Drafted on this device
I tell stories with data.
I have built dictionaries of Turkish, archives at the University of Chicago, and a map of every licensed dog in New York. I made dragoman, from the extension and its cast to the film and this website. I live in Brooklyn. Press my name to hear it.
Follow my name downstream
Each people on the Euphrates learned its name from the people before them and passed it on in their own tongue, the way dragomans did. Read it downstream and the names grow older, back to the Sumerians.
Akkadian and Sumerian scribes wrote the river with the same signs and read them two different ways.
Other things I have made
- Every Dog in New York A map of all 96,459 licensed dogs in New York City, across its 197 neighborhoods.
- Nişanyan Sözlük The etymological dictionary of Turkish. I built and run its website, its iPhone and Android apps, and the panel its editors work in.
- Nişanyan Yeradları The past and present names of 70,000 places in Turkey and its neighbors, with 77,000 older names in 34 languages.
- Ottoman Inscriptions The writing on more than 1,100 Ottoman buildings in Turkey, Greece, and Egypt, with transliterations and photographs.
See everything on firatciftci.com
The figure by my photo is the Shahmaran, half woman and half snake, from the folklore of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran. My friend Ceyhun drew this one.