of letters and numbers. What makes this system more interesting is that it uses a table.

Apart from the DDC (or MDS) that we found, we need three more pieces of information.

• The first letter of the author's surname

• The equivalent of the letters following the first letter of the author's surname in the Cutter-Sanborn table (which is said to differentiate between authors with the same surname)

• The first letter of the author's work in question

Now, let's move on to Reşat Nuri Güntekin and his novel, “Çalıkuşu”. We have the letter “G” because of his surname. We can easily handle the rest, “üntekin”, using this website. If you type in “Güntekin”, you get the code G977, meaning the “üntekin” part corresponds to 977. However, I saw several different tables and explanations, so I'll just give you the one from this site, which is quite detailed. Finally, let's not forget to add the letter “ç” to indicate the novel Çalıkuşu.

In libraries, the notation “894.3533 G977ç” is used for the work “Çalıkuşu”. At least, if you come across it abroad, you can be sure of that.

However, from what I have read, Turkey uses the National Library edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system, also known as DOS 20. According to this system, the 894.3533 section is different. When I researched it, I found that the “open display” tabs on this and this links show the classification T813.315 in the adapted version of the relevant book. To avoid providing incorrect information, I should mention that this version is different than the previous one. In DOS 20, Turkish literature has shifted from the international range of 894 to 810–819, as detailed below. Turkish novels and fiction are generally classified under 813, with the abbreviation “T” added to indicate Turkish literature. In short, the National Library and public libraries use this classification system.

Additionally, some university libraries use a different system called the Library of Congress Classification (LCC). According to this system, the Turkish literature category begins with the letters “PL”.

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Without further ado, let's bring things to a close. To be honest, it was an interesting study. I now have a slight understanding of how the seemingly meaningless letters and numbers on the spines of books that I occasionally come across in libraries or second-hand bookshops are formed. Unfortunately, I don't have an example to work with, so I can't put what I've learnt into practice. Hopefully, though, my confusion has been cleared up. Perhaps you will remember this article the next time you come across a book with this kind of information.