Turkic languages

The Turkic languages are a group of related languages that are spoken by a variety of people distributed across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with estimated 100-130 million native speakers. The Turkic languages are considered by some linguists to be part of the Altaic language family.

Related Topics:
Eastern Europe - Siberia - China - Linguist - Altaic language family

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The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish.

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Turkic languages are agglutinative and exhibit phonological vowel harmony.

Related Topics:
Agglutinative - Vowel harmony

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Though various different Turkic tribes and their languages have mixed with each other throughout centuries, making a classification extremely difficult, a very simplified classification could be as follows:

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• Southwestern languages:
• Oghuz group:
• Turkish Turkish, Gagauz,Khorasan Turkic
• Azerbaijani Azerbaijani, Seljuk, Qashqai, Khalaj
• Turkmen Turkmen
• unclassified Crimean Turkish of Central Asia, Urum, Salar (also classified as Uighur-Chagatai)
• Northwestern languages: (or Kypchak group)
• Aralo-Caspian: Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Karakalpak, Nogai
• Ponto-Caspian: Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Karaim, Krymchak (Judeo-Crimean Tatar), Pecheneg (extinct), Cuman (extinct)
• Uralian: Tatar, {{ll|Baraba}}, Bashkir, Chulym
• Northern languages:
• Siberian group: Altai, {{ll|Northern Altai}}, Khakas, Shor, Tuvin, Yakut, {{ll|Dolgan}}
• Eastern languages:
• Uighur-Chagatai (or Karluk) group: Uzbek, Uighur, Salar (also classified as Southwestern), Chagatai (extinct)
• Oghuric (or Hunnic) languages (or so-called "Lir Turkic"; sometimes considered to be a separate Altaic subfamily)
• Proto-Bulgar
• Chuvash, Bolgar (extinct and the inclusion of Bolgar in the Turkic language group is disputed),
• Khazar (extinct)

Various elements have passed to Turkic languages especially from Chinese, Persian, Russian and Arabic languages, and various elements from Turkic languages have been carried as far as the northernmost territories of Russia, and possibly even to North America. However, it is likely that the Arctic peoples (other than the Dolgans and the Yakuts), although maybe still belonging to a greater Altaic supragroup, actually form a different linguistic group distinct from the Turkic languages. Compare this to the Koreans or Japanese peoples, for instance.

Related Topics:
Chinese - Persian - Russian - Arabic languages - Koreans - Japanese

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Turkic languages: See also ►