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Language Lineage

Oghuz

Initial t- and k- became voiced in much of the vocabulary: Turkish dağ 'mountain', dil 'tongue', gel- 'come', where Kipchak and Karluk keep taw, til, kel-.

c. 9th century CE – presentFrom the Aral steppe to Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran and the Balkans
On this page
  1. Origins
  2. Ottoman Turkish
  3. The Republic's Reforms
  4. In its own words
  5. Where it's spoken
  6. Turning points

01

Origins

The Oghuz were a tribal confederation on the steppes east of the Aral Sea in the 9th and 10th centuries. In the 11th century one of their clans, the Seljuks, conquered Iran, and after the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071 Oghuz Turkic speakers spread across Anatolia. Their descendants' languages form the southwestern branch of Turkic: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Gagauz in Moldova.

A recognisable Oghuz feature is the voicing of initial consonants in many words: *taγ 'mountain' is Turkish and Azerbaijani dağ, and *kel- 'come' is Turkish gel-. Mahmud al-Kashgari already noted Oghuz peculiarities in his dictionary of the 1070s.

02

Ottoman Turkish

Under the Ottoman Empire (c. 1300–1922), educated written Turkish absorbed Persian and Arabic vocabulary and even grammar, such as Persian noun phrases and Arabic plurals. It was written in Arabic script, which recorded Turkish vowels poorly. Speech remained Turkish, but the written language of the court and the ordinary language of the people drifted far apart.

03

The Republic's Reforms

In 1928 the new Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk replaced Arabic script with a Latin alphabet designed for Turkish vowel harmony, with letters such as ı, ö, ü, ş and ğ. From 1932 the Turkish Language Association replaced thousands of Arabic and Persian words with Turkic coinages and revived words (okul 'school' for mektep). The historian Geoffrey Lewis called it 'a catastrophic success': it made the language easier to learn and write, but it also made Ottoman literature unreadable to later generations. After 1991, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan also switched from Cyrillic to Latin alphabets.

A sample

In its own words

Turkish

Damlaya damlaya göl olur.
Damlaya
drip-CVB
damlaya
drip-CVB
göl
lake
olur.
become-AOR
‘Drop by drop, a lake forms. (Small amounts add up.)’
Sources (1)

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Turkeyc. 70 million
  2. Azerbaijanc. 9 million
  3. Turkmenistanc. 5 million
  4. Germanyc. 1.5 million
  5. Bulgariac. 600,000
  6. Moldovac. 100,000
  7. Iranc. 15–20 million (mostly Azerbaijani)

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Sound lawc. 11th – 13th century CEContested

    Initial voicing

    *t- *k- → d- g- (*taγ → dağ, *kel- → gel-)

    Initial *t and *k become voiced in much of the Oghuz vocabulary: *taγ → dağ, *til → dil, *kel- → gel-. The change is incomplete and irregular across words and languages, and its dating from early texts is debated.

    Compare with other weakening and voicing across families →

    Sources (1)
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  2. Split1071 onward

    Into Anatolia

    After the Seljuk victory at Manzikert, Oghuz Turkic speakers settle Anatolia, and Anatolian Turkish separates from the Oghuz of Central Asia (later Turkmen) and of the Caucasus and Iran (later Azerbaijani).

    Sources (1)
    • Golden, Peter B. 1992. An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  3. Contact14th – 19th century CE

    Ottoman: Persian and Arabic layers

    The written language of the Ottoman state takes in a large share of Persian and Arabic vocabulary and some of their grammar. Spoken Turkish stays much closer to its Oghuz base.

    Sources (1)
    • Lewis, Geoffrey. 1999. The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  4. Writing1928

    The Latin alphabet for Turkish

    The 'alphabet revolution' (harf devrimi) replaces Arabic script with a Latin alphabet within months, and with it the written language's link to its Ottoman past.

    Figures · Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938)

    Sources (1)
    • Lewis, Geoffrey. 1999. The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  5. Revitalization1932 onward

    The language reform

    The Turkish Language Association replaces Arabic and Persian loans with Turkic words, some revived from old texts and many newly coined. Much of the new vocabulary becomes standard. How far the purge went, and at what cost, is still argued in Turkey.

    Sources (1)
    • Lewis, Geoffrey. 1999. The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  6. Writing1991–1993

    Azerbaijani and Turkmen return to Latin

    After independence, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan replace Soviet Cyrillic with Latin alphabets. In Iran, Azerbaijani continues to be written in Arabic script.

    Sources (1)
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.