Turkic languages

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EthnicityTurkic peoples
Eastern Europe
West Asia
Central Asia
North Asia (Siberia)
East Asia (Far East)
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families
ISO 639-5trk
  Southwestern (Oghuz)
  Southeastern (Karluk)
  Northwestern (Kipchak)
  Northeastern (Siberian)

The Turkic languages are a language family of at least thirty-five[2] documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and West Asia all the way to North Asia (particularly in Siberia) and East Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning Western China to Mongolia, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, according to one estimate, around 2,500 years ago,[3] from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium.[4]

Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by some 170 million people, and the total number of Turkic speakers, including second language speakers, is over 200 million.[5][6][7] The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans; its native speakers account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.[4]

Characteristic features such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family.[4] There is also a high degree of mutual intelligibility among the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish, and Oghuz-influenced Crimean Tatar.[8] Although methods of classification vary, the Turkic languages are usually considered to be divided equally into two branches: Oghur, the only surviving member of which is Chuvash, and Common Turkic, which includes all other Turkic languages including the Oghuz subbranch.

Turkic languages show some similarities with the Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages. These similarities led some linguists to propose an Altaic language family, though this proposal is widely rejected by historical linguists.[9][10] Apparent similarities with the Uralic languages even caused these families to be regarded as one for a long time under the Ural-Altaic hypothesis.[11][12][13] However, there has not been sufficient evidence to conclude the existence of either of these macrofamilies, the shared characteristics between the languages being attributed presently to extensive prehistoric language contact.


Turkic languages are null-subject languages, have vowel harmony, extensive agglutination by means of suffixes and postpositions, and lack of grammatical articles, noun classes, and grammatical gender. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family. The root of a word is basically of one, two or three consonants.



The homeland of the Turkic peoples and their language is suggested to be somewhere between the Transcaspian steppe and Northeastern Asia (Manchuria)[14], with genetic evidence pointing to the region near South Siberia and Mongolia as the "Inner Asian Homeland" of the Turkic ethnicity.[15] Similarly several linguists, including Juha Janhunen, Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, suggest that Mongolia is the homeland of the early Turkic language.[16]

Extensive contact took place between Proto-Turks and Proto-Mongols approximately during the first millennium BC; the shared cultural tradition between the two Eurasian nomadic groups is called the "Turco-Mongol" tradition. The two groups shared a similar religion-system, Tengrism, and there exists a multitude of evident loanwords between Turkic languages and Mongolic languages. Although the loans were bidirectional, today Turkic loanwords constitute the largest foreign component in Mongolian vocabulary.[17] The most famous[citation needed] of these loanwords include "lion" (Turkish: aslan or arslan; Mongolian: arslan), "gold" (Turkish: altın; Mongolian: altan or alt), and "iron" (Turkish: demir; Mongolian: tömör).

Some lexical and extensive typological similarities between Turkic and the nearby Tungusic and Mongolic families, as well as the Korean and Japonic families (all formerly widely considered to be part of the so-called Altaic language family) has in more recent years been instead attributed to prehistoric contact amongst the group, sometimes referred to as the Northeast Asian sprachbund. A more recent (circa first millennium BCE) contact between "core Altaic" (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic) is distinguished from this, due to the existence of definitive common words that appear to have been mostly borrowed from Turkic into Mongolic, and later from Mongolic into Tungusic, as Turkic borrowings into Mongolic significantly outnumber Mongolic borrowings into Turkic, and Turkic and Tungusic do not share any words that do not also exist in Mongolic.

Alexander Vovin (2004, 2010)[18][19] notes that Old Turkic had borrowed some words from the Ruan-ruan language (the language of the Rouran Khaganate), which Vovin considers to be an extinct non-Altaic language that is possibly a Yeniseian language or not related to any modern-day language.

Turkic languages also show some Chinese loanwords that point to early contact during the time of proto-Turkic.[20]

Robbeets (et al. 2015 and et al. 2017) suggest that the homeland of the Turkic languages was somewhere in Manchuria, close to the Mongolic, Tungusic and Koreanic homeland (including the ancestor of Japonic), and that these languages share a common "Transeurasian" origin.[21]

Early written records[edit]

The first established records of the Turkic languages are the eighth century AD Orkhon inscriptions by the Göktürks, recording the Old Turkic language, which were discovered in 1889 in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia. The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Divânü Lügati't-Türk), written during the 11th century AD by Kaşgarlı Mahmud of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, constitutes an early linguistic treatment of the family. The Compendium is the first comprehensive dictionary of the Turkic languages and also includes the first known map of the Turkic speakers' geographical distribution. It mainly pertains to the Southwestern branch of the family.[22]

The Codex Cumanicus (12th–13th centuries AD) concerning the Northwestern branch is another early linguistic manual, between the Kipchak language and Latin, used by the Catholic missionaries sent to the Western Cumans inhabiting a region corresponding to present-day Hungary and Romania. The earliest records of the language spoken by Volga Bulgars, the parent to today's Chuvash language, are dated to the 13th–14th centuries AD.

Geographical expansion and development[edit]

With the Turkic expansion during the Early Middle Ages (c. 6th–11th centuries AD), Turkic languages, in the course of just a few centuries, spread across Central Asia, from Siberia to the Mediterranean. Various terminologies from the Turkic languages have passed into Persian, Hindustani, Russian, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Arabic.[23][verification needed]

The geographical distribution of Turkic-speaking peoples across Eurasia since the Ottoman era ranges from the North-East of Siberia to Turkey in the West.[24] (See picture in the box on the right above.)


Relative numbers of speakers of Turkic languages

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.[25]

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 modern genetic classification schemes for Turkic are still largely indebted to Samoilovich (1922).[citation needed]

The Turkic languages may be divided into six branches:[26]

In this classification, Oghur Turkic is also referred to as Lir-Turkic, and the other branches are subsumed under the title of Shaz-Turkic or Common Turkic. It is not clear when these two major types of Turkic can be assumed to have actually diverged.[27]

With less certainty, the Southwestern, Northwestern, Southeastern and Oghur groups may further be summarized as West Turkic, the Northeastern, Kyrgyz-Kipchak and Arghu (Khalaj) groups as East Turkic.[28]

Geographically and linguistically, the languages of the Northwestern and Southeastern subgroups belong to the central Turkic languages, while the Northeastern and Khalaj languages are the so-called peripheral languages.

Hruschka, et al. (2014)[29] use computational phylogenetic methods to calculate a tree of Turkic based on phonological sound changes.


The following isoglosses are traditionally used in the classification of the Turkic languages:[30][26]

  • Rhotacism (or in some views, zetacism), e.g. in the last consonant of the word for "nine" *tokkuz. This separates the Oghur branch, which exhibits /r/, from the rest of Turkic, which exhibits /z/. In this case, rhotacism refers to the development of *-/r/, *-/z/, and *-/d/ to /r/,*-/k/,*-/kh/ in this branch.[31] See Antonov and Jacques (2012) [32] on the debate concerning rhotacism and lambdacism in Turkic.
  • Intervocalic *d, e.g. the second consonant in the word for "foot" *hadaq
  • Word-final -G, e.g. in the word for "mountain" *tāg
  • Suffix-final -G, e.g. in the suffix *lIG, in e.g. *tāglïg

Additional isoglosses include:

  • Preservation of word initial *h, e.g. in the word for "foot" *hadaq. This separates Khalaj as a peripheral language.
  • Denasalisation of palatal *ń, e.g. in the word for "moon", *āń
isogloss Old Turkic Turkish Azerbaijani Qashqai Uzbek Uyghur Tatar Kazakh Kyrgyz Altay Western Yugur Fu-yü Gyrgys Khakas Tuvan Sakha/Yakut Khalaj Chuvash
z/r (nine) toquz dokuz doqquz doqquz toʻqqiz toqquz tuɣïz toǵyz toɣuz toɣus dohghus doɣus toɣïs tos toɣus toqquz tăχăr
*h- (foot) adaq ayak ayaq ayaq oyoq ayaq ayaq aıaq ayaq ayaq azaq azïχ azaχ adaq ataχ hadaq ura
*VdV (foot) adaq ayak ayaq ayaq oyoq ayaq ayaq aıaq ayaq ayaq azaq azïχ azaχ adaq ataχ hadaq ura
*-ɣ (mountain) tāɣ dağ* dağ daɣ togʻ tagh taw taý taɣ daχ taɣ daɣ tıa tāɣ tu
suffix *-lïɣ (mountainous) tāɣlïɣ dağlı dağlı daɣlïɣ togʻlik taghliq tawlï taýly tōlū tūlu taɣliɣ daɣluɣ

*In the standard Istanbul dialect of Turkish, the ğ in dağ and dağlı is not realized as a consonant, but as a slight lengthening of the preceding vowel.


The following table is based upon the classification scheme presented by Lars Johanson (1998)[33]

Proto-Turkic Common Turkic Southwestern Common Turkic (Oghuz)


West Oghuz
East Oghuz
South Oghuz
Northwestern Common Turkic (Kipchak)

Map-Kypchak Language World.png

West Kipchak
North Kipchak (Volga–Ural Turkic)
South Kipchak (Aralo-Caspian)
Southeastern Common Turkic (Karluk)

Lenguas karluk.png

Northeastern Common Turkic (Siberian) North Siberian
South Siberian Sayan Turkic
Yenisei Turkic
Chulym Turkic
Altai Turkic[36]
  • Altay Oirot and dialects such as Tuba, Qumanda, Qu, Teleut, Telengit


Vocabulary comparison[edit]

The following is a brief comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across the Turkic language family (about 60 words).

Empty cells do not necessarily imply that a particular language is lacking a word to describe the concept, but rather that the word for the concept in that language may be formed from another stem and is not a cognate with the other words in the row or that a loanword is used in its place.

Also, there may be shifts in the meaning from one language to another, and so the "Common meaning" given is only approximate. In some cases the form given is found only in some dialects of the language, or a loanword is much more common (e.g. in Turkish, the preferred word for "fire" is the Persian-derived ateş, whereas the native od is dead). Forms are given in native Latin orthographies unless otherwise noted.

Common meaning Proto-Turkic Old Turkic Turkish Azerbaijani Qashqai Turkmen Tatar Bashkir Kazakh Kyrgyz Uzbek Uyghur Sakha/Yakut Chuvash
- father, ancestor *ata, *kaŋ ata, apa, qaŋ baba, ata baba, ata bowa/ata ata ata, atay ata, atay ata ata ota ata ağa atte, aśu, aşşe
mother *ana, *ög ana, ög ana, anne ana ana/nänä ene ana, äni ana, inä(y)/asay ana ene ona ana iye anne, annü, amăşĕ
son *ogul oɣul oğul oğul oğul ogul ul ul ul uul oʻgʻil oghul uol ıvăl, ul
man *ēr, *érkek er erkek ər/erkək kiši erkek ir ir, irkäk er, erkek erkek erkak er er ar/arşın
girl *kï̄ŕ qïz kız qız qïz/qez gyz qız qıð qyz kız qiz qiz kııs hĕr
person *kiĺi, *yạlaŋuk kiši, yalaŋuq kişi kişi kişi keşe keşe kisi kişi kishi kishi kihi şın
bride *gélin kelin gelin gəlin gälin gelin kilen kilen kelin kelin kelin kelin kiyiit kin
mother-in-law kaynana qaynana qäynänä gaýyn ene qayın ana qäynä qaıyn ene kaynene qaynona qeyinana huńama
Body parts heart *yürek yürek yürek ürək iräg/üräg ýürek yöräk yöräk júrek jürök yurak yürek sürex çĕre
blood *kiān qan kan qan qan gan qan qan qan kan qon qan xaan yun
head *baĺč baš baş baş baš baş baş baş bas baş bosh bash bas puś/poś
hair *s(i)ač, *kïl sač, qïl saç, kıl saç, qıl tik/qel saç, gyl çäç, qıl säs, qıl shash, qyl çaç, kıl soch, qil sach, qil battax, kıl śüś, hul
eye *göŕ köz göz göz gez/göz köz küz küð kóz köz koʻz köz xarax, kös kuś/koś
eyelash *kirpik kirpik kirpik kirpik kirpig kirpik kerfek kerpek kirpik kirpik kiprik kirpik kılaman, kirbii hărpăk
ear *kulkak qulqaq kulak qulaq qulaq gulak qolaq qolaq qulaq kulak quloq qulaq kulgaax hălha
nose *burun burun burun burun burn burun borın moron muryn murun burun burun murun, munnu
arm *kol qol kol qol qol gol qul qul qol kol qoʻl qol хol hul
hand *el-ig elig el əl äl el alaqan alakan ilik ilii ală
finger *erŋek, *biarŋak erŋek parmak barmaq burmaq barmaq barmaq barmaq barmaq barmak barmoq barmaq tarbaq pürne/porńa
fingernail *dïrŋak tïrŋaq tırnak dırnaq dïrnaq dyrnak tırnaq tırnaq tyrnaq tırmak tirnoq tirnaq tıngıraq çĕrne
knee *dīŕ, *dǖŕ tiz diz diz diz dyz tez teð tize tize tizza tiz tobuk çĕrśi, çerkuśśi
calf *baltïr baltïr baldır baldır ballïr baldyr baltır baltır baltyr baltır boldir baldir ballır pıl
foot *(h)adak adaq ayak ayaq ayaq aýak ayaq ayaq aıaq ayak oyoq ayaq ataq ura
belly *kạrïn qarïn karın qarın qarn garyn qarın qarın qaryn karın qorin qerin xarın hırăm
Animals horse *(h)at at at at at at at at at at ot at at ut/ot
cattle *dabar ingek, tabar inek, davar, sığır inək, sığır seğer sygyr sıyır hıyır sıyr sıyır sigir siyir ınax ĕne
dog *ït, *köpek ït it, köpek it kepäg it et et ıt it it it ıt yıtă
fish *bālïk balïq balık balıq balïq balyk balıq balıq balyq balık baliq beliq balık pulă
louse *bït bit bit bit bit bit bet bet bıt bit bit bit bıt pıytă/puťă
Other nouns house *eb, *bark eb, barq ev, bark ev äv öý öy öy úı üy uy öy śurt
tent *otag, *gerekü otaɣ, kerekü çadır, otağ çadır; otaq čador çadyr; otag çatır satır shatyr; otaý çatır chodir; oʻtoq chadir; otaq otuu çatăr
way *yōl yol yol yol yol ýol yul yul jol jol yoʻl yol suol śul
bridge *köprüg köprüg köprü körpü köpri küper küper kópir köpürö koʻprik kövrük kürpe kĕper
arrow *ok oq ok ox ox/tir ok uq uq oq ok oʻq oq ox uhă
fire *ōt ōt od, ateş (Pers.) od ot ot ut ut ot ot oʻt ot uot vut/vot
ash *kül kül kül kül kil/kül kül köl köl kúl kül kul kül kül kĕl
water *sub, *sïb sub su su su suw su hıw suu suv su uu şıv/şu
ship, boat *gḗmi kemi gemi gəmi gämi köymä kämä keme keme kema keme kimĕ
lake *kȫl köl göl göl göl/gel köl kül kül kól köl koʻl köl küöl külĕ
sun/day *gün, *güneĺ kün güneş, gün günəş, gün gin/gün gün qoyaş, kön qoyaş, kön kún kün quyosh, kun quyash, kün kün hĕvel, kun
cloud *bulït bulut bulut bulud bulut bulut bolıt bolot bult bulut bulut bulut bılıt pĕlĕt
star *yultuŕ yultuz yıldız ulduz ulluz ýyldyz yoldız yondoð juldyz jıldız yulduz yultuz sulus śăltăr
ground, earth *toprak topraq toprak torpaq torpaq toprak tufraq tupraq topyraq topurak tuproq tupraq toburax tăpra
hilltop *tepö, *töpö töpü tepe təpə depe tübä tübä tóbe töbö tepa töpe töbö tüpĕ
tree/wood *ïgač ïɣač ağaç ağac ağaĵ agaç ağaç ağas aǵash jygaç yogʻoch yahach yıvăś
god (Tengri) *teŋri, *taŋrï teŋri, burqan tanrı tanrı tarï/Allah/Xoda taňry täñre täñre táńiri teñir tangri tengri tangara tură/toră
sky *teŋri, *kȫk kök, teŋri gök göy gey/göy gök kük kük kók kök koʻk kök küöx kăvak/koak
Adjectives long *uŕïn uzun uzun uzun uzun uzyn ozın oðon uzyn uzun uzun uzun uhun vărăm
new *yaŋï, *yeŋi yaŋï yeni yeni yeŋi ýaňy yaña yañı jańa jañı yangi yengi saña śĕnĕ
fat *semiŕ semiz semiz, şişman kök semiz simez himeð semiz semiz semiz semiz emis samăr
full *dōlï tolu dolu dolu dolu doly tulı tulı toly tolo toʻla toluq toloru tulli
white *āk, *ürüŋ āq, ürüŋ ak, beyaz (Ar.) aq ak aq aq aq ak oq aq
black *kara qara kara, siyah (Pers.) qara qärä gara qara qara qara kara qora qara xara hura, hora
red *kïŕïl qïzïl kızıl, kırmızı (Ar.) qızıl qïzïl gyzyl qızıl qıðıl qyzyl kızıl qizil qizil kıhıl hĕrlĕ
Numbers 1 *bīr bir bir bir bir bir ber ber bir bir bir bir biir pĕrre
2 *éki eki iki iki ikki iki ike ike eki eki ikki ikki ikki ikkĕ
4 *dȫrt tört dört dörd derd/dörd dört dürt dürt tórt tört toʻrt tört tüört tăvattă
7 *yéti yeti yedi yeddi yeddi ýedi cide yete jeti jeti yetti yetti sette śiççe
10 *ōn on on on on on un un on on oʻn on uon vunnă, vună, vun
100 *yǖŕ yüz yüz yüz iz/yüz ýüz yöz yöð júz jüz yuz yüz süüs śĕr

Endangered Turkic languages[edit]



Fifteen endangered Turkic languages exist in Russia:[44] [45]

Name Status Speakers
Altai language / Northern Altay language Severely endangered 55,720
Bashkir language Vulnerable 1,200,000
Chulym language Critically endangered 44
Chuvash language Vulnerable 1,042,989
Dolgan language Definitely endangered 1,100
Karachay-Balkar language Vulnerable 310,000
Khakas language Definitely endangered 43,000
Kumyk language Vulnerable 450,000
Nogai language / Yurt Tatar language Definitely endangered 87,000
Shor language Severely endangered 2,800
Siberian Tatar language Definitely endangered 100,000
Tofa language Critically endangered 93
Tuvan language Vulnerable 280,000
Tatar language Vulnerable 5,200,000
Yakut language Vulnerable 450,000


In Qinghai (Amdo), the Salar language has a heavy Chinese and Tibetan influence.[46] Although of Turkic origin, major linguistic structures have been absorbed from Chinese. Around 20% of the vocabulary is of Chinese origin, and 10% is also of Tibetan origin. Yet the official Communist Chinese government policy deliberately covers up these influences in academic and linguistics studies, trying to emphasize the Turkic element and completely ignoring the Chinese in the Salar language.[47] The Salar language has taken loans and influence from neighboring varieties of Chinese.[48] It is neighboring variants of Chinese which have loaned words to the Salar language.[48] In Qinghai, many Salar men speak both the Qinghai dialect of Chinese and Salar. Rural Salars can speak Salar fluently while urban Salars often assimilate into the Chinese speaking Hui population.[49]


Ethnologue and ISO list an Iranian language "Khalaj" with the same population,[50] but Glottolog states it does not exist.[51] The Khalaj speak their Turkic language and Persian, and the supposed Iranian language of the Khalaj is spurious.[52]

Khorasani Turkic (Khorasani Turkic: خراسان تركچىسى, Pronunciation: [xorɑsɑn tyrktʃesi]; Persian: Zebān-e Torkī-ye Xorāsānī زبان ترکی خراسانی‎) is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken in northern North Khorasan Province and Razavi Khorasan Province in Iran. Nearly all Khorasani Turkic speakers are also bilingual in Persian.[53]



Many Turkic languages have gone extinct in Afghanistan. [55]


In 1980, Saddam Hussein's government adopted a policy of assimilation of its minorities. Due to government relocation programs, thousands of Iraqi Turkmen were relocated from their traditional homelands in northern Iraq and replaced by Arabs, in an effort to Arabize the region.[56] Furthermore, Iraqi Turkmen villages and towns were destroyed to make way for Arab migrants, who were promised free land and financial incentives. For example, the Ba'th regime recognised that the city of Kirkuk was historically an Iraqi Arab city and remained firmly in its cultural orientation.[57] Thus, the first wave of Arabization saw Arab families move from the centre and south of Iraq into Kirkuk to work in the expanding oil industry. Although the Iraqi Turkmen were not actively forced out, new Arab quarters were established in the city and the overall demographic balance of the city changed as the Arab migrations continued.[57]

Several presidential decrees and directives from state security and intelligence organizations indicate that the Iraqi Turkmen were a particular focus of attention during the assimilation process during the Ba'th regime. For example, the Iraqi Military Intelligence issued directive 1559 on 6 May 1980 ordering the deportation of Iraqi Turkmen officials from Kirkuk, issuing the following instructions: "identify the places where Turkmen officials are working in governmental offices [in order] to deport them to other governorates in order to disperse them and prevent them from concentrating in this governorate [Kirkuk]".[58] In addition, on 30 October 1981, the Revolution's Command Council issued decree 1391, which authorized the deportation of Iraqi Turkmen from Kiruk with paragraph 13 noting that "this directive is specially aimed at Turkmen and Kurdish officials and workers who are living in Kirkuk".[58]

As primary victims of these Arabization policies, the Iraqi Turkmen suffered from land expropriation and job discrimination, and therefore would register themselves as "Arabs" in order to avoid discrimination.[59] Thus, ethnic cleansing was an element of the Ba'thist policy aimed at reducing the influence of the Iraqi Turkmen in northern Iraq's Kirkuk.[60] Those Iraqi Turkmen who remained in cities such as Kirkuk were subject to continued assimilation policies;[60] school names, neighbourhoods, villages, streets, markets and even mosques with names of Turkic origin were changed to names that emanated from the Ba'th Party or from Arab heroes.[60] Moreover, many Iraqi Turkmen villages and neighbourhoods in Kirkuk were simply demolished, particularly in the 1990s.[60]

Other possible relations[edit]

The Turkic language family is currently regarded as one of the world's primary language families.[61] Turkic is one of the main members of the controversial Altaic language family. There are some other theories about an external relationship but none of them are generally accepted.


The possibility of a genetic relation between Turkic and Korean, independently from Altaic, is suggested by some linguists.[62][63][64] The linguist Kabak (2004) of the University of Würzburg states that Turkic and Korean share similar phonology as well as morphology. Yong-Sŏng Li (2014)[65] suggest that there are several cognates between Turkic and Old Korean. He states that these supposed cognates can be useful to reconstruct the early Turkic language. According to him, words related to nature, earth and ruling but especially to the sky and stars seem to be cognates.

The linguist Choi[66] suggested already in 1996 a close relationship between Turkic and Korean regardless of any Altaic connections:

In addition, the fact that the morphological elements are not easily borrowed between languages, added to the fact that the common morphological elements between Korean and Turkic are not less numerous than between Turkic and other Altaic languages, strengthens the possibility that there is a close genetic affinity between Korean and Turkic.

— Choi Han-Woo, A Comparative Study of Korean and Turkic (Hoseo University)

Many historians also point out a close non-linguistic relationship between Turkic peoples and Koreans.[67] Especially close were the relations between the Göktürks and Goguryeo.[68]

Rejected or controversial theories[edit]

Native American languages[edit]

Some historians and linguists suggest a link between Turkic languages and some Native American languages.[69] Although these claims get some support from genetic studies, they are generally rejected because of the lack of linguistic evidence.[70]


Some linguists suggested a relation to Uralic languages, especially to the Ugric languages. This view is rejected and seen as obsolete by mainstream linguists. Similarities are because of language contact and borrowings mostly from Turkic into Ugric languages. Stachowski (2015) states that any relation between Turkic and Uralic must be a contact one.[71]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Turkic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ^ Dybo A.V., Chronology of Türkic languages and linguistic contacts of early Türks, Moscow, 2007, p. 766, "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 March 2005. Retrieved 11 March 2005.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link) (In Russian)
  8. ^ "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.
  9. ^ Vovin, Alexander. “The End of the Altaic Controversy In Memory of Gerhard Doerfer.” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, 2005, pp. 71–132.
  10. ^ Georg, Stefan, et al. “Telling General Linguists about Altaic.” Journal of Linguistics, vol. 35, no. 1, 1999, pp. 65–98.
  11. ^ Sinor, 1988, p.710
  12. ^ George van DRIEM: Handbuch der Orientalistik. Volume 1 Part 10. BRILL 2001. Page 336
  14. ^ Yunusbayev, Bayazit; Metspalu, Mait; Metspalu, Ene; Valeev, Albert; Litvinov, Sergei; Valiev, Ruslan; Akhmetova, Vita; Balanovska, Elena; Balanovsky, Oleg (21 April 2015). "The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia". PLoS Genetics. 11 (4): e1005068. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1005068. ISSN 1553-7390. PMC 4405460. PMID 25898006. The origin and early dispersal history of the Turkic peoples is disputed, with candidates for their ancient homeland ranging from the Transcaspian steppe to Manchuria in Northeast Asia,
  15. ^ Yunusbayev, Bayazit; Metspalu, Mait; Metspalu, Ene; Valeev, Albert; Litvinov, Sergei; Valiev, Ruslan; Akhmetova, Vita; Balanovska, Elena; Balanovsky, Oleg (21 April 2015). "The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia". PLoS Genetics. 11 (4): e1005068. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1005068. ISSN 1553-7390. PMC 4405460. PMID 25898006. Thus, our study provides the first genetic evidence supporting one of the previously hypothesized IAHs to be near Mongolia and South Siberia.
  16. ^ Blench, Roger; Spriggs, Matthew (2 September 2003). Archaeology and Language II: Archaeological Data and Linguistic Hypotheses. Routledge. ISBN 9781134828692.
  17. ^ Clark, Larry V. (1980). "Turkic Loanwords in Mongol, I:The Treatment of Non-initial S, Z, Š, Č". Central Asiatic Journal. 24: 36–59.
  18. ^ Vovin, Alexander 2004. ‘Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Old Turkic 12-Year Animal Cycle.’ Central Asiatic Journal 48/1: 118–32.
  19. ^ Vovin, Alexander. 2010. Once Again on the Ruan-ruan Language. Ötüken’den İstanbul’a Türkçenin 1290 Yılı (720–2010) Sempozyumu From Ötüken to Istanbul, 1290 Years of Turkish (720–2010). 3–5 Aralık 2010, İstanbul / 3–5 December 2010, İstanbul: 1–10.
  20. ^ Johanson, Lars; Johanson, Éva Ágnes Csató (29 April 2015). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. ISBN 9781136825279.
  21. ^ Robbeets, Martine (2017). "Transeurasian: A case of farming/language dispersal". Language Dynamics and Change. 7 (2): 210–251. doi:10.1163/22105832-00702005.
  22. ^ Soucek, Svat (March 2000). A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-65169-1.
  23. ^ Findley, Carter V. (October 2004). The Turks in World History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517726-8.
  24. ^ Turkic Language tree entries provide the information on the Turkic-speaking regions.
  25. ^ Johanson, Lars (2001). "Discoveries on the Turkic linguistic map" (PDF). Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. Retrieved 18 March 2007.[permanent dead link]
  26. ^ a b Lars Johanson, The History of Turkic. In Lars Johanson & Éva Ágnes Csató (eds), The Turkic Languages, London, New York: Routledge, 81–125, 1998.Classification of Turkic languages
  27. ^ See the main article on Lir-Turkic.
  28. ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005). "Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Language Family Trees – Turkic". Retrieved 18 March 2007.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link) The reliability of Ethnologue lies mainly in its statistics whereas its framework for the internal classification of Turkic is still based largely on Baskakov (1962) and the collective work in Deny et al. (1959–1964). A more up to date alternative to classifying these languages on internal camparative grounds is to be found in the work of Johanson and his co-workers.
  29. ^ Hruschka, Daniel J.; Branford, Simon; Smith, Eric D.; Wilkins, Jon; Meade, Andrew; Pagel, Mark; Bhattacharya, Tanmoy (2015). "Detecting Regular Sound Changes in Linguistics as Events of Concerted Evolution 10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.064". Current Biology. 25 (1): 1–9. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.064. PMC 4291143. PMID 25532895.
  30. ^ Самойлович, А. Н. (1922). Некоторые дополнения к классификации турецких языков (in Russian).
  31. ^ Larry Clark, "Chuvash", in The Turkic Languages, eds. Lars Johanson & Éva Ágnes Csató (London–NY: Routledge, 2006), 434–452.
  32. ^ Anton Antonov & Guillaume Jacques, "Turkic kümüš ‘silver’ and the lambdaism vs sigmatism debate", Turkic Languages 15, no. 2 (2012): 151–70.
  33. ^ Lars Johanson (1998) The History of Turkic. In Lars Johanson & Éva Ágnes Csató (eds) The Turkic Languages. London, New York: Routledge, 81–125. [1]
  34. ^ Khalaj is surrounded by Oghuz languages, but exhibits a number of features that classify it as non-Oghuz.
  35. ^ Crimean Tatar and Urum are historically Kipchak languages, but have been heavily influenced by Oghuz languages.
  36. ^ a b c "turcologica". Retrieved 22 February 2017.
  37. ^ Tura, Baraba, Tomsk, Tümen, Ishim, Irtysh, Tobol, Tara, etc. are partly of different origin (Johanson 1998) [2]
  38. ^ Deviating. Historically developed from Southwestern (Oghuz) (Johanson 1998) [3]
  39. ^ Aini contains a very large Persian vocabulary component, and is spoken exclusively by adult men, almost as a cryptolect.
  40. ^ Coene 2009, p. 75
  41. ^ Coene 2009, p. 75
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  47. ^ William Safran (1998). William Safran (ed.). Nationalism and ethnoregional identities in China. Volume 1 of Cass series—nationalism and ethnicity (illustrated ed.). Psychology Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-7146-4921-4. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
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  49. ^ Dwyer (2007:90)
  50. ^ Khalaj (Iranian) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  51. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Khalaj (Iranian)". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
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  55. ^ "زبانهای بومی افغانستان در 'معرض خطر' اند".
  56. ^ Jenkins 2008, 15.
  57. ^ a b Anderson & Stansfield 2009, 64.
  58. ^ a b Anderson & Stansfield 2009, 65.
  59. ^ International Crisis Group 2006, 5.
  60. ^ a b c d Anderson & Stansfield 2009, 66.
  62. ^ SIBATA, TAKESI (1979). "SOME SYNTACTIC SIMILARITIES BETWEEN TURKISH, KOREAN, AND JAPANESE". Central Asiatic Journal. 23 (3/4): 293–296. ISSN 0008-9192. JSTOR 41927271.
  63. ^ SOME STAR NAMES IN MODERN TURKIC LANGUAGES-I - Yong-Sŏng LI - Academy of Korean Studies Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (AKS-2010-AGC-2101) - Seoul National University 2014
  64. ^ A Comparative Study of Korean and Turkic - Choi Han-Woo (Hoseo University) http://altaica.ru/LIBRARY/CHOI/choi1996.pdf
  67. ^ ON THE ANCIENT RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TURKIC AND KOREAN PEOPLES http://journals.manas.edu.kg/mjtc/oldarchives/2004/15_779-2047-1-PB.pdf
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Further reading[edit]

  • Akhatov G. Kh. 1960. "About the stress in the language of the Siberian Tatars in connection with the stress of modern Tatar literary language" .- Sat *"Problems of Turkic and the history of Russian Oriental Studies." Kazan. ‹See Tfd›(in Russian)
  • Akhatov G.Kh. 1963. "Dialect West Siberian Tatars" (monograph). Ufa. ‹See Tfd›(in Russian)
  • Baskakov, N.A. 1962, 1969. Introduction to the study of the Turkic languages. Moscow. ‹See Tfd›(in Russian)
  • Deny, Jean et al. 1959–1964. Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  • Dolatkhah, Sohrab. 2016. Parlons qashqay. In: collection "parlons". Paris: L'Harmattan.
  • Dolatkhah, Sohrab. 2016. Le qashqay: langue turcique d'Iran. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (online).
  • Dolatkhah, Sohrab. 2015. Qashqay Folktales. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (online).
  • Johanson, Lars. 1998. "The history of Turkic." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 81–125.[4]
  • Johanson, Lars. 1998. "Turkic languages." In: Encyclopædia Britannica. CD 98. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 5 sept. 2007.[5]
  • Schönig, Claus. 1997–1998. "A new attempt to classify the Turkic languages I-III." Turkic Languages 1:1.117–133, 1:2.262–277, 2:1.130–151.
  • Starostin, Sergei A., Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak. 2003. Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-13153-1

External links[edit]