Turkish is a Turkic language spoken mainly in Turkey, Northern Cyprus and Cyprus. In 2017 there were 71 million native speakers of Turkish, and about 17 million second language speakers. Turkish is an official language in Turkey, Northern Cyprus and Cyprus, and there are also Turkish speakers in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia.
Turkish is a member of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. It is closely related to Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish, and the is considerable mutual intelligibility between these languages.
The ancestor of modern Turkish, Oghuz, was bought to Anatolia from Central Asia during the 11th century AD by Seljuq Turks. This developed into Ottoman Turkish, and contained many loanwords from Arabic and Persian.
Until 1928 Turkish was written with a version of the Perso-Arabic script known as the Ottoman Turkish script. In 1928, as part of his efforts to modernise Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk issued a decree replacing the Arabic script with a version of the Latin alphabet, which has been used ever since. Arabic and Persian loanwords were also replaced with Turkish equivalents. Nowadays, only scholars and those who learnt to read before 1928 can read Turkish written in the Ottoman Turkish script.
â, î and û are used to distinguish words that word otherwise have the same spelling; to indiciate palatalization of a preceding consonant, e.g. kar /kar/ (snow), kâr /k?ar/ (profit); and also to indicate long vowels in loanwords, especially those from Arabic. g = [gj] and k = [kj] before (and sometimes after) e, i, ö and ü. l = [?], before (and sometimes after) e, i, ö and ü, and after back vowels at the ends of words h = [?] before consonants and at the end of words The letters Q (qu), X (iks) and W (we) are not included in the official Turkish alphabet, but are used in foreign names and loanwords.
Turkish is a member of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. It is closely related to Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish, and the is considerable mutual intelligibility between these languages.
The ancestor of modern Turkish, Oghuz, was bought to Anatolia from Central Asia during the 11th century AD by Seljuq Turks. This developed into Ottoman Turkish, and contained many loanwords from Arabic and Persian.
Until 1928 Turkish was written with a version of the Perso-Arabic script known as the Ottoman Turkish script. In 1928, as part of his efforts to modernise Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk issued a decree replacing the Arabic script with a version of the Latin alphabet, which has been used ever since. Arabic and Persian loanwords were also replaced with Turkish equivalents. Nowadays, only scholars and those who learnt to read before 1928 can read Turkish written in the Ottoman Turkish script.
â, î and û are used to distinguish words that word otherwise have the same spelling; to indiciate palatalization of a preceding consonant, e.g. kar /kar/ (snow), kâr /k?ar/ (profit); and also to indicate long vowels in loanwords, especially those from Arabic.
g = [gj] and k = [kj] before (and sometimes after) e, i, ö and ü.
l = [?], before (and sometimes after) e, i, ö and ü, and after back vowels at the ends of words
h = [?] before consonants and at the end of words
The letters Q (qu), X (iks) and W (we) are not included in the official Turkish alphabet, but are used in foreign names and loanwords.