European loanwords in Ottoman Turkish were mostly Italian and maritime until 1800

Evidence

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the massive intrusion of new ideas and objects and words to designate them, European loanwords in Turkish were very few, and most of them were Italian and maritime. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 162

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SEED: Language-contact archaeology: what a lexicon’s loanword layer reveals about which groups actually mediated between cultures.

Related

• Pre-1800 European loanwords in Turkish were few and mostly Italian maritime terms. (similarity 0.94)
• Italian was the only European language usable across the Ottoman lands until the 1800s (similarity 0.86)
• Western and Middle Eastern interaction relied on Italian two-stage translation until the nineteenth century (similarity 0.83)