![Chappuling-day-2013](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Chappuling-day-2013.jpg)
Chapulling ( tr, Çapuling, ) is a
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
originating in the
Gezi Park protests
A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28 May 2013, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul's Taksim Gezi Park. The protests were sparked by outrage at the violent eviction of a sit-in at the park prot ...
, coined from
Prime Minister Erdoğan's use of the term (roughly translated to "marauders")
Luke Harding
Luke Daniel Harding (born 21 April 1968) is a British journalist who is a foreign correspondent for ''The Guardian''. He was based in Russia for ''The Guardian'' from 2007 until, returning from a stay in the UK on 5 February 2011, he was refu ...
, ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 10 June 2013
Turkish protesters embrace Erdoğan insult and start 'capuling' craze
/ref> to describe the protesters. ''Çapulcu'' was rapidly reappropriated
In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i.e. ...
by the protesters, both in its original form and as the anglicized
Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...
''chapuller'' and additionally verbified ''chapulling'', given the meaning of "fighting for your rights".[ AFP, '']The Express Tribune
''The Express Tribune'' is a daily English-language newspaper based in Pakistan. It is the flagship publication of the '' Daily Express'' media group. It is Pakistan's only internationally affiliated newspaper in a partnership with the ''Interna ...
'', 8 June 2013
'Chapulling': Turkish protesters spread the edgy word
/ref> ''Chapulling'' has been used in Turkish both in its anglicized form and in the hybrid word
A hybrid word or hybridism is a word that etymologically derives from at least two languages.
Common hybrids
The most common form of hybrid word in English combines Latin and Greek parts. Since many prefixes and suffixes in English are of Latin ...
form ''çapuling''.
The word quickly caught on, adopted by the demonstrators and online activists, and became a viral video. Many took the concept further by integrating the unique nature of the demonstrations and defined it as "to act towards taking the democracy of a nation to the next step by reminding governments of their reason for existence in a peaceful and humorous manner." Variations of ''chapulling'' were also coined for other languages.
Background
The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during a speech on 2 June 2013, referring to the protesters:
Pronounced "cha-pul-ju" in Turkish, the traditional meaning of ''çapulcu'' has been rendered in English in a variety of ways, including "marauders",[ "bums",][ "looters",][ "vandals",][ and "riffraff".
]
Reappropriation
The protesters quickly decided to reappropriate
In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i.e. ...
the term, and began to describe themselves as ''çapulcu''. Within days, the usually negative term was being used as a positive term of self-identification. International supporters of the Gezi Park events posted social media photos of themselves holding messages of "I'm a chapuller as well" in their own languages. The movement was supported by the linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
, who defined himself as a ''chapuller'', recording the message that "everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance".Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
, 6 June 2013
Turkey Protests Snapshots: Yoga, Trash Crews And Barricades
/ref> Cem Boyner, Chairman of Boyner Holding, also supported the movement by holding a banner saying "I'm neither rightist nor leftist, I am a chapuller." The word became widely used on social networking site
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
s, with Facebook users update their statuses to say that they were "capulling", and T-shirts and banners were produced with chapulling slogans,[ and a ]Ustream
IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...
-based live stream from Gezi Park was launched under the name Çapul TV.
It was reported that the Turkish Language Association
The Turkish Language Association ( tr, Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK) is the regulatory body for the Turkish language, founded on 12 July 1932 by the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The Institution acts as the off ...
(the language regulator
This is a list of bodies that consider themselves to be authorities on standard languages, often called language academies. Language academies are motivated by, or closely associated with, linguistic purism and prestige, and typically publish pr ...
for the Turkish language
Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant sma ...
) had changed the description of "çapulcu" in their online dictionary to mean "rebel" instead of its traditional meaning, "looter", in response to the events, but the Association said this was not the case. One online Turkish-English dictionary, Zargan, adopted the new word ''chapulling'' in what Agence France Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D ...
described as "a gesture of solidarity with the demonstrators".[ It was also added to the Tureng dictionary and ]Urban Dictionary
''Urban Dictionary'' is a crowdsourced English-language online dictionary for slang words and phrases. The website was founded in 1999 by Aaron Peckham. Originally, ''Urban Dictionary'' was intended as a dictionary of slang or cultural words ...
.
By 8 June the Turkish Patent Institute
The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office ( tr, Türk Patent ve Marka Kurumu or TÜRKPATENT) (TURKPATENT) is an intellectual property organization with a special budget being attached to the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Republic of T ...
had received 16 applications for ''çapulcu''-related trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...
s, covering items such as toilet paper, drinks, and a newspaper.
Following the protests in Turkey the Istanbul-based platform InEnArt presents Urban Voices which opens a critical view on cultural practices and phenomena that expresses the ethos, aspirations, and dreams of a specific population during a well-defined era and that triggered dramatic cultural changes. One section of Urban Voices focusses on the protest culture in Turkey as described with the neologism Çapuling. It describes and reflects the visual culture, humor and irony of the peaceful protesters (the Çapulcu) as it developed in many forms in Turkey during 2013.
For the exhibition Made in Turkiye presented by NoLaB in 2017 at Hasköy Spinning Factory, the participating artists continue to show a reflection on traditional Turkish culture by recreating old handcraft in an innovative, ironical and artistic way.
References
External links
* ekşi sözlük
Ekşi Sözlük (; "Sour Dictionary", stylized as ekşi sözlük) is a collaborative hypertext dictionary based on the concept of Web sites built up on user contribution. However, Ekşi Sözlük is not a dictionary in the strict sense; users are ...
br>"Chapulling"
* Instela
"Chapulling"
* seslisözlük
"Chapulling"
* Tureng Dictionary
"Chapulling"
* Language Log
"Çapuling"
Mark Liberman, 16 June 2013, 8:59 am. Accessed 16 June 2013.
{{Gezi Park protests
Turkish-language culture
2010s neologisms
2013 in Turkey
Political neologisms
Gezi Park protests