Turkey?

lamer

lamer

New member
I just recently noticed some Turkish stuff in the books/movie. For one, Aslan is "Lion" in Turkish. And of course Edmund eats Turkish Delight. Not sure if that matters. But is there a reason as to why he chose Turkish as the language for naming Aslan?

I may be completely wrong with putting these things together but thought I'd ask.
 
Not neccesarily wrong at all...

Maybe there isn't a logical reason for Aslan's Turkish name except he thought it was exotic (not meaning Bahamas type exotic [or tropical]) and "felt" right.
 
If I am not mistaken, Lewis was interested in language itself and in various languages. Probably he knew his character was to be a lion, and since he knew a lot about languages, he liked the sound of Aslan. What do you think?
 
Turkey, as the closest contact between Europe and the Middle East, was the conduit for a lot of European fascination with Middle Eastern lore and culture.

Look at Mozart's "Abduction from the Seragio" or his "Turkish Rondo" from the mid 1700s.

And to compound it all, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey was the heart) was an ancient empire that fought it--and lost--World War I. The Turks under Kemal Attaturk overthrew the Ottoman Empire and sought to westernize the country, again a tribute to the fact Turkey was a sort of "Middle East 101" where people could come and be as European as they wanted to be, or as Middle Eastern as they dared.

Turkey was also the location of Troy and the site of the Trojan Wars. That also made it a subject of much western press.
 
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