Turkish: Then and Now

Mr. Mango reports on page 41 ("The Making of an Ottoman Officer"):

...It was thus at the school in Manastır that Atatürk began acquiring his mastery of literary Ottoman, a euphonious and euphuistic idiom, where Arabic abstract nouns crowd together in alliterative groups of synonyms to raise the emotional tone rather than to clarify the meaning.

Good epistemological food for thought. I've filed it away for future reference.

Mr. Mango's report continues:

Atatürk became an effective writer and speaker of this artificial tongue, which served him well in his public appearances. Unfortunately, it is now incomprehensible in its original form to Turkish readers, for whom translations into simple Turkish have to be provided.

This I had heard during my studies of Turkish. Ironic.