The turkic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area from the balkans to the arctic ocean and from south iran to china. This chapter deals with various turkic evidential categories, which typically. An introduction to turkic studies in 1962, drawing on his long experience in the field. 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. Studies in turkic and mongolic linguistics royal asiatic. Clauson makes the argument that they dont, specifying that the large number of common words are due to a borrowing of turkic words by the early mongol peoples. Unfortunately, turkic languages have been neglected for a long time for several reasons. Swadesh lists of turkic basic vocabulary words from wiktionarys swadeshlist appendix turkic basic vocabularies. The turkic languages in a nutshell with illustrations. These are old turkic marcel erdal, middle kipchak arpad berta, chaghatay hendrik boeschoten and marc vandamme, ottoman turkish celia kerslake, turkish eva a.
The turkic languages routledge language family series. Because of this, chuvash has diverged considerably from the other turkic languages, which are mutually. The turkic languages are a language family of at least thirtyfive 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. Turkic people turkic people are a group of ethnolinguistic groups, that have originated from, the region, located between central asia and siberia. The geographical distribution of turkicspeaking peoples across eurasia ranges from the northeast of siberia to turkey in the west see picture in the box on the right above. The turkic leids constitute a leid faimlie o at least thirtyfive leids, spaken bi turkic fowks athort a vast aurie frae eastren europe an the mediterranean tae siberie an wastren cheenae, an are considered tae be pairt o the proposed altaic leid faimlie turkic leids are spaken as a native leid bi some 165 tae 180 million fowk. A us native, tony completed undergraduate work at occidental college. In addition to regular software localization projects, he has translated books on network administration and atm. Some scholars claim, the exact location of their origin, to be altai mountain ranges. The turkic languages originated in a region of east asia spanning western china to mongolia, where proto turkic is thought to have been spoken. Tony crawford is a technicalwriter and freelance translator with a strong c background based just outside berlin, germany. Turkic languages have been written with a great variety of scripts in the past runic, uyghur, brahmi, manichean, etc.
The only thing missing in this nice reference book is a nice map. Beginning around 150 ad, the alphabet was replaced by the uyghur alphabet in the central asia, the arabic script in central and western asia, the greekderived cyrillic in eastern europe and in the balkans, and lastly the latin alphabet in central europe. The turkic languages originated in a region of east asia spanning western china to mongolia, where proto turkic is thought to have been spoken, from. The term hindustan has been used consciously so as to include pakistan in it, by which name the subcontinent was known before its partition in 1947. Add to that the fact that languages hypothesized to form the altaic family are attested quite late compared to indoeuropean and youre in a very difficult situation. This portrait of turkish looks at its similarity to other turkic languages, the reforms that modernized it in the 20th century and its unique sticky grammar. They are spoken by turkic peoples across an area from eastern europe and the mediterranean to siberia and western and northern china.
The subtext to this book, that im not competent to comment on, is the fight between the two academic opinions that turkic and mongolic languages do or dont stem from a common ancestor. They are spoken by turkic peoples across an area from eastern europe and the mediterranean to siberia and western china. The turkic languages show close similarities to each other in phonology, morphology, and syntax, though chuvash, khalaj, and sakha differ considerably from the rest. The earliest linguistic records are old turkic inscriptions, found near the orhon river in mongolia and the yenisey river valley in.
This multilanguage dictionary covers the eight major turkic languages. The turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is turkish, spoken mainly in anatolia and the balkans. The turkic languages are spoken over a large geographical area in europe and asia. The turkic languages originated in a region of east asia spanning western china to mongolia, where prototurkic is thought to have been spoken, according to one estimate. This is the first reference book to bring together detailed discussions of the hi. Turkic languages, group of closely related languages that form a subfamily of the altaic languages.
Turkic languages harrassowitz verlag the harrassowitz. It was finally published in 1968 and long served as the only substantial overview of the turkic languages. The turkic languages are a group of languages spoken across eastern europe, the middle east, central asia and siberia. To reiterate, the alternative and more widely accepted theory for turkic is that its just in its own language family and not related to anything else.
Turkish, azerbaijani, turkmen, uzbek, uighur, kazakh, kirgiz, and tatar. It is spoken in the azeri, the turkmen, the tartar, the uzbek, the baskurti, the nogay, the kyrgyz, the kazakh, the yakuti, the cuvas and other dialects. The degrees for intelligibility changes from one turkic language to the other, and they also have different accents in their own countries. Its only modern representative is chuvash, which originated in volga bolgarian and exhibits archaic features. The first part covers generalities, providing an introduction to the grammatical traditions, subgrouping and writing systems of this language family. The turkic languages routledge language family descriptions.
The turkic languages examines the modern languages within this wideranging language family and gives an historical overview of their development. World heritage encyclopedia, the aggregation of the largest online encyclopedias available, and the most. Turkic languages simple english wikipedia, the free. 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. The turkic languages originated in a region of east asia spanning western china to mongolia, where prototurkic is thought to have been spoken. Then there are single chapters on each language or, in a few cases, collections of unstandardized dialects. The latter part of the book focuses on descriptions of the individual languages themselves. To reiterate, the alternative and more widely accepted theory for turkic is that its just in its own language family and not related to. Swadesh lists of turkic basic vocabulary words from wiktionarys swadeshlist appendix conferences on turkic languages processing. Astana, kazakhstan, 20, istanbul, turkey, 2014, kazan, tatarstan, 2015. The bulk of the book consists of an alphabetical reference to the statements, procedures, and functions of the vbvba language. Developing some time after bce, the theoretical prototurkic language gradually spread throughout much of central asia during the first few centuries of the common era. Deviations from the rules should be discussed with the editors in advance. The different turkic languages use a set of related alphabets and letters formerly known as runes.
Turkic languages are spoken as native languages by some 170 million people. Lars johansons list of publications about lars johanson turkce lars johanson wikipedia english cv. The turkic languages are a language family of at least 35 documented languages, spoken by. Dictionary of turkic languages by kurtulus oztopcu. As an example, let us consider the wordform kitablar. Words are organized both alphabetically and topically. Jul 04, 2017 developing some time after bce, the theoretical proto turkic language gradually spread throughout much of central asia during the first few centuries of the common era. The turkic languages originated in a region of east asia spanning western china to mongolia, where proto turkic. The harrassowitz verlag publishes scholarly books and periodicals on oriental, slavic and book and library studies. Other data were collected directly from grammar books on specific languages. The total number of modern turkic ethnicities exceeds 50, especially if large. 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. The turkic languages are a language family of some thirty languages. Media in category turkic languages the following 47 files are in this category, out of 47 total.
The turkic languages are a language family of at least thirtyfive 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 including the far east. Turkish turkish language, member of the turkic subdivision of the altaic subfamily of the uralaltaic family of languages see uralic and altaic languages. Lars johanson is the editor of the journal turkic languages harrassowitz and of. A brief history of turkic languages turkish culture.
Turkic languages article about turkic languages by the. Turkish, the official language of turkey, is the most important of these tongues and has the. The turkic group of languages has a total of some 125 million speakers in turkey, azerbaijan, central asia, and parts of russia and china. The first established records of the turkic languages are the eighth century orkhon inscriptions by the gokturks, recording the old turkic language, which were discovered in 1889 in the. The arabic script was used for all turkic languages after the adoption of islam and until the beginning of the 20th century when it was replaced in many countries by the latin or cyrillic scripts. The turkic languages is the first reference book for almost forty years to bring together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized.
The latter part of the book focuses on descriptions of the individual languages. The turkic languages are a language family of at least 35 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. To what degree are turkic languages mutually intelligible. This is a swadesh list of turkic languages, specifically chuvash, yakut, tuvan.
Other articles where bolgar turkic language is discussed. Turkic languages the languages spoken by many peoples and nationalities of the ussr and turkey, as well as by part of the population of iran, afghanistan, mongolia, china, bulgaria, rumania, yugoslavia, and albania. Jun 18, 1998 the turkic languages examines the modern languages within this wideranging language family and gives an historical overview of their development. The turkic language group is a closely related phylogenetic cluster of languages further related to the mongolic and tungusic language groups in the first place see, for instance, hugjiltu 1995 and herein 2009, and more distantly, to the tentatively proposed altaic family in general e. There are currently twenty languages in the group, the most important being turkish. The language of the protobolgars, reportedly similar to the khazar language, belonged to the latter type. A comparative dictionary of turkic languages open project. Turkic languages open access download contents of volumes 121. In 1970, according to census data, there were 23 turkic languages in the ussr, spoken by approximately 25 million people. Lars johanson, turkic languages, institute of oriental studies, university of mainz, 55099 mainz, germany.