Background
Of Armenian descent, Agop Dilâçar was born in Constantinople as Hagop Martayan in 1895.
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 continued his work and research on the Turkish language as the head western languages specialist of the newly founded Turkish Language Association in Ankara.
Following the issue of the Law on Family Names in 1934, Atatürk 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. He taught history and language at Ankara University between 1936 and 1951.
He also was the head adviser of the Türk Ansiklopedisi (Turkish Encyclopedia), between 1942 and 1960. He held his position and continued his research in linguistics at the Turkish Language Association until his death on 12 September 1979, in Istanbul.
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.
