Languages of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottomans had three influential languages: Turkish, spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except in Albania, Bosnia, and various Aegean Sea islands; Persian, initially used by the educated in northern portions of the Ottoman Empire before being displaced by Ottoman Turkish; and Arabic, used in southern portions of the Ottoman Empire; Arabic was spoken mainly in Arabia, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy Ottoman Turkish language was the official language, a version of Turkish, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary.
Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
Europe became dominated by nation states with the rise of nationalism in Europe. The Ottoman Empire was a religious empire. The 19th century saw the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire which resulted in the establishment of an independent Greece in 1821, Serbia in 1835, and Bulgaria in 1877-8. Many of the local Muslims in these countries died during the conflicts and massacres while others fled. Unlike the European nations, the Ottoman Empire made no attempt to integrate conquered peoples through cultural assimilation. The Porte had no official policy of converting the non-Muslims of the Balkans or Anatolia into Islam. Instead, Ottoman policy was to rule through the millet system, constituting of confessional communities for each religion..