[Discussion] Fwd: RE: The Beshik, or why we do not speak Tatar.

[gonul@bilkent.edu.tr]

------------- Forwarded Message -------------
Date: 09 Aug 2002 16:35 EEST
From: gauhar <gauhar@uvic.ca>
Subject: RE: The Beshik, or why we do not speak Tatar.

That was quite fascinating reading. I just have some questions.

1)>>>I made a search on the Internet for the word "beshik". The first attempt
>brought me the article of Nicolay urek, a Russian doctor of psychology. 1928,
>Soviet psychologist A. Shtillerman published the esults of these tests on
>Russian, Uzbek and Ukrainian children. The test demonstrated that there was 
2-5
>time more mentally normal children among Russians than among Uzbeks. The
>number of severely backward children among Uzbeks was almost 10 times higher
>than it should be in any normal population. Moreover by the age of 12-14, the
>results of Uzbeks got even worse. Shtillerman also suggested that the reason
>for the backwardness of the Uzbeks was the beshik. Thus my hypothesis found
>corroboration in Kurek's article.

It's great that you can support your hypothesis with the research that goes so 
way back. Is there anything current of the same line of research? any 
comparison numbers of Russian, Uzbek, and Ukrainian, or any other 
former-Soviet republic's children?

2) >> Appropriate measures to inform people about the harm the beshik causes 
have to be taken 80 years later! Because Beshik is used by all Turkic people, 
I think that is why the development of Turkic nations has slowed down. For 
centuries they have been experiencing the lack of qualified people. I think 
this also explains the decay and destruction of the great Turkic empires of 
Chingiz Khan and Tamerlane. The worst is that Turkic people continue to use 
the
>beshik even today. I presume that half the population of Central Asia use it 
today. It is quite obvious that it is nothing but barbarism to continue to use 
such a relic.

Do you have any data on whether Turkic people still use the beshik or not, and 
how much? I believe during Soviet time some of the Turkic people, especially 
urban population abandoned beshik tradition. So it would be interesting to see 
if there is any data available on the use of beshik in modern society. It 
would also be interesting to see a current comparison between 2 groups of 
kids, the first one, who were in the beshik during their first year of 
development, and the second, who were brought without a beshik present.

3)>Taking into account all the facts, we can also
>conclude that the rate of development of a nation
>depends on their nursery traditions, which defines the
>average IQ of the nation.

I would like to see all the facts accounted if we are talking about nation 
development. Are factors like socio-economic background, level of education, 
urban or rural living, time spent with a kid, native language, language spoken 
to a kid, age, marital status (single parent, divorced, etc.), and mental 
health of the parents included into your hypothesis? Any historical factors 
like a lot of Turkic population was educated mostly in Russian or had no 
access to formal education, forced to abandon the traditions and religion, 
died because of starvation, repression, or diseases brought into the 
countries? There might be many other factors, I'm just trying to think of the 
most common.

I would assume this is still a hypothesis under development, since I don't see 
much quantitative or qualitative data and more than one or two references to 
support it. I'm not pro or against beshik, I would just love to see something 
more than assumptions. Are you planning to develop the idea beyond the 
article?
I think the topic is interesting, however, without proper support of data and 
evidences, it might be considered as one of those articles when researchers 
tell us that coffee is good, and then another article says that no, coffee is 
bad; posting an alphabet over your child's cradle is good, and moments later 
another research reports that overwhelming your child with too much 
information too soon is harmful. It always makes me wonder whether it's a new 
trend or truth. I guess the reality is a matter of perception. Hope to hear 
answers to my questions, Gauhar


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