Agop Dilaçar

Agop Dilâçar (Armenian: Յակոբ Մարթայեան [Hagop Martayan], Constantinople, May 22, 1895 – Istanbul, September 12, 1979) was a Turkish-Armenian linguist who specialized in Turkic languages and the first Secretary General and head specialist of the Turkish Language Association.

He was the person who officially proposed the name Atatürk to the founder of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

Of Armenian descent, Agop Dilâçar was born in Constantinople as Hagop Martayan in 1895. He graduated from the Robert College in 1915. He was proficient in 22 languages, and in addition to Armenian and Turkish, he knew English, Greek, Spanish, Azerbaijani, Latin, German, Russian and Bulgarian. He worked as a lecturer of the English language at the Robert College, and of Ottoman Turkish and ancient East languages at Sofia University in Sofia, Bulgaria.

He was invited as a linguist on September 22, 1932 to the First Turkish Language Congress held in Dolmabahçe Palace supervised by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, together with two other linguists of Armenian ethnicity, İstepan Gurdikyan and Kevork Simkeşyan. He continued his work and research on the Turkish language as the head specialist and Secretary General of the newly founded Turkish Language Association in Ankara. Following the issue of the Law on Family Names in 1934, Mustafa Kemal Pasha suggested him the surname Dilaçar (literally meaning language opener), which he gladly accepted. Nevertheless, he continued to use the surname Martayan to sign his articles in the Armenian language. In return, Agop Martayan openly proposed the name Atatürk to Mustafa Kemal Pasha in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

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