Turkish language

Turkish is the official language of Turkey and one of the official languages of Cyprus. It belongs to the Althay branch of the Ural-Altay linguistic family, also know as Turkic languages. The Ural-Altay linguistic family has originated in the highlands around the Altay Mountains of Central Asia at centuries ago. More than 90 percent of the population of the country spokes Turkish but there also some 70 other languages and dialects that are also spoken, including various dialects of Caucasian and Kurdish as well as Arabic, Greek, Ladino and Armenian.

The Turkish language comes to Turkey when nomads from Altay Mountains came to Anatolian region bringing their language with them. Ever since very earliest times, Turkish has influenced various dialects of Middle Persian, and turned the Caucasus and Anatolia away from the Indo-European group of languages.

During the Ottoman Empire the language was expanded to the gates of Vienna and to Arabia, Egypt and Northern Africa, hence, the language and vocabulary has been influenced with words from Arabic, Persian and European languages. These imported words mostly (but not always) follow the basic grammar and vowel harmony of native Turkish.

After the establishment of the Republic, Ataturk impulsed reformations in the language and in 1928 was adopted a Latin based alphabet instead of Arabic script. In 1932 was established the Turkish Language Research Society in order to simplify the language, today still active, but with the name of Turkish Language Board and among its responsibilities are the simplification, enrichment and beautification of the Turkish language.

Now the Turkish alphabet has 29 letters, 8 of which are vowels and 21 are consonants. The Turkish language is written phonetically which means every letter is uttered while reading.

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