|From Southeastern Europe to Western China and Siberia|
"Arghu" (also subsumed under Oghuz)
Countries and autonomous subdivisions where a Turkic language has official status and/or is spoken by a majority
The Turkic languages are a language family of some thirty languages. They are spoken by Turkic peoples across an area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China. Traditionally people think that they are part of the Altaic language family.
Turkic languages are spoken by some 180 million people as a native language; and the total number of Turkic speakers is about 200 million, including speakers as a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian Turkish. The speakers of this language are about 40% of all Turkic speakers.
History[change | change source]
References[change | change source]
- Katzner, Kenneth (March 2002). Languages of the World, Third Edition. Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0415250047.
- Turkic Language family tree entries provide the information on the Turkic-speaking populations and regions.
- Turkic Language tree entries provide the information on the Turkic-speaking regions.
Further reading[change | change source]
- Johanson, Lars. 1998. "The history of Turkic." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 81-125.
- Johanson, Lars. 1998. "Turkic languages." In: Encyclopaedia Britannica. CD 98. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 5 sept. 2007.
- Menges, K. H. 1968. The Turkic languages and peoples: An introduction to Turkic studies. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.