Turkish Türkçe
Pronunciation:	[ˈt̪yɾkˌtʃe]
Spoken in:	Turkey,  TRNC,  Bulgaria,  Republic of Macedonia,  Kosovo,  Romania,  Cyprus,  Greece,  Iraq,  Syria,[1]  Azerbaijan[2] and by immigrant communities in  Germany,  France,  The Netherlands,  Austria,  Uzbekistan,  United Kingdom,  United States,  Belgium,  Switzerland,  Italy, and other countries of the Turkish diaspora
Region:	Anatolia, Cyprus, Balkans, Caucasus, Central Europe, Western Europe
Total speakers:	over 50 million worldwide[3]
Language family:	Altaic (controversial)  Turkic   Southwestern Turkic (Oghuz)    Western Oghuz     Turkish
Writing system:	Latin alphabet (Turkish variant)
Official status
Official language in:	Turkey,  TRNC,  Cyprus,  European Union,  Republic of Macedonia*  Kosovo** *In municipalities with more than 20% Turkish speakers. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC) (Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti KKTC) commonly called Northern Cyprus (Kuzey Kıbrıs though its The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian The Republic of Macedonia (Република Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Cyprus (Κύπρος transliterated: Kýpros,; Kıbrıs officially the Republic of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية Azerbaijan ( English; Azərbaycan officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan Respublikası is the largest and most populous country in the South Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси is a doubly The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The term Turkish diaspora (Türk diyasporası refers to the estimated population of Turkish people in the world migrated outside of Turkey. Anatolia (Anadolu Ανατολία Anatolía) or Asia minor, comprising most of modern Turkey, is the geographic region bounded by the Black Cyprus (Κύπρος transliterated: Kýpros,; Kıbrıs officially the Republic of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía The Caucasus ( also referred to as North Caucasus) is a geopolitical region located between Europe Asia & Middle East Central Europe is the Region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe at its most general meaning means 'all the countries in the West of Europe ' List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family Altaic, according to its proponents is a language family that includes 66 Languages ref> Altaic languages spoken by about 348 million people mostly in and around Altaic, according to its proponents is a language family that includes 66 Languages ref> Altaic languages spoken by about 348 million people mostly in and around The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110 million people in an area spanning from the Balkans to China A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC) (Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti KKTC) commonly called Northern Cyprus (Kuzey Kıbrıs though its Cyprus (Κύπρος transliterated: Kýpros,; Kıbrıs officially the Republic of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in The Republic of Macedonia (Република **Turkish is one of regional languages. A regional language is a Language spoken in an area of a Nation state, whether it be a small area a federal State or Province, or
Regulated by:	Turkish Language Association
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	tr
ISO 639-2:	tur
ISO 639-3:	tur
Countries with significant Turkish-speaking populations (Click on image for the legend)
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Turkish (Türkçe IPA [ˈt̪yɾktʃe] (help·info)) is a language spoken by over 50 million people worldwide^[4], making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey, with smaller ranges in Cyprus, Bulgaria, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches Cyprus (Κύπρος transliterated: Kýpros,; Kıbrıs officially the Republic of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. Turkish is also spoken by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly in Germany. Immigration refers to the movement of people among countries While the movement of people has existed throughout human history at various levels modern immigration implies long-term Western Europe at its most general meaning means 'all the countries in the West of Europe ' Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

The roots of the language can be traced to Central Asia, with the first written records dating back nearly 1,200 years. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish—the immediate precursor of today's Turkish—spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlıca or tr ''Osmanlı Türkçesi'' Ottoman Turkish ota-Latn ''lisân-ı Osmânî'' is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish In 1928, as one of Atatürk's Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman script was replaced with a phonetic variant of the Latin alphabet. Atatürk's Reforms ( Turkish: Atatürk Devrimleri or Atatürk İnkılapları) were a series of significant political legal cultural social and economic Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ) was the version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the Concurrently, the newly-founded Turkish Language Association initiated a drive to reform the language by removing Persian and Arabic loanwords in favor of native variants and coinages from Turkic roots. The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation

The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages In Linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding Affixes to the base of a Word. The basic word order of Turkish is Subject Object Verb. In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually Turkish has a T-V distinction: second-person plural forms can be used for individuals as a sign of respect. In Sociolinguistics, a T-V distinction describes the situation wherein a Language has second-person Pronouns that distinguish varying levels of Turkish also has no noun classes or grammatical gender. In Linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing Nouns A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its Referent In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong

Classification

Main articles: Turkic languages and Altaic languages

Number of native speakers in the Turkic language family

Turkish is a member of the Turkish, or Western, subgroup of the Oghuz languages, which includes Gagauz and Azeri. The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Altaic, according to its proponents is a language family that includes 66 Languages ref> Altaic languages spoken by about 348 million people mostly in and around The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110 million people in an area spanning from the Balkans to China The Gagauz language ( Gagauz dili) is a Turkic language, spoken by the Gagauz people, and the official language of Gagauzia, Republic The Oghuz languages form the Southwestern subgroup of the Turkic languages, a language family comprising some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia. The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south and Siberia. Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving Some linguists believe the Turkic languages to be a part of a larger Altaic language family. Altaic, according to its proponents is a language family that includes 66 Languages ref> Altaic languages spoken by about 348 million people mostly in and around ^[5] About 40% of Turkic language speakers are Turkish speakers. ^[6] The characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family and the Altaic languages. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages In Linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding Affixes to the base of a Word. In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong ^[6] There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz languages, including Azeri, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand Turkmen ( Latin script: türkmen Cyrillic: түркмен ISO 639 -1 tk ISO 639-2 tuk is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan Qashqai (also spelled Ghashghai, Ghashghayi, Qashqa'i, and Qashqayi) is a Turkic language spoken by the Qashqai, an The Gagauz language ( Gagauz dili) is a Turkic language, spoken by the Gagauz people, and the official language of Gagauzia, Republic Balkan Gagauz Turkish (also known as Balkan Turkic is a Turkic language spoken in European Turkey, Greece, and in the Kumanovo and Bitola areas of ^[7]

History

See also: Turkic peoples and History of the Turkic peoples

Old Turkic inscription with the Orkhon script (c. The Turkic peoples are Eurasian peoples residing in northern central and western Eurasia who speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family This article refers to the history of Turkic peoples. For the history of Turkish people, see History of the Turkish people. Old Turkic (also East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic, Old Uyghur) is the earliest attested Turkic language, found in inscriptions by the The Old Turkic script (also Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script; Turkish: Orhun Yazıtları, 鄂爾渾文字 8th century). Kyzyl, Russia

The earliest known Turkic inscriptions reside in modern Mongolia. Kyzyl ( Tuvan and Кызы́л is a city, and is the capital of the Tuva Republic, Russia. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Mongolia (mɒŋˈɡoʊliə, literally Mongol country/nation,) is a Landlocked Country in East The Bugut inscriptions written in the Sogdian alphabet during the First Göktürk Khanate are dated to the second half of the 6th century. The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, which belongs to the Iranian family Göktürks ( Turkish: Gök Türkler) were a Turkic people of ancient Central Asia. The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. ^[8][9] The two monumental Orkhon inscriptions, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khan and dating back to some time between 732 and 735, constitute another important early record. The Old Turkic script (also Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script; Turkish: Orhun Yazıtları, 鄂爾渾文字 Kul Tigin ( Kül (Köl Gül Göl Tigin (Tegin Kul Khan Bengü İnançu Apa Tarkan) 闕特勒 (685 - 731 or 732 CE was a famous general of the Second Turkic Kaganate After the discovery and excavation of these monuments and associated stone slabs by Russian archaeologists in the wider area surrounding the Orkhon Valley between 1889 and 1893, it became established that the language on the inscriptions was the Old Turkic language written using the Orkhon script, which has also been referred to as "Turkic runes" or "runiform" due to an external similarity to the Germanic runic alphabets. The Russian people (Русские— Russkie) are an East Slavic Ethnic group, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 360 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar. Old Turkic (also East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic, Old Uyghur) is the earliest attested Turkic language, found in inscriptions by the The Old Turkic script (also Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script; Turkish: Orhun Yazıtları, 鄂爾渾文字 The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. ^[10]

With the Turkic expansion during Early Middle Ages (c. The Turkic migration as defined in this article was the expansion of the Turkic peoples across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle The Early Middle Ages is a period in the History of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500 6th–11th centuries), peoples speaking Turkic languages spread across Central Asia, covering a vast geographical region stretching from Siberia to Europe and the Mediterranean. Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east and from southern Russia in the north to northern Pakistan in the south Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, Oghuz Turkic—the direct ancestor of today's Turkish language—into Anatolia during the 11th century. The Seljuq (also Seljuq Turks, Seldjuks, Seldjuqs, Seljuks; in Turkish Selçuklular; in Ṣaljūqīyān; in The Oghuz (variously known as Ghuzz, Guozz, Kuz, Oguz, Oğuz, Okuz, Oufoi, Ouz, Ouzoi, The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110 million people in an area spanning from the Balkans to China Anatolia (Anadolu Ανατολία Anatolía) or Asia minor, comprising most of modern Turkey, is the geographic region bounded by the Black ^[11] Also during the 11th century, an early linguist of the Turkic languages, Kaşgarlı Mahmud from the Kara-Khanid Khanate, published the first comprehensive Turkic language dictionary and map of the geographical distribution of Turkic speakers in the Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Ottoman Turkish: Divânü Lügati't-Türk). Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Mahmud ibn Hussayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari (محمود بن الحسين بن محمد الكاشغري Kaşgarlı Mahmut Mehmud Qeshqeri born in 1005 in Kashgar was This article refers to the Turkic state Kara-Khanid Khanate (also designated as Qarakhanids ^[12]

Ottoman Turkish

Main article: Ottoman Turkish language

Following the adoption of Islam c. Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlıca or tr ''Osmanlı Türkçesi'' Ottoman Turkish ota-Latn ''lisân-ı Osmânî'' is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks, who are both regarded as the cultural ancestors of the Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian. This article refers to the Turkic state Kara-Khanid Khanate (also designated as Qarakhanids The Seljuq (also Seljuq Turks, Seldjuks, Seldjuqs, Seljuks; in Turkish Selçuklular; in Ṣaljūqīyān; in The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Ottoman Divan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words. Turkish literature (Türk edebiyatı or Türk yazını is the collection of written and oral texts composed in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman This article deals with the Ottoman Divan poetry tradition For the tradition of folk poetry in the Ottoman Empire see Turkish folk literature. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire (c. The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish 1299–1922) was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably from the period's everyday spoken Turkish, and is termed Ottoman Turkish. Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlıca or tr ''Osmanlı Türkçesi'' Ottoman Turkish ota-Latn ''lisân-ı Osmânî'' is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the

Language reform and modern Turkish

Literacy rates before the language reform in Turkey (1927). Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches The literacy rates rose to 48. 4% among males and 20. 7% among females in 1950. ^[13]

After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (19 May 1881 &ndash 10 November 1938 was an army officer revolutionary Statesman One of the tasks of the newly-established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents. Language reform is a type of Language planning by massive change to a Language. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation ^[14] By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the ^[15]

Due to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, the younger generations favor new expressions. It is particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used a style of Ottoman diction which today sounds so alien that it has had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995. Nutuk (Modern Turkish: Söylev was a speech delivered by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1927 addressed to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi - TBMM, usually referred to simply as Meclis - "the Parliament" is the Unicameral ^[16] There is also a political dimension to the language debate, with conservative groups tending to use more archaic words in the press or everyday language.

The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance. Information technology ( IT) as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA is "the study design development implementation support However, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, "political party"—also failed to meet with popular approval (in fact, fırka has been replaced by the French loanword parti). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for example betik (originally meaning "book") is now used to mean "script" in computer science. Old Turkic (also East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic, Old Uyghur) is the earliest attested Turkic language, found in inscriptions by the "Scripting" redirects here For other uses see Script. Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the Science of the theoretical foundations of Information and Computation and their

Many of the words derived by TDK coexist with their older counterparts. This usually happens when a loanword changes its original meaning. For instance, dert, derived from the Persian dard (درد "pain"), means "problem" or "trouble" in Turkish; whereas the native Turkish word ağrı is used for physical pain. Sometimes the loanword has a slightly different meaning from the native Turkish word, giving rise to a situation similar to the coexistence of Germanic and Romance words in English (see List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents). The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form Among some of the old words that were replaced are terms in geometry, cardinal directions, some months' names, and many nouns and adjectives. Geometry ( Greek γεωμετρία; geo = earth metria = measure is a part of Mathematics concerned with questions of size shape and relative position Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are:

For a more comprehensive list, see List of replaced loanwords in Turkish

Geographic distribution

See also: Turkish diaspora

Road sign at the European end of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. This selective list of replaced loanwords in Turkish includes Ottoman Turkish Loanwords ��mostly of Arabic and Persian, but also French The term Turkish diaspora (Türk diyasporası refers to the estimated population of Turkish people in the world migrated outside of Turkey. The Bosphorus Bridge, also called the First Bosphorus Bridge ( Turkish: Boğaziçi Köprüsü or 1 Istanbul (historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see the other Names of Istanbul) is the largest city of Turkey (Photo taken during the 28th Eurasia Marathon in 2006)

Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. The Istanbul Marathon (full name Intercontinental Istanbul Eurasia Marathon Turkish İstanbul Avrasya Maratonu) is an international athletics The Turkish people (Türk Halkı also known as " Turks " ( Türkler) are defined mainly as being speakers of Turkish as a First language The term Turkish diaspora (Türk diyasporası refers to the estimated population of Turkish people in the world migrated outside of Turkey. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), the Republic of Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Cyprus (Κύπρος transliterated: Kýpros,; Kıbrıs officially the Republic of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Area - Demographics The approximate area of Thrace is 8578 km² with a population of 368993 (2006 est The Republic of Macedonia (Република Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country ^[18] More than two million Turkish speakers live in Germany, and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located ^[19] Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic Turkish immigrants speak the language with native fluency. A region or society where several different groups are spontaneously assimilated is sometimes referred to as a Melting pot.

The number of native speakers in Turkey is about 46 million, corresponding to about 90–93 percent of the population. There are roughly another 10 million native speakers worldwide. ^[6][20] Turkish is spoken as a first or second language by almost all of Turkey's residents, with Kurdish making up most of the remainder (about 3,950,000 as estimated in 1980). The Kurdish language (Kurdish Kurdî or کوردی is a term used for the language spoken by Kurds. ^[21] However, even most linguistic minorities in Turkey are bilingual, speaking Turkish as a second language to levels of native fluency.

Official status

Turkish is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches Cyprus (Κύπρος transliterated: Kýpros,; Kıbrıs officially the Republic of Cyprus (Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía It also has official (but not primary) status in the Prizren District of Kosovo and several municipalities of the Republic of Macedonia, depending on the concentration of Turkish-speaking local population. The Prizren District ( Serbian: Призренски округ Prizrenski okrug, Albanian: Distrikti The Republic of Macedonia (Република

In Turkey, the regulatory body for Turkish is the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu or TDK), which was founded in 1932 under the name Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for Research on the Turkish Language"). The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and The Turkish Language Association was influenced by the ideology of linguistic purism: indeed one of its primary tasks was the replacement of loanwords and foreign grammatical constructions with equivalents of Turkish origin. Linguistic purism (or linguistic protectionism) is the definition of one language variety as purer than other varieties often in reference to a perceived decline ^[22] These changes, together with the adoption of the new Turkish alphabet in 1928, shaped the modern Turkish language spoken today. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, TDK became an independent body in 1951, with the lifting of the requirement that it should be presided over by the Minister of Education. This status continued until August 1983, when it was again made into a governmental body in the constitution of 1982, following the military coup d'état of 1980. The current Constitution of Turkey, ratified in 1982 establishes the organization of the government of the Republic of Turkey and sets out the principles and rules of the The September 12 1980 Turkish coup d'état, headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third Coup d'etat in the history of ^[15]

Dialects

Map of Turkey

Istanbul Turkish is established as the official standard language of Turkey. Istanbul (historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see the other Names of Istanbul) is the largest city of Turkey A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that Dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and the Turkish education system since the 1930s. Dialect levelling is the means by which Dialect differences decrease "Popular press" redirects here note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint "The Popular Press" The Turkish Education System was built in accordance with the Atatürk's Reforms after the Turkish War of Independence. ^[23] Academically, researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as ağız or şive, leading to an ambiguity with the linguistic concept of accent, which is also covered with these same words. In Linguistics, an accent is a manner of Pronunciation of a language Projects investigating Turkish dialects are being carried out by several universities, as well as a dedicated work group of the Turkish Language Association. The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and Work is currently in progress for the compilation and publication of their research as a comprehensive dialect atlas of the Turkish language. An atlas is a collection of Maps typically of Earth or a region of Earth but there are atlases of the other planets (and their satellites in the solar system ^[24][25]

The standard dialect of the Turkish language is İstanbul. Rumelice is spoken by immigrants from Rumelia, and includes the distinct dialects of Deliorman, Dinler, and Adakale, which are influenced by the theoretized Balkan linguistic union. Since the 19th century an Exodus by the large portion of Turkish ( Turkic) and Muslim peoples (who are termed " Muhacir " under Rumelia or Rumeli ( Turkish: Rumeli ("Land of the Romans" from Rum: "Greek" "Roman" and El The Ludogorie (Лудогорие usually used with a definite article Лудогорието Ludogorieto) or Deliorman (Делиорман Deliorman all meaning The Balkan Sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of Areal features —similarity in grammar syntax vocabulary and phonology—among languages of Kıbrıs is the name for Cypriot Turkish and is spoken by the Turkish Cypriots. Cypriot Turkish is a Dialect of Turkish spoken by Turkish Cypriots. Turkish Cypriots ( Turkish: Kıbrıs Türkleri or Kıbrıslı Türkler Greek: Τουρκοκύπριοι are the ethnically Turkish inhabitants of the Edirne is the dialect of Edirne. Edirne (anc Hadrianopolis; Greek Adrianople; Slavic/Bulgarian Одрин, see also its other names) is a city in Thrace, the westernmost Ege is spoken in the Aegean region, with its usage extending to Antalya. Etymology In ancient times there were various explanations for the name Aegean. Antalya (formerly known as Adalia; from Pamphylian Greek: Αττάλεια Attália) is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern The nomadic Yörük tribes of the Mediterranean Region of Turkey also have their own dialect of Turkish. The Yörük, also Yürük or Yuruk (yörük Bulgarian юрук, plural юруци) are a Turkish people ultimately of The Mediterranean Region (Akdeniz Bölgesi is one of the seven geographical regions of Turkey. ^[26] This group is not to be confused with the Yuruk nomads of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey who speak Balkan Gagauz Turkish. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Balkan Gagauz Turkish (also known as Balkan Turkic is a Turkic language spoken in European Turkey, Greece, and in the Kumanovo and Bitola areas of

Güneydoğu is spoken in the southeast, to the east of Mersin. This article is about the city of Mersin see Mersin Province, (named İçel province until 2002 for information about the surrounding area Doğu, a dialect in Eastern Anatolia, has a dialect continuum with Azeri, particularly with Karapapak dialects in some areas. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing For the municipality in Azerbaijan see Qarapapaq. The Karapapak (Karapapakh Garapapag Terekeme are a small ethnic group of Turkic-speaking The Central Anatolia region speaks Orta Anadolu. Karadeniz, spoken in the Eastern Black Sea Region and represented primarily by the Trabzon dialect, exhibits substratum influence from Greek in phonology and syntax. Trabzon ( Greek: Τραπεζούντα, Trapezounta) is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of In Contact linguistics, a substratum ( lat sub: under + stratum: layer → lower layer) is a Language Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the ^[27] Kastamonu is spoken in Kastamonu and its surrounding areas. Kastamonu is the capital district of the Kastamonu Province, Turkey. The Hemşinli dialect, known as Hemşince, is spoken by the western group of Hamshenis around Rize, influenced by Armenian. In a small number of villages in the Artvin Province of Turkey a language in addition to Turkish is spoken to which its speakers the Hopa Hemşinli refer to as “Hemşince” in Turkish Rize ( Greek: Riza, რიზე Ռիզե is the capital of Rize Province, in northeast Turkey, on the Black Sea The Armenian language (hy հայերեն լեզու hajɛɹɛn lɛzu —, conventional short form) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian ^[28] Karamanlıca is spoken in Greece, where it is also named Kαραμανλήδικα (Karamanlidika). Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία It is the literary standard for Karamanlides. The Karamanlides ( Greek: Καραμανλήδες; Turkish: Karamanlılar) or simply Karamanlis, are a Greek Orthodox

Sounds

Main article: Turkish phonology

Consonants

The phoneme /ɣ/ (usually referred to as yumuşak g ("soft g")), ğ in Turkish orthography, actually represents a rather weak front-velar or palatal approximant between front vowels. The Phonology of the Turkish language describes the set of sounds and their relationships with one another in spoken Turkish The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into In Phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of Consonantal sound which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both Ğ, or ğ, is a letter known as g- Breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Berber, Crimean The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language It never occurs at the beginning of a word, but always follows a vowel. When word-final or preceding another consonant, it lengthens the preceding vowel. ^[29]

In native Turkic words, the sounds /c/, /ɟ/, and /l/ are in complementary distribution with /k/, /g/, and /ɫ/; the former set occurs adjacent to front vowels and the latter adjacent to back vowels. Complementary distribution in Linguistics is the relationship between two different elements where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is The distribution of these phonemes is often unpredictable, however, in foreign borrowings and proper nouns. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU In such words, /c/, /ɟ/, and /l/ often occur with back vowels:^[30] some examples are given below. Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages.

When a vowel is added to many nouns ending with postvocalic <k>, the <k> becomes <ğ> by consonant alternation. In Linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a Phoneme or Morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization A similar alternation applies to certain loan-words ending in <p> and <t>, which become <b> and <d>, respectively, with the addition of a vowel. ^[31] This is because the final //ɡ//, //d//, and //b// consonants of these words lose their voicing when not followed by a vowel.

Vowels

IPA chart for Turkish vowels

The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, and ü. Undotted <ı> is the close back unrounded vowel [ɯ]. The close back unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents ^[32] There are no diphthongs in Turkish; when two vowels come together, which occurs rarely and only with loanwords, each vowel retains its individual sound. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation However, a slight diphthong can occur when two vowels surround a yumuşak g. For example, the word soğuk ("cold") can be pronounced /soʊk/ (resembling the English soak) by some speakers.

Vowel harmony

For more details on this topic, see Vowel harmony. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages

The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being two-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by two features: front/back and rounded/unrounded. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the Lips during the articulation of a Vowel. Vowel harmony is the principle by which a native Turkish word incorporates either exclusively back vowels (a, ı, o, and u) or exclusively front vowels (e, i, ö, and ü). A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward The pattern of vowels is shown in the table below. ^[33]

Grammatical affixes have "a chameleon-like quality",^[34] and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony:

• twofold (-e/-a):^[35] the locative suffix, for example, is -de after front vowels and -da after back vowels. An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word Chameleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are squamates that belong to one of the best-known Lizard families Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location The notation -de² is a convenient shorthand for this pattern.
• fourfold (-i/-ı/-ü/-u): the genitive suffix, for example, is -in or -ın after unrounded vowels (front or back respectively); and -ün or -un after the corresponding rounded vowels. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another In this case, the shorthand notation -in⁴ is used.

The following examples, based on the copula -dir⁴ ("[it] is"), illustrate the principles of vowel harmony in practice: Türkiye'dir ("it is Turkey"),^[36] kapıdır ("it is the door"), bu gündür ("it is the day"), paltodur ("it is the coat"). This article supplements the general articles on the Copula and Turkish grammar.

There are some exceptions to the rules of vowel harmony. In compound words, the vowels need not harmonize between the constituent words of the compound. In Linguistics, a compound is a Lexeme (less precisely a Word) that consists of more than one stem. Forms like bu+gün ("today") or baş+kent ("capital") are permissible. In addition, vowel harmony does not apply in loanwords and some invariant affixes, such as -yor (present tense) and -bil- (potential). A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Some loanwords do, however, exhibit partial or even complete vowel harmony (e. g. mümkün "possible" < Arabic mumkin; and dürbün "binoculars" < Persian dūrbīn). ^[37] There are also a few native Turkish words that do not follow the rule, such as anne ("mother"). In such words, suffixes harmonize with the final vowel: thus annedir ("she is a mother"). Many loanwords from Arabic and French, however, take front-vowel suffixes after final back vowels: for example halsiz < hal + -siz⁴ "listless", meçhuldür < meçhul + -dir⁴ "it is unknown", harfler < harf + -ler² "(alphabetical) letters" (instead of the expected *halsız, *meçhuldur and *harflar).

The road sign in the photograph above illustrates several of these features:

• a native compound which does not obey vowel harmony: Orta+köy ("middle village"—a place name)
• a loanword also violating vowel harmony: viyadük ("viaduct" < French viaduc)
• the possessive suffix -i⁴ harmonizing with the final vowel (and softening the k by consonant alternation): viyadüğü

Stress

Stress is usually on the last syllable. In Linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a Phoneme or Morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization In Linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain Syllables in a word ^[29] Exceptions include some suffix combinations and loanwords, particularly from Italian and Greek, as well as many proper names. In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Modern Greek (el Νέα Ελληνικά or el Νεοελληνική lit While such loanwords are usually stressed on the penultimate syllable ([ɫoˈkanta] lokanta "restaurant" or [isˈcele] iskele "quay"), the stress of proper names is less predictable ([isˈtanbuɫ] İstanbul, [ˈaŋkaɾa] Ankara).

Grammar

Main article: Turkish grammar

Turkish is an agglutinative language and frequently uses affixes, or endings. This article concerns the Grammar of the Turkish language. A companion to this article is Turkish vocabulary. An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word ^[38] One word can have many affixes and these can also be used to create new words, such as creating a verb from a noun, or a noun from a verbal root (see the section on Word formation). Most affixes indicate the grammatical function of the word. ^[39] The only native prefixes are alliterative intensifying syllables used with adjectives or adverbs: for example sımsıcak ("boiling hot" < sıcak) and masmavi ("bright blue" < mavi). Alliteration is the repetition of the first Consonant sound in a phrase ^[40]

The extensive use of affixes can give rise to long words. It is jokingly said that the longest Turkish word is Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız, meaning "You are said to be one of those that we couldn't manage to convert to a Czechoslovak". This example is of course contrived; but long words do frequently occur in normal Turkish, as in this heading of a newspaper obituary column: Bayramlaşamadıklarımız (Bayram [festival]-Recipr-Impot-Partic-Plur-PossPl1; "Those of our number with whom we cannot exchange the season's greetings"). ^[41]

Nouns

There is no definite article in Turkish, but definiteness of the object is implied when the accusative ending is used (see below). Turkish nouns decline by taking case-endings, as in Latin. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. There are six noun cases in Turkish, with all the endings following vowel harmony (shown in the table using the shorthand superscript notation. In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating The plural marker -ler² immediately follows the noun before any case or other affixes (e. Plural is a Grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the Referent in the real world g. köylerin "of the villages").

The accusative case marker is used only for definite objects; compare ağaç gördük "we saw a tree" with ağacı gördük "we saw the tree". The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Linguistics, ablative case ( abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location ^[42] The plural marker -ler² is not used when a class or category is meant: ağaç gördük can equally well mean "we saw trees [as we walked through the forest]"—as opposed to ağaçları gördük "we saw the trees [in question]".

The declension of ağaç illustrates two important features of Turkish phonology: consonant assimilation in suffixes (ağaçtan, ağaçta) and voicing of final consonants before vowels (ağacın, ağaca, ağacı). Assimilation is a common Phonological process by which the phonetics of a speech segment becomes more like that of another segment in a word (or at a word boundary In Grammar, a suffix (also postfix, ending) is an Affix which is placed at the end of a word Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless

Additionally, nouns can take suffixes that assign person: for example -imiz⁴, "our". Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others With the addition of the copula (for example -im⁴, "I am") complete sentences can be formed. This article supplements the general articles on the Copula and Turkish grammar. The interrogative particle mi⁴ immediately follows the word being questioned: köye mi? "[going] to the village?", ağaç mı? "[is it a] tree?".

The Turkish personal pronouns in the nominative case are ben (1s), sen (2s), o (3s), biz (1pl), siz (2pl, or formal/polite 2s), and onlar (3pl). Personal pronouns are Pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common Nouns. They are declined regularly with some exceptions: benim (1s gen. ); bizim (1pl gen. ); bana (1s dat. ); sana (2s dat. ); and the oblique forms of o use the root on. All other pronouns (reflexive kendi and so on) are declined regularly.

Linking nouns (Tamlama)

Two nouns, or groups of nouns, may be joined in either of two ways:

• definite (possessive) compound (belirtili tamlama). Eg Türkiye'nin sesi "the voice of Turkey (radio station)": the voice belonging to Turkey. Here the relationship is shown by the genitive ending -in⁴ added to the first noun; the second noun has the third-person suffix -(s)i⁴.

• indefinite (qualifying) compound (belirtisiz tamlama). Eg Türkiye Cumhuriyeti "Turkey-Republic^[43] = the Republic of Turkey": not the republic belonging to Turkey, but the Republic that is Turkey. Here the first noun has no ending; but the second noun has the ending -(s)i⁴—the same as in definite compounds.

The following table illustrates these principles. ^[44] In some cases the constituents of the compounds are themselves compounds: these subsidiary compounds are marked with [square brackets].

As the last example shows, the qualifying expression may be a substantival sentence rather than a noun or noun group. A Parvenu is a person that is a relative newcomer to a socioeconomic class ^[48]

Adjectives

Turkish adjectives are not declined. In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating However most adjectives can also be used as nouns, in which case they are declined: e. g. güzel ("beautiful") → güzeller ("(the) beautiful ones / people"). Used attributively, adjectives precede the nouns they modify. The adjectives var ("existent") and yok ("non-existent") are used in many cases where English would use "there is" or "have", e. g. süt yok ("there is no milk", lit. "(the) milk (is) non-existent"); the construction "noun 1-GEN noun 2-POSS var/yok" can be translated "noun 1 has/doesn't have noun 2"; imparatorun elbisesi yok "the emperor has no clothes" ("(the) emperor-of clothes-his non-existent"); kedimin ayakkabıları yoktu ("my cat had no shoes", lit. "cat-my-of shoe-plur. -its non-existent-past tense").

Verbs

See also: Turkish copula

Turkish verbs indicate person. This article supplements the general articles on the Copula and Turkish grammar. Grammatical person, in Linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event such as the speaker the Addressee, or others They can be made negative, potential ("can"), or impotential ("cannot"). Furthermore, Turkish verbs show tense (present, past, inferential, future, and aorist), mood (conditional, imperative, necessitative, and optative), and aspect. Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. The past tense is a Verb tense expressing action activity state or being in the past of the current moment (in an Absolute tense system or prior Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. In Grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet but expected to happen in the future (in an Absolute tense Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. The conditional mood is the form of the verb used in Conditional sentences to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs or an uncertain event that is contingent on another set The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests The optative mood is a Grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state Negation is expressed by the infix -me²- immediately following the stem. An infix is an Affix inserted inside a stem (an existing word

All Turkish verbs are conjugated in the same way, except for the irregular and defective verb i-, the Turkish copula, which can be used in compound forms (the shortened form is called an enclitic): Gelememişti = Gelememiş idi = Gelememiş + i- + -di

Participles

Turkish has several participles, including present (with the ending -en²), future (-ecek²), indirect/inferential past (-miş⁴), and aorist (-er² or -ir⁴). In Linguistics, a defective verb is a Verb with an incomplete conjugation. This article supplements the general articles on the Copula and Turkish grammar. In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite These forms can function as either adjectives or nouns: oynamayan çocuklar "children who do not play", oynamayanlar "those who do not play"; okur yazar "reader-writer = literate", okur yazarlar "literates".

The most important function of participles is to form modifying phrases equivalent to the relative clauses found in most European languages. A relative clause is a Subordinate clause that modifies a Noun. The participles used in these constructions are the future (-ecek²) and an older form (-dik⁴), which covers both present and past meanings. ^[49] The use of these "personal" or "relative" participles is illustrated in the following table, in which the examples are presented according to the grammatical case which would be seen in the equivalent English relative clause. ^[50]

Word order

Word order in simple Turkish sentences is generally Subject Object Verb, as in Korean and Latin, but unlike English. In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States In more complex sentences, the basic rule is that the qualifier precedes the qualified: this principle includes, as an important special case, the participial modifiers discussed above. The definite precedes the indefinite: thus çocuğa hikâyeyi anlattı "she told the child the story", but hikâyeyi bir çocuğa anlattı "she told the story to a child". ^[53]

It is possible to alter the word order to stress the importance of a certain word or phrase. The main rule is that the word before the verb has the stress without exception. For example, if one wants to say "Hakan went to school" with a stress on the word "school" (okul, the indirect object) it would be "Hakan okula gitti". If the stress is to be placed on "Hakan" (the subject), it would be "Okula Hakan gitti" which means "it's Hakan who went to school".

Vocabulary

Main article: Turkish vocabulary

Origin of the words in Turkish vocabulary

The 2005 edition of Güncel Türkçe Sözlük, the official dictionary of the Turkish language published by Turkish Language Association, contains 104,481 entries, of which about 14%are of foreign origin. This article is a companion to Turkish grammar and contains some information that might be considered grammatical The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and ^[54] Among the most significant foreign contributors to Turkish vocabulary are Arabic, French, Persian, Italian, English, and Greek. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly ^[55]

Word formation

Turkish extensively uses agglutination to form new words from nouns and verbal stems. In Linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding Affixes to the base of a Word. In Linguistics, word formation is the creation of a new Word. The majority of Turkish words originate from the application of derivative suffixes to a relatively small set of core vocabulary.

An example set of words derived from a substantive root:

Another example, starting from a verbal root:

New words are also frequently formed by compounding two existing words into a new one, as in German. In Linguistics, a compound is a Lexeme (less precisely a Word) that consists of more than one stem. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. A few examples of compound words are given below:

Writing system

Main article: Turkish alphabet

Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Sinop. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (19 May 1881 &ndash 10 November 1938 was an army officer revolutionary Statesman The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, September 20, 1928. (Cover of the French L'Illustration magazine)

Turkish is written using a modified version of the Latin alphabet introduced in 1928 by Atatürk to replace the Arabic-based Ottoman Turkish alphabet. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (19 May 1881 &ndash 10 November 1938 was an army officer revolutionary Statesman The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ) was the version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the The Ottoman alphabet marked only three different vowels—long ā, ū and ī—and included several redundant consonants, such as variants of z (which were distinguished in Arabic but not in Turkish). The omission of short vowels in the Arabic script was claimed to make it particularly unsuitable for Turkish, which has eight vowels.

The reform of the script was an important step in the cultural reforms of the period. Atatürk's Reforms ( Turkish: Atatürk Devrimleri or Atatürk İnkılapları) were a series of significant political legal cultural social and economic The task of preparing the new alphabet and selecting the necessary modifications for sounds specific to Turkish was entrusted to a Language Commission composed of prominent linguists, academics, and writers. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, The introduction of the new Turkish alphabet was supported by public education centers opened throughout the country, cooperation with publishing companies, and encouragement by Atatürk himself, who toured the country teaching the new letters to the public. ^[56] As a result, there was a dramatic increase in literacy from its original Third World levels. ^[57]

Latin was applied to the Turkish language for educational purposes even before the 20th century reform. Instances include a 1635 Latin-Albanian dictionary by Frang Bardhi, who also incorporated several sayings in the Turkish language, as an appendix to his work (e. Frang Bardhi ( Latin: Franciscus Blancus, Italian: Francesco Bianchi) (1606-1643 was an early Albanian church figure and author g. alma agatsdan irak duschamas^[58] – 'An apple does not fall far from its tree').

Turkish now has an alphabet suited to the sounds of the language: the spelling is largely phonetic, with one letter corresponding to each phoneme. A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Most of the letters are used approximately as in English, the main exceptions being <c>, which denotes [dʒ] (<j> being used for the [ʒ] found in Persian and European loans); and the undotted <ı>, representing [ɯ]. As in German, <ö> and <ü> represent [œ] and [y]. The letter <ğ>, in principle, denotes [ɣ] but has the property of lengthening the preceding vowel and assimilating any subsequent vowel. The letters <ş> and <ç> represent [ʃ] and [tʃ], respectively. A circumflex is written over back vowels following <k>, <g>, or <l> when these consonants represent [c], [ɟ], and [l]—almost exclusively in Arabic and Persian loans. Pitch The circumflex accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred (subject to certain rules on the accented syllable A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation ^[59] An apostrophe is used to separate proper nouns from any suffixes: eg İstanbul'da 'in Istanbul'.

The specifically Turkish letters and spellings described above are illustrated in this table:

Sample

Dostlar Beni Hatırlasın by Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu (1894–1973), a minstrel and highly regarded poet in the Turkish folk literature tradition. Cağaloğlu is a neighbourhood ( semt) of Istanbul within the borough of Eminönü. Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu ( October 25, 1894 – March 21, 1973) also known as just Aşık Veysel minstrel was a medieval European Bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events Turkish folk literature is an Oral tradition deeply rooted in its form in Central Asian nomadic traditions

See also

• Turkish alphabet
• Turkish Sign Language
• Turkish literature
• Turkish folk literature
• List of replaced loanwords in Turkish
• List of English words of Turkic origin
• Turkish exonyms

Notes

Details of the sources cited only by the author's name are given in full in the References section. The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters a certain number of which ( Ç, Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili TİD is the language used by the Deaf community in Turkey. Turkish literature (Türk edebiyatı or Türk yazını is the collection of written and oral texts composed in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman Turkish folk literature is an Oral tradition deeply rooted in its form in Central Asian nomadic traditions This selective list of replaced loanwords in Turkish includes Ottoman Turkish Loanwords ��mostly of Arabic and Persian, but also French This is a list of words that have entered into the English language from the Turkic languages. Below is a list of Turkish language exonyms for places outside of Turkey.

References

External links

• Turkish Phrases with Video
• Turkish Talking Dictionary
• Sesli Sözlük, online Turkish, Ottoman, English, Spanish, German, French, Italian dictionary with vocabulary translation pronunciations and idioms
• LangToLang Turkish-to-many Dictionary
• BBC Turkish, including online Turkish radio service
• Sözlerin Soyağacı: Online Turkish etymological dictionary
• 250.000 Pretranslated English-Turkish Sentences

Linguistics

• Turkish language at Ethnologue
• Turkish language at the Rosetta Project archive
• Turkish language at Language Museum

Learning resources

• Turkish Language: Resources - University of Michigan
• Turkish lessons at the University of Arizona
• Turkish Language Class free online Turkish course
• United States Foreign Service Institute free online Turkish Basic Course
• LearningTurkish.org
• Online Turkish
• The Site of Education Turkish Language
• Turkish Language Resources

Turkish editions of Wikimedia projects

• VikiKaynak, Turkish Wikisource
• Vikisöz, Turkish Wikiquote
• Vikisözlük, Turkish Wiktionary