In 19th century, as an attribute of nationality, there was great importance attached to language. Nationalists in the Balkans influenced by the thought of Herder, who had emphasized the importance of language as a crucial component of nationality, began to pay attention to their language. They, therefore, tried to purify it or to create a literary language. In the Ottoman Empire Semseddin Sami, who had access to nationalism in the Balkans, introduced the idea of language based on nationality. Furthermore, he denied the existence of "Osmanhca" and recommended to name it "Western Turkish". He also insisted that every nationality of the Empire should have its own language. His suggestion, however, was not accepted. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the language dispute in Tercuman-i Hakikat in 1882 and to explore the language ideas in those days. Through these ideas this paper aims to be the first stage in explaining the images of selfidentity of the Ottomans. The main participants of this dispute are Haci Ibrahim efendi, Tercuman-i Hakikat (Ahmed Midhat), Said bey, Ebuzziya Tevfik, and Recaizade Ekrem. This dispute quickly took the form of "Ibrahim vs others". The character of Ottoman Turkish was the main topic of the dispute with Tercuman-i Hakikat (Ahmed Midhat). Both of them accepted the idea that "Osmanhca" was the language of "Osmanh kavimi". There was, however, a disagreement between these writers. The disagreement was caused by what essence had priority in Osmanhca. Ibrahim as a devoted muslim stressed that the influence of Arabic should be considered a priority. On the other hand Tercuman-i Hakikat elavated the originality of Osmanhca and regarded it as nothing more than Osmanhca. It may be said that the order of priority in the essence of being "Osmanh kavimi" caused this difference. In the next dispute with Said bey, the point of discussion shifted to "Osmanhca vs Turkish". Said, who had a clear idea of language based on nationality, denied the existance of Osmanhca and regarded the language as Turkish. Ibrahim, on the other hand, denied the language to be Turkish by explaining the prosess of the formation of Osmanhca, i.e., the elements of Turkish had been eliminated in that process and many elements of Arabic had been introduced in their stead. Furthermore, Ibrahim suggested that, for the people of the Empire could not prove to be Turkish, they should regard themselves as the Ottomans and their language should be called "Osmanhca" not "Turkish". Ebuzziya had the same opinion as Said bey. Ebuzziya, who defined the difference between milliyet (nationality) and tabiiyet (citizenship) i.e., for him Osmanhhk is tabiiyet, Turkluk is milliyet, had the opinion that language should be based on milliyet. Yet when Ebuzziya talked about his identity, he said, "I am an Arab by genealogy, but my identity is in Turkishness". As illustrated by Ebuzziya's statement, his idea of milliyet or "Turk" is quite ambiguous. Ibrahim's target of criticism turned to Recaizade Ekrem. Ekrem denied the control of Arabic over Osmanhca which was an independent language. Moreover, he questioned the origins of Osmanhca and the influence from the other languages. He insisted that the present language should be accepted as it was. According to him, most languages had been changing for hundreds of years prior to their present state. It is clear that there were various types of language ideas concerning the role of Arabic in Ottoman Turkish or the character of Ottoman Turkish itself. Most intellectuals in those days are said to have accepted the concept of multi-identity, and this multi-identity, which was an ambiguous idea, created multiple definitions of language. From these varying ideas of language, some examples of self-identity of the Ottomans seem to be extracted.

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Semseddin Sami, a famous journalist and philologist, is recognized as one of the nationalist intellectuals in the modern period of the Ottoman Empire. His activities and ideas are specified by two kinds of national consciousnesses; The one is Albanian identity, the other is Turkish identity.
Originally he was an Albanian, born in Frasheri (now the town in Greece) in 1850, and so he was influenced by the Albanian movements for autonomy under the Ottoman rule.
He started to develop his ideas of nation (kavim) after the Russo-Turkish war and the Berlin Treaty in 1878. By this treaty, the Albanian people's areas under the Ottoman rule were pressured to be divided by the surrounding Balkan states—Serbia, Montenegro and Greece, thereby he found it necessary to save the weakened Ottoman Empire from the foreign intrusions and then intended to awaken the national consciousnesses among the Ottoman peoples. From this point, we can say that his idea is a sort of Ottomanism.
After finishing the high school, he came up to Istanbul and there he continued to undertake the editorial works of various periodicals, including the weekly newspaper Hafta publised in 1881. He gave a great importance to these jounalistic activities in order to enlighten the peoples and then to inform them of the knowledges of the progressive Western civilisation, especially those of modern technology that could save the deceased Ottoman Empire.
In Hafta he maintained that each people (ethnic groupes), having their own languages, could become kavim (nation) within the Empire, and could have the political and cultural equality in the Ottoman nationality. He did not give more superiority to the Ottoman Turkish people (language) than to any other peoples (languages) in the Empire. He thought that the cultural development of each kavim by their own written languages would bring political and social stability to the Ottoman Empire. But unfortunately Sami's Ottomanism was not generally accepted by the intellectual elites of that period.

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The Young Ottomans (Yeni Osmanlilar) began their constitutional movement in the late 1860s, but it was in Europe after their exile that they launched their full-blown arguments on constitutionalism and parliamentarianism. For any comprehensive study of the Young Ottoman movement in the broad context of the modern history of the Empire, it is necessary to understand trends within critical circles at that time. From this point of view, the present article focuses on the Polish journalist, Hayreddin-Karski, who fled to the Ottoman Empire and while residing in Istanbul, attempted a systematic critique of the Young Ottomans' assertion for the immediate need to establish a national assembly. First, the author examines Hayreddin's career in Ottoman journalism and confirms that he wrote a number of political articles in several Ottoman Turkish, as well as non-Ottoman Turkish, language periodicals published in Istanbul. Secondly, the author analyzes Hayreddin's Ottoman Turkish articles dealing with parliamentary institutions, including those appearing in Istanbul (1867-1869), Mecmu'a-i Ma'arif (Journal of Education, 1868) and Terakki (Progress, 1868-1870). In these articles, Hayreddin asserted that 1) it would be impossible to immediately establish a national assembly in the Ottoman Empire because of the current low level of sophistication among the Ottoman populace, and 2) it was much more urgent to establish local assemblies through the reformation of existing provincial councils, then gradually form a national assembly. Finally, the author compares Hayreddin's opinions to those of the Young Ottomans, revealing opposition regarding the timing of national assembly formation and how to evaluate reform policies implemented by the Ottoman government. The above analysis shows that there existed at least two currents of thought in the debate over parliamentarianism in the Ottoman Empire during the late 1860s, i.e. an idea that the immediate establishment of a national assembly was required as the Young Ottomans insisted, and another idea that put establishing local assemblies before a national assembly as Hayreddin asserted. One of the main causes of the differences between the two currents may be attributed to different ways of evaluating present reform policies initiated by the Ottoman government. If so, such a fact would be of help in understanding the real, substantive arguments in the parliamentarianism debate during the 1860s. Therefore, the heretofore little studied ideas of Hayreddin-Karski would make it possible to reassess the existing historical evaluation of the Young Ottoman movement and to re-examine its significance in the context of intellectual diversity in the debate over parliamentarianism during that time.

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The aim of this article is to introduce the Commercial Court Registers of Damascus in the Ottoman period, which are kept in the Center of Historical Documents in Damascus (Markaz al-watha'iq al-ta'rikhiya bi-Dimashq) on the basis of my experience in this Center. I worked there from July 1999 to July 2001 as an archivist, with the aids of JICA, and was responsible for setting up of a database of the documents in this Center. In this time I dealt with the registers of the Commercial Court, which had little been used for historical studies. The "comercial court" registers are numbered from 1 to 156 but they are muddled up with registers of other courts (28 volumes of Courts of First Instance, 10volumes of Courts of Arbitration, etc.). I found that 99 of those 156 volumes were really registers of the Commercial Court of Damascus. They can be classified as the below: 1, daftar al-istid'a': 8 vols. 2, daftar al-jalab: 3 vols. 3, daftar al-sanadat: 7vols. 4, jarida al-dabt: 44 vols. 5, daftar al-qararat: 12 vols. 6, sijill al-i'lamat: 20 vols. 7, daftar al-hasilat: 3 vols. 8, Others: 2 vols. General information Age: These registers cover a period of about 30 years from 1885 to 1918 when Syria became independent of the Ottoman rule. Calendar: Dates used in those registers are basically on the Rumi calendar, although the Hijri calendar and rarely the Christian calendar are used too. Each case in registers is numbered consecutively and updated every Rumi New Year. Language: The page headings of almost all registers are printed in Ottoman-Turkish. While descriptions are usually written in Arabic but some types of registers are written in Ottoman-Turkish (see the below). The Civil Court Law issued in 1879 prescribes various types of registers of commercial courts according to the judicial process as the below. At first when a plaintiff send in his bill of complaint to the court, the date and counts are entered in the daftar al-istid'a' [art. 15-22]. This bill of complaint is copied and sent to a defendant. Next, The date of first instance is fixed according to the order in the daftar al-istid'a' and summonses are sent to both parties. In this time contents of the summons are written down in the daftar al-jalab [art. 23-34]. Then, the trial begin in the fixed date. The protocols (dabt) are kept with the president of the court during the trial, then they are fair-copied and bound as a book. This is the jarida al-dabt. All documents and certificates submitted to the court during the trial are entered in the daftar al-sanadat. The adjudication is written down in the daftar al-qararat when the judgment comes out, and the judgement paper (i'lam) issued to the parties is recorded on the sijill al-i'lamat. The Civil Court Law prescribes how to deal with the court registers. All registers are bound, then the president's seal is put on the top edge of each page and the page number is written below it. These registers are used after that the president and the scribe ascertain the total number of pages, write down it on the top and end of pages, and put their signatures and seals there [art. 6]. Detailed accounts of each type of registers are given below. 1, daftar al-istid'a': vol. 13, 23, 27, 35, 41, 48, 49, 55. Bills of complaint and their contents (the date, names of a plaintiff and a defendant, their nationalities and addresses, cause of action, name of the official who accept it) are recorded with numbering [Civil Court Law art. 6]. These registers actually contain this information in addition to numbers of sheets, signature of the scribe (katib al-dabt) and the result of suit. The space for a result of suit is filled with the date of judgment or that of registration on sijill al-i'lamat and registration number on it. If a case is called off, this space is blank. The registration number on this register is

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