Masal Masal Türkiye

What is a Fairy Tale?

In the TDK Turkish Dictionary, it is defined as "usually created by the people, based on imagination, living in oral tradition, mostly with people, animals and witches, genies, giants, fairies, etc. Fairy tales, defined as "a literary genre that tells the extraordinary events that happened to beings", are an important cultural richness of oral literature that has been told from generation to generation.

Fairy tales improve the listeners' imagination, attention, memory, language skills and vocabulary, and help them acquire reading and listening habits. It is also known that children who grow up with fairy tales are more curious and ask questions.

As the Presidency of Atatürk Cultural Center, an affiliated institution of the Atatürk Supreme Institution of Culture, Language and History, we protect Turkish Fairy Tales.

We are breaking new ground in Republican Turkey.

Our entire collection of fairy tales from the pre-Islamic period to the present day is presented to the service of all our people through a database with the technology required by the age. We protect our own tales through a comprehensive corpus study. We took an important step in this regard with the Turkish Fairy Tale Collection Project, which we started about five years ago. With this project, known as TÜMAK in short and supported by our Presidency, we first started to compile fairy tales within Turkey. Fairy tales collected from all over the country with the technological means required by the age are first examined by editors who are experts in the field, and then fairy tale texts with the characteristics of their genre are selected and writing unity is achieved among them. Finally, the tales are made accessible via www.masal.gov.tr ​​with the approval of the Project Science Board, which consists of scientists who are distinguished in their field.

The most beautiful Turkish tales began to be selected by scoring method among the texts compiled within the scope of TÜMAK. Some of the selected tales were rewritten, illustrated, voiced and published as a book under the supervision of an expert committee. Within the scope of the Selections from Turkish Fairy Tales for Children Project, 25 of our fairy tale books, completed in three stages, were distributed to children free of charge.

Fairy Tale Fairy Tale Türkiye

We wanted to put our children and grandchildren to sleep and raise them with our own stories. We put our fairy tales at the service of parents with the technological opportunities required by the age. Thanks to the mobile application we named Masal Masal Turkey, developed by our institution's IT experts, we have grouped our tales according to their provinces and types. We shared fairy tale texts for those who love reading fairy tales. For those who love listening to fairy tales, we have provided the voice of each of our tales. We have prepared the opportunity for our tales to be heard not only in Istanbul Turkish, but also, for the first time in Turkey, in the dialect of the region to which they belong. In this way, we tried to draw attention to storytelling with local colors and keep the tradition alive.
We would like to thank our President, our Minister, and the Heads of Higher Institutions and Institutions who always supported the realization of this project and mobile application. On the other hand, we would like to thank the Project Execution Commission, which has been working hard for five years persistently and consistently in the implementation of this project, as well as all the staff of our Institution and our scholars.

Thanks to the mobile application that can be downloaded from e-stores and enriched with new tales that develop day by day, Turkish children will be able to both read and listen to their own fairy tales. Hoping for the revival of the tradition, so that our tales do not remain unattended; Let's read, let's tell, let's listen...