Turkic languages

This article is about the language family. For the journal, see Turkic Languages (journal).
Not to be confused with Trukic languages or Turkish language.

Turkic
Geographic
distribution		Eurasia
EthnicityTurkic peoples
Native speakers
c. 200 million (2020)[1]
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families
Proto-languageProto-Turkic
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-5trk
Glottologturk1311
The distribution of the Turkic languages

The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35[2] documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken,[3] from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium.[4] They are characterized as a dialect continuum.[5]

Turkic languages are spoken by some 200 million people.[1] The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans; its native speakers account for about 38% of all Turkic speakers, followed by Uzbek.[4]

Characteristic features such as vowel harmony, agglutination, subject-object-verb order, and lack of grammatical gender, are almost universal within the Turkic family.[4] There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility, upon moderate exposure, among the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Chaharmahali Turkic, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish, as well as Oghuz-influenced Crimean Tatar.[6] Other Turkic languages demonstrate varying amounts of mutual intelligibility within their subgroups as well. Although methods of classification vary, the Turkic languages are usually considered to be divided into two branches: Oghur, of which the only surviving member is Chuvash, and Common Turkic, which includes all other Turkic languages.

Turkic languages show many similarities with the Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages. These similarities have led some linguists (including Talât Tekin) to propose an Altaic language family, though this proposal is widely rejected by historical linguists.[7][8] Similarities with the Uralic languages even caused these families to be regarded as one for a long time under the Ural-Altaic hypothesis.[9][10][11] However, there has not been sufficient evidence to conclude the existence of either of these macrofamilies. The shared characteristics between the languages are attributed presently to extensive prehistoric language contact.

  1. ^ a b Rybatzki, Volker (2020). "Altaic Languages: Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic". In Martine Robbeets; Alexander Savelyev (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 22–28. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198804628.003.0003.
  2. ^ Dybo A.V. (2007). "ХРОНОЛОГИЯ ТЮРКСКИХ ЯЗЫКОВ И ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЕ КОНТАКТЫ РАННИХ ТЮРКОВ" [Chronology of Turkish Languages and Linguistic Contacts of Early Turks] (PDF) (in Russian). p. 766. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 March 2005. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  3. ^ Janhunen, Juha (2013). "Personal pronouns in Core Altaic". In Martine Irma Robbeets; Hubert Cuyckens (eds.). Shared Grammaticalization: With Special Focus on the Transeurasian Languages. John Benjamins. p. 223. ISBN 9789027205995. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
  4. ^ a b c Katzner, Kenneth (March 2002). Languages of the World, Third Edition. Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0-415-25004-7.
  5. ^ Grenoble, L.A. (2003). Language Policy in the Soviet Union. Springer. p. 10. ISBN 9781402012983.
  6. ^ "Language Materials Project: Turkish". UCLA International Institute, Center for World Languages. February 2007. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2007.
  7. ^ Vovin, Alexander (2005). "The end of the Altaic controversy: In memory of Gerhard Doerfer". Central Asiatic Journal. 49 (1): 71–132. JSTOR 41928378.
  8. ^ Georg, Stefan; Michalove, Peter A.; Ramer, Alexis Manaster; Sidwell, Paul J. (1999). "Telling general linguists about Altaic". Journal of Linguistics. 35 (1): 65–98. doi:10.1017/S0022226798007312. JSTOR 4176504. S2CID 144613877.
  9. ^ Sinor, 1988, p.710
  10. ^ George van DRIEM: Handbuch der Orientalistik. Volume 1 Part 10. BRILL 2001. Page 336
  11. ^ M. A. Castrén, Nordische Reisen und Forschungen. V, St.-Petersburg, 1849