Turkish (Türkçe) is spoken as a first language by over 77 million people worldwide,
making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria,
the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern Europe. Turkish
is also spoken by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly in Germany.

The roots of the language can be traced to Central Asia, with the first written records
dating back nearly 1,200 years. To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish —
the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary
language of the Ottoman Empire — spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. In 1928,
as one of Atatürk's Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman
script was replaced with a phonetic variant of the Latin alphabet.

Concurrently, the newly founded Turkish Language Association initiated a drive to reform
the language by removing Persian and Arabic loanwords in favor of native variants and
coinages from Turkic roots. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony
and extensive agglutination.

The basic word order of Turkish is Subject Object Verb. Turkish has no noun classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T-V distinction and usage of honorifics. Turkish
uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance,
age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and
verb forms are used referring to a single person out of respect. In very formal situations,
double plural second-person "sizler" may be used to refer to a much-respected person.

History of Turkish Language; The earliest known Turkic inscriptions are the two
monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia. They were erected in honour
of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khan and dating back to some time
between 732 and 735, constitute another important early record.

After the discovery and excavation of these monuments and associated stone slabs by
Russian archaeologists in the wider area surrounding the Orkhon Valley between 1889
and 1893, it became established that the language on the inscriptions was the Old Turkic language written using the Orkhon script, which has also been referred to as "Turkic runes"
or "runiform" due to an external similarity to the Germanic runic alphabets.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language

Share with your friends

Share with your friends

Featured Links

Share with your friends

Lonely Planet Turkish Phrase Book

Teach Yourself Turkish Conversation

Teach Yourself Beginner's Turkish

Gem Turkish Phrase Book

Rosetta Stone Turkish Level 1-2-3

Euro Talk Interactive Turkish

Bilingual Visual Dictionary

An English and Turkish Dictionary

Dictionary of Business Terms

An English and Turkish Dictionary

Share with your friends

Modern Turkey, where east meets west, an outdoor museum and a great holiday
destination. A unique country which offers its visitors a rich and diverse history,
beautiful beaches and nature, holiday resorts, wonderful cuisine and world famous
Turkish hospitality.

In recent years, Turkey has become one of the most popular travel destinations.
In 2009, Turkey welcomed approx. 23 million visitors from all over the world.

Share with your friends

ABOUT TURKISH TURKEY .ORG

We are proudly providing you all Turkish Learning content and links for you. Learning Turkish can be difficult.. but if you just relax
and keep up learning and practising, you will definetely make a progress.

- Our aim is to provide you an easy access to all important Turkish Learning components in our portal.
- Our focus is to save you time and enery while you learn Turkish and make it fun for you.
- Our mission is to help you learn Turkish.

As TurkishTurkey.org, we wish you success for your learning Turkish.