Turkic languages
The
Turkic languages constitute a
language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from
Eastern Europe to
Siberia and Western
China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. The Turkic languages are traditionally considered to be part of the
Altaic language family.
The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Anatolian
Turkish, or Turkish proper.
The Turkic language family exhibits
vowel harmony, and is typologically characterised by
agglutination by means of suffixes, and a
Subject Object Verb sentence order.
For centuries, the Turkic speaking peoples have migrated extensively and intermingled continuously, and their languages have been influenced mutually and through contact with the surrounding languages, especially the
Iranian,
Slavic, and
Mongolic languages. This has obscured the historical developments within each language and/or language group, and as a result, there exist several systems to classify the Turkic languages. The genetic classification of the Turkic languages commonly followed today is the one by
Samoilovich (mainly based on the development of *d). However, there are many details for which debate is still ongoing.
|
Geographical distribution of Turkic languages across Eurasia |
*
West Turkic**
Bolgar group***
Chuvash***
Khazar (extinct)
***
Bolgar (extinct)
**
Oghuz (Southwestern) group***
Turkish***
Afshar***
Azeri***
Turkmen***
Crimean Tatar ¹
***
Urum ¹
***
Qashqai***
Khorasani Turkish***
Salar***
Gagauz***
Pecheneg (extinct)
***
Ottoman Turkish (extinct)
**
Kypchak (Northwestern) group*** Kypchak-Bolgar languages
****
Tatar****
Bashkir****
Baraba*** Kypchak-Cuman (Kypchak-Oghuz, Ponto-Caspian) languages
****
Crimean Tatar ¹
****
Urum ¹
****
Karachay-Balkar****
Kumyk****
Karaim****
Krymchak****
Cuman (extinct)
****
Kipchak (extinct)
*** Kypchak-Nogay languages
****
Kazakh****
Karakalpak****
Nogay**
Chagatay (Southeastern, Karluk) group***
Uzbek***
Uyghur****
Aini ³
***
Lop***
Chagatay (extinct)
*
East Turkic**
Kyrgyz-Kypchak group***
Kyrgyz***
Altay**
Uyghur (Northeastern) group***
Yakut***
Tuvan***
Khakas***
Shor***
Fuyü Gïrgïs***
Chulym***
Tofa***
Dolgan***
Western Yugur (Yellow Uyghur)
***
Northern Altay**
Khalaj***
Khalaj ²
(1) - Crimean Tatar and Urum languages are related to both Kypchak and Oghuz Turkic.
(2) - Khalaj is surrounded by Oghuz languages, but exhibits a number of features that classify it as non-Oghuz.
(3) - Aini is a mixed language with Uyghur grammar and
Persian vocabulary, and is spoken exclusively by adult men, almost as a
cryptolect.
Geographically and linguistically, the languages of Southwestern, Northwestern, and Southeastern subgroup belong to the central Turkic languages, while the Northeastern, Khalaj language is the so-called peripheral language.
Various elements from the Turkic languages have passed into
Hungarian,
Persian,
Russian, and to a lesser extent,
Arabic.
*
Orkhon script*
Turkic peoples*
Historical linguistics*
Language families and languages*
Map of Turkic languages*
Classification of Turkic Languages*
Online Uyghur-English Dictionary*
Dmoz.org/../Languages/Altaic/Turkic/*
Türk Dili* Johanson, L. & Csató, E. Á. (eds.) 1998. The Turkic Languages. Routledge: London. ISBN 0415082005.
* Deny J. et al. 1959. Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta. Wiesbaden.
* Schönig, C. 1997/1998. A new attempt to classify the Turkic languages (1-3). Turkic Languages 1/2.
* Clauson, G. 1972. An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-thirteenth-century Turkish. Oxford.
