Languages ​​of Turkey

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In the past and present, around fifty languages ​​from six different language families and one isolated language ( Hattic ) have been and are spoken in the area of ​​today's Turkey . Around half of these languages ​​are now extinct, but have been passed down through inscriptions or historical texts. Today in Turkey there are over twenty languages ​​and ethnic groups with around 75 million speakers. This shows that both today's Turkish state and the territory of Turkey have been and are characterized by a great ethnic and linguistic diversity in all phases of history .

More recent are the immigration of smaller groups of refugees from Central Asia or the Caucasus who speak Turkic or Caucasian languages . These languages ​​and also the languages ​​of foreign colonies (e.g. German, French, English) are usually not added to the "languages ​​of Turkey", since this term includes the languages ​​of the ethnic groups who have resided for a long time.

Overview

The great living languages

The national and official language of Turkey is the Turkic language, Turkish , which is spoken by over 80% of the population as their mother tongue and another 10% - 15% as a second language. This makes Turkish by far the most important language in Turkey today.

In addition, there are around 25 languages ​​from a total of five different language families that are spoken today by non-Turkish ethnic groups and minorities who have lived in Turkey for a long time. In this sense, Turkey is a multi-ethnic state. The most important of these languages ​​are (according to the number of their native speakers)

Loss of Armenian, Greek and Aramaic

By 1915 there were nearly two million in Turkey Armenians with the native Armenian . Their number has fallen to around 40,000 as a result of the genocide of 1915-17 and the subsequent displacement. Greek was still spoken by 1.5 million speakers in Turkey around 1900, of which 4,000 are still spoken in Istanbul today. Of the Aramaic languages that were once widespread - the varieties of the Aramaic Christians - today, apart from the Turoyo (3,000 speakers), only the small Hertevin language (1,000 speakers) is represented in Turkey. The earlier Aramaic language forms Nestorian-New Aramaic ("Assyrian"), Chaldean-New Aramaic (Kaldoyo) and Jewish-New Aramaic (Lishana Deni) are no longer spoken in Turkey today. Since October 6, 1997, there has been an official ban on teaching Aramaic in Turkey.

Other minority languages

Other minority languages ​​are the Indo-European languages Albanian (15,000 speakers in Turkey), Romani (25,000) and Domari (30,000). The Cartelian group of Caucasian languages ​​in Turkey includes Georgian (40,000 speakers) and Lasisch (30,000). In addition to the Kabardian and Adygean languages ​​already mentioned, the West Caucasian languages Abkhazian (5,000) and Abasinian (10,000) are spoken in Turkey.

Languages ​​of refugee groups

As a result of current refugee movements, there are now smaller groups of speakers of the Turkic languages Turkmen , Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Uzbek and Uighur in addition to the national languages ​​mentioned ; in addition, several hundred speakers of the Caucasian languages Lakisch , Lesgisch and Darginisch . The Chechens form with 1,000 people the largest contingent of refugees from the Caucasus. Since these are refugee groups, these languages ​​are usually not counted among the "languages ​​of Turkey".

Historical languages ​​on the territory of Turkey

In the course of almost four thousand years of history, many important languages ​​that are now extinct were spoken on the territory of today's Turkey. The most important include Hattic , Hittite , Luwian , Lycian , Lydian , Phrygian , Akkadian (in the form of Assyrian), Urartian , Ancient Greek , Byzantine , Old Armenian , Latin and classical Syriac , the religious language of the Aramaic Christians.

Genetic classification

The language families

The current and historical languages ​​of Turkey can be grouped into six language families and one isolated language:

In terms of the number of speakers, the Turkic languages ​​- mainly represented by Turkish - are by far the most important today. Hattic, Urartian and Hurrian, many Indo-European languages ​​and most of the Afro-Asian languages ​​are now extinct. Nevertheless, Turkey still has considerable linguistic and ethnic diversity today.

Hattisch

The Hattic (by the Hittites hattili called) was the language of Anatolian native population, the Hatti, v the early second millennium. Newly immigrated Hittites found in Anatolia. It is the oldest documented language in Anatolia, but so little has survived that a comprehensive grammatical description is not possible. The surviving vocabulary is also not very extensive. This language was not fixed in writing by the Hattians themselves, but by the Hittites, from whose Indo-European language Hattic was completely different in structure and vocabulary. Before the penetration of the Indo-European Hittites, Palaers and Luwians, the distribution area of ​​the Hattic comprised all of central and northern Anatolia to the Black Sea coast and parts of Cappadocia . Hattisch is around 1500 BC. BC became extinct as a spoken language, but continued to be of great importance as a cult language in the Hittite Empire.

Hattic is not only not related to Hittite, but also to none of the other known languages ​​in Old Anatolia and the neighboring areas. As far as we know today, Hattic must be viewed as an isolated language . Attempts to relate it to the West Caucasian languages have not been pursued.

Hurrian and Urartian

Hurrian and Urartian are extinct Middle Eastern languages that are related to each other, but as far as we know today are not related to any other language. The language of the Mitanni empire of the Hurrians in the 12th century BC is Hurrian . BC, which stretched in northern Iraq , Syria and eastern Turkey and thus had about the same extent as the present-day Kurdish region (this is no indication of a linguistic relationship). The Urartian Empire (9th to 6th centuries BC) had its center on the eastern Turkish Van Lake and extended over the whole of eastern Turkey and present-day Armenia . During the first millennium BC, the Indo-European Armenians immigrated to the areas of the Urartian Empire. Hurrian and Urartian were written using scripts derived from the Mesopotamian cuneiform script.

  • Hurricane-Urartian
    • Hurrian †
    • Urartian †

The younger Urartian does not come directly from Hurrian, but both go back to a common, even older, unknown predecessor language. Perhaps there is also a relationship to the Northeast Caucasian languages, as some researchers suspect.

Indo-European languages ​​of Turkey

Almost all branches of Indo-European were or are represented on the territory of today's Turkey, the only exceptions - apart from foreign colonies - are Germanic and Baltic . One of the oldest verifiable languages ​​in Anatolia is - in addition to Hattic and Akkadian - Indo-European Hittite , the language of the Hittite Empire from the second millennium BC with the capital Hattuša . The Luwian languages are closely related to this , but also Lydian and Lycian . These languages, along with others, form the Anatolian branch of Indo-European. Other extinct Indo-European languages ​​in Turkey are Phrygian and Thracian, which is only very poorly documented (in European Turkey).

In the phase of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC) large parts of Anatolia belonged to the Persian Empire. At that time, Old Persian was the administrative language in Anatolia as well as Aramaic . It is not known to what extent the population has adopted this language.

In the east, Armenian had been widespread since the middle of the first millennium BC. It was not until the genocide of 1915–17 that the Armenians were reduced to a few thousand people. On the West and Black Sea coasts, Greek was introduced in the 8th century BC. Spoken; since the Hellenistic period it had become the common language of everyday speech in most of Anatolia. It reached its present form essentially in the 8th century AD. Between the 11th and 14th centuries, Greek was replaced by Turkish as the most common colloquial language. Even after that, however, Greek remained the colloquial language of large parts of the population. Around 1900 there were still around 1.5 million Greek speakers living in Turkey, and it was not until 1922 that they were almost completely expelled.

In the phase of their greatest expansion, the Celts also settled in Central Anatolia around the birth of Christ, where they called themselves Galatians and spoke the Galatian language . With the rise of the Roman Empire and its expansion into Anatolia and the Orient, Latin became the official language in Turkey. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Jewish refugees brought with them the Romanesque Ladino , which is still spoken by 8,000 Jews, especially in Istanbul .

Albanian is mainly represented in some areas of European Turkey, as well as some Slavic languages , especially Bulgarian and Bosnian , remnants of population groups who migrated through the entire Balkans in the Ottoman Empire .

The largest ethnic and linguistic group after the Turks are the Kurds , Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish) is spoken as the mother tongue of around 10 million Kurds in Turkey. This belongs - like the independent Zazaisch - to the Iranian languages , more precisely to the northwest group of Iranian. The so-called gypsy languages Romani and Domari , which belong to the Indo-Aryan subgroup , are also widespread in Turkey.

The following classification of Indo-European languages ​​on the territory of Turkey results:

  • Indo-European in Turkey
    • Anatolian
      • Hittite †
      • Palaic †, Lydian †, Luwisch † (cuneiform Luwisch, hieroglyphic Luwisch)
      • Lycian † (Lycian A, Lycian B = Milyisch), Karisch †, Pisidisch †, Sidetisch † ( weakly documented, assignment uncertain )
    • Phrygian : Phrygian †
    • Thracian : Thracian †
    • Macedonian : Macedonian †
    • Greek : Ancient Greek †, Byzantine †, (New) Greek (4,000 speakers in Turkey)
    • Armenian : Old Armenian †, Armenian (40,000 in Turkey)
    • Celtic : Galatian †
    • Italian : Latin †, Ladino (Sefardi, Jewish Spanish) (8,000)
    • Albanian : Albanian (Tuscan dialect) (15,000)
    • Slavic : Bulgarian (Pomakian) (300,000), Bosnian (20,000)
    • Indo-Iranian
      • Iranian
        • Western Iranian
          • Northwest Iranian: Kurmanji (10 million), Zazaish (1.2 - 2 million) (Dimli and Kirmanjiki)
          • Southwest Iranian: Old Persian †, Persian (100,000)
        • Eastern Iranian: Ossetian (smaller groups in Turkey, total number unknown)
      • Indo-Aryan : Romani (Gajala, Arlija) (25,000), Domari (30,000)

The speaker numbers refer to the speakers in Turkey.

Afro-Asian languages ​​in Turkey

From the large Afro-Asian language family , which includes the Semitic , Cushitic , Omotic and Berber languages ​​and ancient Egyptian (with Coptic ), only Semitic languages ​​are represented in Turkey. When first recorded language in general is the Akkadian in the form of the Assyrian in the early second millennium BC. Lingua franca in the Assyrian trading posts in Central and Eastern Anatolia.

Since the middle of the 1st millennium BC, Aramaic - at that time the lingua franca of the entire Middle East - also spread in the southeast of what is now Turkey. Aramaic is still represented today in the form of classical Syriac as the church language of the Aramaic Christians and in some new Aramaic varieties ( Turoyo , Hertevin ). In Turkey, however, the New East Aramaic languages ​​of the Nestorian ("Assyrian") and Chaldean Christians (Kaldoyo), as well as the Jewish-New Aramaic Lishana Deni, are extinct.

The most important Semitic language by far is Arabic , which in its Syro-Mesopotamian variant gained a foothold in southeastern Turkey with the spread of Islam and is spoken there by around a million people today. The Semitic languages ​​in Turkey are classified as follows:

  • Afro-Asian in Turkey
    • Semitic
      • North Semitic
        • Akkadian (dialect form Assyrian) †
      • Central Semitic
        • Aramaic
          • Old and Classical Aramaic
            • Imperial Aramaic †
            • Classic Syriac ("Syriac") † (church language of the Aramaic Christians)
          • New Aramaic
            • New Eastern Aramaic
              • Northwest: Turoyo (3,000 speakers in Turkey, 50,000 in total)
              • Northeast
                • Hertevin (1,000)
                • Nestorian-New Aramaic ("Assyrian", Aisor) (in Turkey †, otherwise 100,000)
                • Chaldean-New Aramaic (Kaldoyo) (in Turkey †, otherwise 150,000)
                • Jewish-New Aramaic (Lishana Deni) (in Turkey †, in Israel 8,000)
        • Arabic
          • Classical Arabic (language of the Koran) †
          • Arabic (around 1 to 1.5 million in Turkey; varieties: Syro-Mesopotamian and North Levantine Arabic )

Kartwelic languages ​​in Turkey

By far the most important South Caucasian or Cartelian language is Georgian , which today has around four million speakers and is the national and official language of the neighboring state of Georgia . Georgian principalities and small states existed in what is now northeastern Turkey as early as ancient times, but also in the early Middle Ages. About 40,000 citizens of Turkey still speak Georgian today. Lasisch , which is closely related to Georgian, is spoken by around 30,000 people in the Black Sea coastal areas bordering Georgia and in the neighboring mountainous region; the majority of Lasen now live in Turkey. You use the Turkish variant of the Latin script for Lasic .

  • Kartwelisch (South Caucasian) in Turkey
    • Georgian-Sanisch
      • Georgian (40,000 in Turkey, 4 million total)
      • Lasisch (30,000 in Turkey, 35-40,000 in total)

Kartvelian also includes Swan and Mingrelian , both of which are only spoken in Georgia.

North Caucasian languages ​​in Turkey

During the period of the Ottoman Empire , several groups who speak Northwest Caucasian languages ​​were also resettled in what is now Turkey . The most important group are the Circassians , linguistically divided into East Cherkessian ( Kabardian ) and West Cherkessian ( Adygean ). A third language of this group has since died out: in 1992 the last speaker of Ubykh in Turkey died. The Northwest Caucasian also includes Abkhaz and Abasin , which are spoken by small ethnic groups in Turkey. The following classification results for the Northwest Caucasian languages:

  • Northwest Caucasian in Turkey
    • Adygean
      • Kabardian (East Cherkessian) (550,000 speakers in Turkey, 1 million in total)
      • Adygean (West Cherkess) (275,000 in Turkey, 500,000 total)
      • Ubykh †
    • Abkhazo-Abasin
      • Abkhazian (4,000 in Turkey, 100,000 total)
      • Abasinian (Abasa) (10,000 in Turkey, 50,000 total)

More recent are the immigration of smaller groups of refugees from the northeastern Caucasus who speak the northeastern Caucasian languages Chechen , Ingush , Lakish , Dargin , Avar and Lesgian . These languages ​​- according to today's majority opinion, they are not genetically related to the Northwest Caucasian - are usually not added to the "languages ​​of Turkey" because of the refugee status of their speakers, since this primarily covers the resident ethnic groups.

Turkic languages ​​in Turkey

The Turkish settlement of Anatolia began with the invasion of the Seljuks in the 11th century AD. The original homeland of the Turks was in Central Asia . The Seljuks defeated the Byzantine army and their allies at the Battle of Mantzikert (north of Lake Van ) in 1071. In 1077 the Sultanate of Rum was founded, after which the Turks conquered large areas of Eastern and Central Anatolia. After through the Mongolian caused disintegration of the rum Sultanate established Osman I. (* 1259; † 1326) in 1300 was named after him Ottoman Empire and the Dynasty of Ottoman . After the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans extended their rule over large parts of the Middle East , North Africa , the Crimea , the Caucasus and the Balkans.

With that, the Turkish language began its triumphal march in Anatolia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire and strongly pushed back the previous languages, a process that continues to this day. Today Turkish is the national , official , cultural and media language of Turkey and is spoken by 85% of the population (around 60 million) as their mother tongue , another 10% speak it as a second language . As the Turkish include the Gagauz in European Turkey (only few speakers) and the Azerbaijani in eastern Anatolia to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages . (Some Turkologists identify "Balkan Turkish" with "Gagauz", which leads to a much higher number of speakers for Gagauz, for Turkey about 300,000, cf. Ethnologue .) Kipchak Crimean Tatar is used in some villages in the Polatlı district of Ankara province spoken, the number of speakers is unknown, as is that of Kumyk, which is common in some villages .

  • Turkic languages in Turkey
    • Oghusian
      • Turkish (60 million native speakers in Turkey, another 7-10 million second speakers; national language)
      • Azerbaijani (550,000 in Turkey, 30 million in total in Azerbaijan and Iran)
      • Gagauz (few speakers in Turkey, a total of 200,000 in Moldova and the Balkans)
    • Kipchak
      • Crimean Tatar (some villages, number of speakers unknown in Turkey)
      • Kumyk (some villages, number of speakers unknown in Turkey)

Smaller Turkic-speaking refugee groups from Central Asia have settled in Turkey in recent years, they rarely exceed the number of a thousand people. Their languages ​​are generally not counted as "Languages ​​of Turkey" because of their refugee status. The languages ​​of these refugees include Turkmen , Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Uzbek and Uighur .

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All information is taken from the specialist literature given below. Fundamental to the question of which languages ​​are spoken in Turkey today is Ethnologue 2005 , which includes the two country sections Turkey (Asia) (pp. 518–520) and Turkey (Europe) (pp. 563–564). Ethnologue 2005 was also used for most of the number of speakers if their occupancy was more recent (e.g. after 1998), otherwise also current yearbooks (e.g. Fischer Weltalmanach 2008).

The evidence for the ancient languages ​​on today's Turkish territory can be found primarily in the detailed descriptions in Streck 2005 and Woodard 2004 . The classification of the individual language families (Indo-European, Semitic, Caucasian languages, Turkic languages) is based on the specified frameworks. The comprehensive link to the language and language family articles enables a general overview of all languages ​​and language groups in Turkey, which is supported by other sources.

  1. ↑ Kath.net : Turkey: Ten years prohibition to teach Aramaic. October 6, 2007.
  2. ↑ Manfred Weidmann, Jürgen Blechinger:  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Refugees in Istanbul. (PDF; 641 kB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ekiba.de

literature

General

  • Raymond G. Gordon: Ethnologue. Languages ​​of the World. 15th edition. Summer Institut of Linguistics, Dallas 2005.
    (Cited as Ethnologue 2005 )
  • Harald Haarmann: Language Almanac. Campus, Frankfurt / New York 2002. (Basically based on Ethnologue, but on an older edition. The number of speakers is therefore out of date)
  • Harald Haarmann: Lexicon of the lost languages. Beck, Munich 2002. (Popular review)

Nationalities of Turkey

  • Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth, Volker Höhfeld: Turkey. Geography, history, economics, politics. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2002. (Section Nation and Nationalities)

Languages ​​of the Ancient Orient

  • Michael P. Streck (Hrsg.): The languages ​​of the ancient Orient. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005.
    (Therein chapter on: Hittite, Akkadian, Hattian, Hurrian and Urartian)
  • Roger D. Woodard (Ed.): The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge University Press 2004.
    (In it chapters on: Hurrian, Urartian, Akkadian, Aramaic, Hittite, Luwian, Palai, Lycian, Lydian, Karian, Old Persian, Phrygian, Old Armenian and Old Georgian)

Indo-European languages

  • Anna Giacalone Ramat, Paolo Ramat: The Indo-European Languages. Routledge, London / New York 1998.
  • Philip Baldi: An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages. Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.
  • Robert SP Beekes: Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. John Benjamin, Amsterdam - Philadelphia 1995.
  • Colin Renfrew: Archeology and Language. The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge University Press, 1987.
  • JP Mallory: In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Thames and Hudson, London 1989.

Afro-Asian languages

  • CT Hodge: Afroasiatic. A survey. Mouton, The Hague / Paris 1971.
  • Christopher Ehret: Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic. University of California Press, 1995.
  • Robert Hetzron: The Semitic Languages. Routledge, London 1997
    (especially the chapters: Akkadian, Aramaic, Classical Arabic, The Neo-Aramaic Languages)
  • Michael Waltisberg: Syntax of the Ṭuroyo (= Semitica Viva 55). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-447-10731-0 .

Caucasian languages

  • Georgij A. Klimov: Introduction to Caucasian Linguistics. Buske, Hamburg 1994.
  • George B. Hewitt: The Indigenous Languages ​​of the Caucasus. Caravan Books, Delmar / New York 1989.
    (In it: Abkhazian, Abasinian, Adyghe, Kabardian and Ubychian)
  • Marcello Cherchi: Georgian. Lincom Europe, Munich 1999.

Turkic languages

  • Lars Johanson, Eva Agnes Csato (eds.): The Turkic Languages. Routledge, London / New York 1998.