Turkish Language

The Turkish language (Türkçe) is an ancient Turkic language in the Oghuz branch. Historically, some linguistic models grouped Turkish with the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages, which originated in Central Asia and included Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus. However, modern linguistics considers Turkic a separate language family. The majority of Turkish speakers live in Turkey and Cyprus, although the language is spoken in many countries worldwide.

The Turkish language has undergone many transformations through the years. Several variations of it exist that differ in form and dialect. At one time, Turkish included many Arabic and Persian elements. Many of these influences were removed from the language in the twentieth century, and the Ottoman Turkish script formerly used in the written version was replaced with the Latin alphabet in 1928, making it the only Middle Eastern language to use the Latin script.

History and Classification

Turkic languages differ in several ways from the Indo-European language family, which includes most of the major languages of Europe and Asia. Turkic languages use vowel harmony and agglutinative morphology, with complex words formed by combining smaller grammatical segments that express a single definite meaning. The languages do not use grammatical gender. The sentence structure differs from Indo-European in that adjectives come before nouns, and verbs are placed at the end of sentences. The language also omits articles (a, an, the).

Written examples of Turkish date back to stone monuments found in the Orhon, Yenisey, and Talas regions of Central Asia. The monuments were erected in the eighth century CE to honor several leaders of the Göktürk Dynasty. In the ensuing centuries, as the Turks abandoned spiritual shamanistic religions and turned to Buddhism and Brahmanism, they began translating many religious and philosophical works into Turkish. These writings and the inscriptions discovered on the monuments were known as Old Turkish.

Over time, Old Turkish fell out of favor as the language developed and changed. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, it became known as Old Anatolian Turkish, or Old Ottoman Turkish. During this time, scholars began composing a number of literary works and poems in Turkish. When Islam became prominent among the Turks, Arabic and Persian influences entered the language. These influences were prominent in many writings, as authors composed works geared toward teaching Turkish to Arabs. One of these language books was the eleventh-century Turkish dictionary Divini Turki.

In the centuries that followed, Turkish became widely accepted and was eventually made the official language of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth century. Sultan Orhan released the first official state document in Turkish during his rule from 1327 to 1359. Many authors continued to publish literary works in Turkish. The first Turkish grammar book by Kadri Efendi, Müyessiretül-Ulum, was printed around 1530.

Works in the fields of astronomy, botany, Islamic studies, mathematics, and medicine were translated into Turkish. These translations introduced foreign scientific terms—many of them Arabic and Persian—into the written language. This practice of combining Turkish and foreign words continued to be used in poetry and other literary works during the next few centuries. These foreign terms were often used more than Turkish words, and other Turkish terms were replaced by Arabic and Persian in written texts. The royal court and societal elite began to value works in the Arabic and Persian languages more than Turkish, prompting the royal court to adopt a version of spoken Turkish that incorporated many Arabic and Persian elements. This resulted in two different forms of the Turkish language. Ottoman Turkish was heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian and was used by the royal court and in science and literature. The other form used more traditional Turkish elements and was spoken by the common people.

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, foreign influences on Turkish continued, forcing many Turkish words into obscurity. In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire undertook a series of reforms to modernize the realm. This movement inspired the Turkish community to reclaim their language and begin eliminating many foreign words.

The Turks continued to work on the "Turkification" of their language into the twentieth century. In 1932, the Turkish Language Association (also called the Turkish Linguistic Association) was established to regulate the language. It worked to remove foreign loanwords and replace them with authentic Turkish. Many Old Turkish words were revived, while other new terms were created. Prior to this effort, the Turkish language only contained about 40 percent original Turkish words. Through continued modification by the Turkish Language Association, the Turkish language spoken in the twenty-first century uses about 80 percent authentic Turkish words.

A number of English words have also been incorporated into the Turkish language to accommodate modern technological and scientific advances.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

Around 90 million people worldwide speak Turkish. It is the official language of Turkey and one of the official languages of Cyprus. The language is also spoken by people in other nations, including Albania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Serbia, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and by immigrants throughout the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.

Turkish is the most common of the Turkic languages, the official version of which is Istanbul Turkish. However, many variants of the language exist worldwide.

Bibliography

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"A Brief History of Turkic Languages." Turkish Cultural Foundation, www.turkishculture.org/literature/language-124.htm. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.

"Cyprus." CIA World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 17 Sept. 2025, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/cyprus. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.

Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More than 400 Languages. Columbia UP, 2004.

Munteanu, Otilia. "The Inspiring Evolution of the Turkish Language." PoliLingua, 15 May 2024, www.polilingua.com/blog/post/turkish-language-overview-origin-unique-features.htm. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.

"Turkish Language." Effective Language Learning, www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/turkish-language. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.

"Turkish (Türkçe)." Omniglot, 23 July 2025, www.omniglot.com/writing/turkish.htm. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025.