Turkey is a fascinating country located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It has a rich history and culture, and of course their own unique language. But what exactly do they speak in Turkey? Here’s a simple breakdown.
Turkish is the Dominant Language
The predominant language spoken in Turkey is Turkish, spoken natively by around 84 million people. Turkish is a Turkic language and shares similarities with other languages like Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek and Kazak.
Turkish has a long history, emerging from the Ottoman Turkish used during the Ottoman Empire and undergoing significant reforms in the early 20th century under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. These reforms replaced the Arabic script with a Latin alphabet and removed many loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin.
So modern Turkish as we know it today can be considered a relatively “new” language. Yet it retains some features of older forms like vowel harmony and agglutination.
Other Languages are Also Spoken
Though Turkish dominates, it’s not the only language used in Turkey:
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Kurdish – Spoken by around 6-10% of the population, especially in eastern/southeastern Turkey. Kurdish actually comprises 3 dialects – Kurmanji, Zaza, and Sorani.
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Arabic – Used among the Arab minority along the Syrian border. Many Arabic loanwords exist in Turkish too.
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Laz – Mostly spoken by the Laz people near the Black Sea coast It’s related to Georgian
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Armenian – Used by the Armenian community. Was once more widespread.
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Greek – Found mostly in Istanbul and along parts of the Aegean coast.
Turkish Dialects Vary By Region
There are also some variations of Turkish depending on the region:
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Istanbul Turkish – Based on the prestige dialect of the Istanbul region. It forms the standard version of Turkish used nationwide.
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Aegean Turkish – Spoken along the Aegean coast. Has some similarities with Greek pronunciation.
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Cypriot Turkish – Used in Northern Cyprus. Influenced by Greek Cypriot culture.
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Rumelian Turkish – Originating from Rumelia (Balkans). Maintains some loanwords from Greek, Albanian, etc.
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Meskhetian Turkish – Formerly spoken by Turks deported from Georgia. Many now live in Kazakhstan.
So in a vast country like Turkey, regional accents and flavors naturally emerge, while Istanbul Turkish remains the common tongue.
Turkish is Also Used Elsewhere
Due to the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish also has a presence in nearby regions:
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Northern Cyprus – One of two official languages (with Greek)
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Greek Western Thrace region – Officially recognized minority language
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Iraq, Syria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Romania – Recognized minority language
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Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France – Significant Turkish communities
So while centered in Turkey, Turkish has spread beyond its borders too. Overall around 90 million people speak Turkish worldwide.
Frequency of Entities:
Turkish: 20
Turkey: 14
Kurdish: 3
Arabic: 3
Laz: 1
Armenian: 1
Greek: 2
Cypriot Turkish: 1
Rumelian Turkish: 1
Meskhetian Turkish: 1
Azerbaijani: 1
Turkmen: 1
Uzbek: 1
Kazak: 1
Istanbul Turkish: 1
Aegean Turkish: 1
Northern Cyprus: 2
Iraq: 1
Syria: 1
Bulgaria: 1
North Macedonia: 1
Romania: 1
Germany: 1
Netherlands: 1
Austria: 1
France: 1
What is the Turkish language like?
Turkish, along with the other Turkic languages (e.g., Azeri, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tatar, Uzbek, etc.), belongs to the Altaic language family. Other languages that belong to the Altaic language family are the Mongolian and Tungusic languages. Many linguists also classify Japanese and Korean as Altaic languages. This group of languages is named after the Altai mountains, a famous mountain range in Central Asia.
One of the most interesting properties of Turkish is its morphology (i.e., the structure of its words). Turkish is an agglutinative language and all of the derivational and inflectional morphemes are suffixes, meaning that new particles are always added to the end of a base form to generate new words. Thus, one can easily observe slight systematic changes in meaning and quickly learn new words.
Another interesting feature of the Turkish is that the objects usually precede verbs. So the sentence “Hakan ate an apple” would have the following word order in Turkish: “Hakan an apple ate.” Although you may find this strange at first, you’ll be amazed by how quickly this new word order comes to feel natural to you when you’re learning Turkish.
There are many great things about learning Turkish. First, the language has neither grammatical gender nor articles, which means that there is no such thing as memorizing the gender class (masculine, feminine, neuter, etc.) of nouns. Plus, there are no irregular verbs in Turkish, so conjugating verbs is really easy. Crucially, Turkish is the only Middle Eastern language that uses the Latin script! Moreover, Turkish writing matches the pronunciation very closely, so the words are pronounced as they are written.
Because Turkic languages are all closely related, Turkish is mutually understandable with many of them. Thus, knowing Turkish will make it easier to learn other modern Turkic languages, like Azeri, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tatar, Uzbek, and Uighur. Many of these Turkic languages are spoken in regions that are strategically of high importance, like the former Soviet Union and China.
Where is Turkey and what is its history like?
Turkey is situated at the junction of Europe and Asia. Because of its geographic location in both Europe and Asia, Turkey has commonly been referred to as a bridge that unites the West and the East. The European and Asian sides are divided by the “Istanbul Boğazı” (Bosphorus), the sea of Marmara, and “Çanakkale Boğazı” (the Dardanelles). Besides Turkey’s magnificent landscape its fascinating history has also made a lasting impression on modern civilization. Turkey’s rich history ranges from the earliest human civilizations, over the Hellenistic Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, to the modern secular republic that it is today. Thus, Turkey and Turkish are of great interest to students of archaeology and history. Emerging as an economic and regional power, Turkey has strong geographical, historical, and political ties with European, Central Asian, and Middle Eastern countries. In Turkey one could definitely experience and enjoy an incredible diversity in nature, culture, history, beliefs and ideas.
Super Easy Turkish(For Absolute Beginners)
FAQ
What language is mainly spoken in Turkey?
Do Turkey speak Arabic?
Do the speak English in Turkey?
What language is closest to Turkey?
Which countries speak Turkish?
It is the national language of Turkey and Cyprus. Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, [ 16] Greece, [ 17], other parts of Europe, the South Caucasus, and some parts of Central Asia, Iraq, and Syria. Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world.
What is the closest language to Turkish?
Turkish is an Altaic language, and Turkish is classified as a Turkic Language. The closest language to Turkish is Azerbaijani. Turkish is mutually intelligible with Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Uyghur, Tatar, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz languages.
What are the characteristics of Turkish language?
Some distinctive characteristics of the Turkish language are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination. The basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no noun classes or grammatical gender.
What are some examples of modern Turkish words?
Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are: Derived from the verb uçmak (“to fly”). The word was first proposed to mean “airport”. The old word is still used in the language today together with the new one. The modern word is from the Old Turkic verb or- (“to cut”).