Karaman

Karaman claims the founding moment of Turkish as a written language. On May 13, 1277, Karamanoğlu Mehmed Bey—ruler of the Karamanid Beylik that filled the power vacuum after Mongol conquest—decreed that "no language other than Turkish" would be spoken in court, council, or public square. While Persian dominated Seljuk literature and Arabic governed state affairs, this firman established vernacular Turkish as legitimate for governance. Every May 13th, Karaman celebrates Language Day.

The Karamanids emerged from Oghuz Turkish refugees who fled the Mongol invasion of Azerbaijan in 1230. They exploited the fragmentation following the Seljuk defeat at Köse Dağ (1243), building a principality in the Taurus Mountain passes that controlled trade routes between the Mediterranean coast and the Anatolian interior. By the mid-14th century, the Karamanids rivaled the early Ottomans; intermarriage linked the dynasties while rivalry defined their politics. The Ottomans absorbed Karaman in 1487, but the linguistic precedent survived: Turkish eventually replaced Persian as the Ottoman administrative language.

Modern Karaman processes rather than produces linguistic innovation. The province's Organized Industrial Zone hosts 75 food companies employing 11,000 workers—producing 35% of Turkey's biscuits, processing apples from orchards that make Karaman one of Turkey's top three apple provinces alongside Isparta and Niğde. The food processing logic extends the historical pattern: transform raw material (grain, fruit, milk) into value-added export products.

By 2026, Karaman faces the demographic pressures common to Anatolian interior provinces: population growth has turned negative (-4.4‰ in 2024) as young workers migrate to coastal cities. Whether biscuit factories and apple orchards can reverse the flow, or whether Karaman's future lies in commemorating its past rather than building new industries, depends on transport links and energy costs.