ARAT, Reşit Rahmeti

Linguist (b. 1900, Üçüm / Kazan / Tatarstan – d. 1964, İstanbul). He completed his primary and elementary education in Russia. He published poetry and short stories in the review Yeşlik Tanı that he published with his friends. He went to Berlin from Manchuria where he was wounded in World War I and graduated from Berlin University, Faculty of Philosophy. He received his PhD while he was the assistant of the German Turkologist W. Bang. He worked as a researcher at the Berlin Sciences Academy. He became an associate professor at Berlin University, School of Eastern Languages (1931).

He was invited to Türkiye by the Ministry of Education in 1933 and appointed as a professor of Old Turkish at İstanbul University, Faculty of Literature, Department of Turkish Language and Literature. He became the director of the Turkology Institution in 1943 and became a distinguished professor in 1955. He was elected to many scientific institutions worldwide and in Türkiye. With his studies, he laid the foundation of research on Turkish dialects.

WORKS:

Zur Heilkunde der Uiguren (Medicine in the Uighurs, 2 volumes, 1930-32), Die Legonde Von Oghuz Kaghan (The Oğuz Khan Legend, 1932; with W. Bang, 1936), Turkische Turfan Texte (Turkish Turfan Texts, with W. Bang and A. Von Gabain, 1934-36), Vekayî / Babür’ün Hatıratı (Memoirs of Babür, 2 volumes, 1943-46), Kutadgu Bilig (Wisdom of Royal Glory, 3 volumes, text 1947; translation 1959; index 1973), Atabetü’l-Hakayık (Death of the Truth, 1951), Türk Şivelerinin Tasnifi (Classification of Turkish Dialects, 1953), Eski Türk Şiiri (Old Turkish Poetry, 1965), Babürnâme (Book of Babür, 3 volumes, 1970).