I have been neglecting the headgear-related portion of the remit of Languagehat, so without further ado, I present Richard in a Hat: “I have many hats and regularly post a new picture of me in a different hat, cap or other headgear with a few facts about what I’m wearing.” The most recent post is Börk hat (“Börk is a type of Turkish man’s cap or headdress”). He wears hats well, and I am pleased to note that he sports the same style of facial hair as your humble servant. (Via MeFi, where of course a commenter feels “slightly weird about pictures of this white dude in traditional hats from other cultures.”)
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[…] Richard in a Hat, a blog where a passionate collector of hats posts photos of himself wearing said hats — this is what the internet was made for, i feel (via the ever-excellent, but unrelated, Language Hat) […]
Richard is both informative and entertaining. I liked his photo essay on the Builder’s Hat.
But yes, he must be cancelled immediately, for the mental health of all.
Soon there must be a meme of Björk in a Börk hat.
I feel a bit weird about white guys who take it upon themselves to be offended on behalf of other cultures whose members have yet to comment. Arrogating to oneself the right to complain about possible appropriation of someone else’s culture seems like, well, appropriation.
I haven’t read those comments. Assuming someone will be offended is indeed presumptuous, but it’s good to be considerate and keep an eye out for that possibility.
If you are wondering what is meant by the description from the advertisement Kayi Bork Authentic Hat Dirillis Ertugrul othamn Fur Alp cap that was mentioned in the blogpost, it’s probably more or less this (with links):
If you are curious about Turkish popular culture and political propaganda, you can watch all of Diriliş Ertuğrul on its YouTube channel. Here is the first episode. It is subtitled in English. You can turn the subtitles on in the YouTube controls if they don’t come on automatically for you.
(Hope all the links work—the spam filter will undoubtedly eat this comment so I won’t be able to edit it.)
I watched enough of Diriliş Ertuğrul to get to the subtitle “The elders are having a blonde moment,” which made me happy.
True blondness comes from within!
(Works slightly better in German, where Schönheit & Blondheit have the same suffix.)
The “Orange Turban” picture has rather the air of a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litham
Many men’s appearance can be much improved by a litham.
Noble Fulani men wear them in Nigeria, but they have lost the original Tuareg mouth taboo that goes with them. They’re just signs of being posh now. (Cultural appropriation!)
“The elders are having a blonde moment.”
She says Beylerin basireti bağlanmış, roughly “(It seems that) the chieftains can’t think what to do” (literally, “(It seems that) the chieftains’ foresight/discernment is tied”).
The popular online dictionary Tureng offers have a blonde moment as a translation for the expression she uses, basireti bağlanmak, along with have a senior moment. I wonder if the translator took it from Tureng, which is partially crowdsourced, I believe.
I’m trying to figure out what’s on the metal-looking badge on the front of the Börk. Is it “IYI” with minimal spacing between the letters? An oddly-stylized capital M? Some other glyph in some other script?
The popular online dictionary Tureng offers have a blonde moment as a translation for the expression she uses, basireti bağlanmak, along with have a senior moment. I wonder if the translator took it from Tureng, which is partially crowdsourced, I believe.
Good lord, how could they miss the chance to say “The elders are having a senior moment”?
Here’s an interesting story from a few years back, with a picture showing a variety of börk styles. The focus is on European sales to the Turkish diaspora and the fellow doesn’t seem to have been asked what he thought of non-ethnic-Turkish Europeans buying one — don’t know if there’s a Turkish-proverb equivalent to the Americanism “his money’s as green as anyone’s” (and variants thereon).
https://www.dailysabah.com/history/2017/04/07/turks-in-europe-show-great-interest-in-traditional-bork
When I was in Turkey, vendors were willing, nay eager, to sell me all manner of authentic Turcica. And when I was in the souk in Aleppo (I wonder if it’s functioning again?), they wanted me to buy a burnoose (I actually have a picture of myself in it, looking very foolish and not at all colonial).
I’m trying to figure out what’s on the metal-looking badge on the front of the Börk.
It is a version of the tamga of the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz. I believe it is the form of this tamga given in the 15th-century Selçukname of Yazıcıoğlu Ali. You can see other shapes at the Wikipedia entry for the Kayı. (I haven’t bothered to investigate in detail because the current nationalistic fantasizing around Ertuğrul and political appropriations of his story put me off, but I hope this is enough information for you to pursue it further if you wish.)
There is a late tradition that Ertuğrul, father of Osman I, was a chieftain of the Kayı. The tamga has been put to political use by the by the recently-formed Turkish party called the İyi Parti (“Good Party”).
Perhaps poor clueless hat-enthusiast Richard did not realize which currently-extant Turkish political party he was aligning himself with by his selection?
For a moment, I thought a blond moment had something to do with beer…. (due of course, to my deep familiarity with French ;))