Turkic Language: Turkish

Turkish Language Basics

• The basic word order of the Turkish language is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV).

Ottoman Empire and Language

• The administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire was Ottoman Turkish.

Distinctive Characteristics

• Turkish language has distinctive characteristics that include its use of vowel harmony and agglutination.

National Language and Alphabet

• Turkish is the national language of Turkey.
• The Latin alphabet replaced the Ottoman Turkish alphabet in 1928.

Social and Cultural Aspects

• The Turkish language uses honorifics to distinguish varying levels of politeness and familiarity.
• The plural second-person pronoun "siz" is used to show respect or politeness.

Language Family and Classification

• The Oghuz group of the Turkic family includes languages such as Turkish, Azerbaijani, and Turkmen.
• Hungarian, Finnish, and Altaic languages were grouped with Turkish in the 19th century Ural-Altaic language theory.

History and Expansion

• The Oghuz language was brought into Anatolia by Seljuk Turks during the 11th century.
• Mahmud al-Kashgari published the first comprehensive Turkic language dictionary and map of the geographical distribution of Turkic speakers in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk (ديوان لغات الترك).
• The Turkic expansion during the Early Middle Ages covered geographically from Central Asia to Eastern Europe.

Old Turkic Inscriptions

• The Old Turkic inscriptions used the Orkhon script for writing.
• The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions were found in modern Mongolia.
• The three monumental Orkhon inscriptions date back to the 8th century.

Azerbaijani Language

• Azerbaijani is a member of the Oghuz group of the Turkic family, mainly spoken in Azerbaijan.