Languages of Turkey | |
---|---|
Official | Turkish |
Recognised | Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Hebrew |
Minority | Kurdish (Kurmanji), Zazaki, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Aramaic, Pomak Bulgarian, Balkan Gagauz Turkish, Laz, Georgian, Megleno-Romanian, Pontic Greek, Judaeo-Spanish |
Immigrant | Adyghe, Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Crimean Tatar, Kabardian [1] (in alphabetical order) |
Foreign | English (17%) German (4%) Arabic (2%) French (1%) [2] |
Signed | Turkish Sign Language Mardin Sign Language |
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The languages of Turkey , apart from the official language Turkish, include the widespread Kurdish (Kurmanji), Zazaki, and Arabic, and a number of less common minority languages. Four minority languages are officially recognized in the Republic of Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty (Türkiye ve Bulgaristan Arasındaki Dostluk Antlaşması) of 18 October 1925: Armenian, [3] [4] [5] Bulgarian, [6] [7] [8] [3] Greek, [3] [9] [10] and Hebrew. [11] [12] In 2013, the Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court ruled that the minority provisions of the Lausanne Treaty should also apply to Assyrians in Turkey and the Syriac language. [13] [14] [15]
Turkey has historically been the home to many now extinct languages. These include Hittite, the earliest Indo-European language for which written evidence exists (circa 1600 BCE to 1100 BCE when the Hittite Empire existed). The other Anatolian languages included Luwian and later Lycian, Lydian and Milyan. All these languages are believed to have become extinct at the latest around the 1st century BCE due to the Hellenization of Anatolia which led to Greek in a variety of dialects becoming the common language.
Urartian belonging to the Hurro-Urartian language family existed in eastern Anatolia around Lake Van. It existed as the language of the kingdom of Urartu from about the 9th century BCE until the 6th century. Hattian is attested in Hittite ritual texts but is not related to the Hittite language or to any other known language; it dates from the 2nd millennium BCE.
In the post-Tanzimat period French became a common language among educated people, even though no ethnic group in the empire natively spoke French. [16] Johann Strauss, author of "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," wrote that "In a way reminiscent of English in the contemporary world, French was almost omnipresent in the Ottoman lands." [17] Strauss also stated that French was "a sort of semi-official language", [18] which "to some extent" had "replaced Turkish as an 'official' language for non-Muslims". [19] Therefore late empire had multiple French-language publications, and several continued to operate when the Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923. However French-language publications began to close in the 1930s. [20] As the Treaty of Lausanne went into effect and was intended to protect languages of instruction for ethnic minorities, French was not included, and so schools for Jewish children teaching in French converted into being Turkish medium schools. The quantity and quality of French instruction declined in those schools for Jewish children, and so many Jewish students began attending other language-medium private schools. [12]
When French-medium schools operated by Alliance Israélite Universelle opened in the 1860s, the position of Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) began to weaken in the Ottoman Empire areas. In time Judaeo-Spanish became perceived as a low status language. [21] Hebrew was the instructional language of Judaism, and so the Treaty of Lausanne protected instruction in Hebrew, but not in Judaeo-Spanish, a language passed along in families but never used in school instruction. [12] Judaeo-Spanish was still the native language of 85% of Turkish Jews in 1927; there was still relatively low fluency in Turkish in that population, which meant they encountered issues with the Citizen, speak Turkish! campaign. [22] However, as time progressed, Judaeo-Spanish language and culture declined, and in 2017 writer Melis Alphan described Judaeo-Spanish as "dying in Turkey". [21]
Article 3 of the Constitution of Turkey defines Turkish as the official language of Turkey. [23]
Article 42 of the Constitution explicitly prohibits educational institutions to teach any language other than Turkish as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens. [24]
No language other than Turkish shall be taught as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens at any institutions of training or education. Foreign languages to be taught in institutions of training and education and the rules to be followed by schools conducting training and education in a foreign language shall be determined by law. The provisions of international treaties are reserved.
— Art. 42, Constitution of the Republic of Turkey
Due to Article 42 and its longtime restrictive interpretation, ethnic minorities have been facing severe restrictions in the use of their mother languages.
Concerning the incompatibility of this provision with the International Bill of Human Rights, Turkey signed the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights only with reservations constraining minority rights and the right to education. Furthermore, Turkey hasn't signed either of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, or the anti-discrimination Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights. [25]
This particular constitutional provision has been contested both internationally and within Turkey. The provision has been criticized by minority groups, notably the Kurdish community. In October 2004, the Turkish State's Human Rights Advisory Board called for a constitutional review in order to bring Turkey's policy on minorities in line with international standards, but was effectively muted. [26] It was also criticized by EU member states, the OSCE, and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch who observe that "the Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. But the government claims that these are Turkey's only minorities, and that any talk of minority rights beyond this is just separatism". [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] Bulgarian-speakers are also officially recognized by the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty (Türkiye ve Bulgaristan Arasındaki Dostluk Antlaşması) of 18 October 1925. [3] [6] [7] [8]
In 2012, the Ministry of Education included Kurdish (based on both Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects) [33] to the academic programme of the basic schools as optional classes from the fifth year on. [33]
Later, the Ministry of Education also included Abkhaz, Adyghe, Standard Georgian, and Laz languages in 2013, and Albanian as well as Bosnian languages in February 2017. [34]
In 2015, the Turkey’s Ministry of Education announced that as of the 2016-17 academic year, Arabic courses (as a second language) will be offered to students in elementary school starting in second grade. The Arabic courses will be offered as an elective language course like German, French and English. According to a prepared curriculum, second and third graders will start learning Arabic by listening-comprehension and speaking, while introduction to writing will join these skills in fourth grade and after fifth grade students will start learning the language in all its four basic skills. [35] [36]
Main language families in Turkey according to Ethnologue, 2009 [37] [38] | ||
---|---|---|
Rank | Language family | Total (both L1 and L2) |
1 | Turkic | 84,730,500 |
2 | Indo-European | 12,680,500 |
3 | Afro-Asiatic | 5,666,204 |
4 | Northwest Caucasian | 1,580,800 |
5 | Kartvelian | 187,000 |
6 | Northeast Caucasian | 113,200 |
7 | Sino-Tibetan | 42,000 |
Language | Mother tongue | Only language spoken | Second best language spoken |
---|---|---|---|
Abaza | 4,563 | 280 | 7,556 |
Albanian | 12,832 | 1,075 | 39,613 |
Arabic | 365,340 | 189,134 | 167,924 |
Armenian | 33,094 | 1,022 | 22,260 |
Bosnian | 17,627 | 2,345 | 34,892 |
Bulgarian | 4,088 | 350 | 46,742 |
Pomak | 23,138 | 2,776 | 34,234 |
Chechen | 7,563 | 2,500 | 5,063 |
Circassian | 58,339 | 6,409 | 48,621 |
Croatian | 45 | 1 | 1,585 |
Czech | 168 | 25 | 76 |
Dutch | 366 | 23 | 219 |
English | 27,841 | 21,766 | 139,867 |
French | 3,302 | 398 | 96,879 |
Georgian | 34,330 | 4,042 | 44,934 |
German | 4,901 | 790 | 35,704 |
Greek | 48,096 | 3,203 | 78,941 |
Italian | 2,926 | 267 | 3,861 |
Kurdish (Kurmanji) | 2,219,502 | 1,323,690 | 429,168 |
Judæo-Spanish | 9,981 | 283 | 3,510 |
Laz | 26,007 | 3,943 | 55,158 |
Persian | 948 | 72 | 2,103 |
Polish | 110 | 20 | 377 |
Portuguese | 52 | 5 | 3,233 |
Romanian | 406 | 53 | 6,909 |
Russian | 1,088 | 284 | 4,530 |
Serbian | 6,599 | 776 | 58,802 |
Spanish | 2,791 | 138 | 4,297 |
Turkish | 28,289,680 | 26,925,649 | 1,387,139 |
Zaza | 150,644 | 92,288 | 20,413 |
Total | 31,009,934 | 28,583,607 | 2,786,610 |
Province / Language | Turkish | Kurdish | Arabic | Zazaki | Circassian | Greek | Georgian | Armenian | Laz | Pomak | Bosnian | Albanian | Jewish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adana (including Osmaniye) | 866,316 | 7,581 | 22,356 | 332 | 51 | 51 | 0 | 28 | 9 | 0 | 312 | 483 | 29 |
Adıyaman | 143,054 | 117,325 | 7 | 6,705 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Afyonkarahisar | 499,461 | 125 | 19 | 1 | 2,172 | 169 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 16 | 14 | 2 | 1 |
Ağrı | 90,021 | 156,316 | 105 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 77 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 103 | 0 | 0 |
Amasya | 279,978 | 2,179 | 9 | 2 | 1,497 | 6 | 1,378 | 208 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 336 | 1 |
Ankara (including Kırıkkale and parts of Aksaray ) | 1,590,392 | 36,798 | 814 | 21 | 393 | 124 | 41 | 66 | 120 | 7 | 126 | 833 | 64 |
Antalya | 486,697 | 23 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Artvin | 190,183 | 46 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 7,698 | 1 | 12,093 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Aydın | 523,583 | 168 | 85 | 0 | 112 | 71 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 26 | 88 | 0 |
Balıkesir | 698,679 | 560 | 38 | 8 | 3,144 | 236 | 1,273 | 9 | 205 | 1,707 | 314 | 24 | 4 |
Bilecik | 137,674 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 736 | 4 | 73 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 0 |
Bingöl | 62,668 | 56,881 | 19 | 30,878 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Bitlis | 56,161 | 92,327 | 3,263 | 2,082 | 205 | 1 | 5 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Bolu (including Düzce) | 375,786 | 363 | 0 | 0 | 1,593 | 3 | 1,541 | 488 | 1,791 | 0 | 40 | 6 | 1 |
Burdur | 194,910 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Bursa (including parts of Yalova) | 746,633 | 213 | 22 | 0 | 799 | 106 | 2,938 | 35 | 517 | 65 | 1,169 | 1,928 | 69 |
Çanakkale | 338,379 | 443 | 0 | 25 | 1,604 | 5,258 | 4 | 9 | 12 | 3,675 | 516 | 6 | 121 |
Çankırı (including parts of Karabük) | 250,510 | 158 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Çorum | 474,638 | 8,736 | 4 | 0 | 1,808 | 12 | 8 | 51 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Denizli | 462,860 | 283 | 28 | 5 | 8 | 97 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Diyarbakır | 178,644 | 236,113 | 2,536 | 57,693 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 134 | 3 | 48 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
Edirne | 290,610 | 386 | 104 | 21 | 9 | 18 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 10,285 | 329 | 58 | 92 |
Elazığ | 244,016 | 47,446 | 17 | 30,921 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 30 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
Erzincan | 243,911 | 14,323 | 13 | 298 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Erzurum | 555,632 | 69,648 | 86 | 2,185 | 109 | 8 | 4 | 11 | 24 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
Eskişehir | 406,212 | 327 | 42 | 0 | 1,390 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 14 | 23 | 114 | 78 | 0 |
Gaziantep | 490,046 | 18,954 | 885 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 0 |
Giresun | 425,665 | 305 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2,029 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Gümüşhane (including Bayburt) | 260,419 | 2,189 | 0 | 0 | 91 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hakkari (including parts of Şırnak) | 10,357 | 72,365 | 165 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 21 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hatay | 350,080 | 5,695 | 127,072 | 7 | 780 | 767 | 11 | 376 | 6 | 2 | 8 | 44 | 1 |
Isparta | 265,305 | 688 | 75 | 11 | 8 | 91 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
Mersin | 500,207 | 1,067 | 9,430 | 23 | 76 | 137 | 13 | 12 | 19 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 1 |
İstanbul (including parts of Yalova) | 2,185,741 | 2,586 | 2,843 | 26 | 317 | 35,097 | 849 | 29,479 | 128 | 165 | 3,072 | 4,341 | 8,608 |
İzmir | 1,214,219 | 863 | 352 | 5 | 1,287 | 898 | 15 | 17 | 15 | 1,289 | 2,349 | 1,265 | 753 |
Kars (including Ardahan and Iğdır) | 471,287 | 133,144 | 61 | 992 | 215 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 24 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
Kastamonu | 439,355 | 1,090 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 180 | 849 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Kayseri | 509,932 | 8,454 | 34 | 8 | 17,110 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 15 | 160 | 1 |
Kırklareli | 252,594 | 602 | 136 | 24 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 3,375 | 1,148 | 144 | 11 |
Kırşehir | 185,489 | 11,309 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Kocaeli (including 3 villages of İstanbul and parts of Yalova) | 320,808 | 235 | 0 | 10 | 1,467 | 63 | 2,755 | 46 | 2,264 | 381 | 3,827 | 22 | 7 |
Konya (including Karaman) | 1,092,819 | 27,811 | 67 | 4 | 1,139 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 11 | 75 | 0 |
Kütahya | 397,221 | 105 | 13 | 2 | 17 | 4 | 2 | 88 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 0 |
Malatya | 374,449 | 77,794 | 33 | 10 | 14 | 5 | 7 | 148 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
Manisa | 746,514 | 241 | 15 | 0 | 488 | 42 | 67 | 2 | 6 | 54 | 116 | 192 | 3 |
Kahramanmaraş | 386,010 | 46,548 | 21 | 0 | 4,185 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
Mardin (including parts of Batman and Şırnak) | 35,494 | 265,328 | 79,687 | 60 | 75 | 11 | 15 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
Muğla | 334,883 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Muş | 110,555 | 83,020 | 3,575 | 507 | 898 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 103 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Nevşehir | 203,156 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 0 |
Niğde (including Aksaray) | 353,146 | 8,991 | 10 | 0 | 227 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 4 | 0 |
Ordu | 538,978 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 4,815 | 34 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Rize | 275,291 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 5,754 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Sakarya (including 1 village of Düzce) | 388,481 | 2,163 | 32 | 3 | 538 | 6 | 4,535 | 2 | 2,671 | 23 | 2,899 | 794 | 1 |
Samsun | 747,115 | 1,366 | 3 | 0 | 3,401 | 91 | 2,350 | 5 | 51 | 319 | 10 | 610 | 0 |
Siirt (including parts of Batman and Şırnak) | 46,722 | 179,023 | 38,273 | 484 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 98 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
Sinop | 261,341 | 2,126 | 0 | 0 | 659 | 1 | 1,144 | 228 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 3 |
Sivas | 649,099 | 32,284 | 19 | 23 | 2,086 | 0 | 0 | 217 | 1 | 0 | 515 | 0 | 0 |
Tekirdağ (including 1 village of İstanbul) | 284,222 | 548 | 76 | 18 | 5 | 19 | 52 | 8 | 2 | 1,627 | 6 | 51 | 102 |
Tokat | 483,948 | 3,974 | 7 | 3 | 5,934 | 0 | 367 | 45 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 964 | 0 |
Trabzon | 590,799 | 72 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 4,535 | 1 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Tunceli | 120,553 | 33,431 | 20 | 2,370 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 18 | 10 | 8 | 0 |
Şanlıurfa | 207,652 | 175,100 | 51,090 | 14,554 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Uşak | 190,506 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Van | 118,481 | 147,694 | 557 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 66 |
Yozgat | 433,385 | 2,424 | 1 | 0 | 1,597 | 2 | 0 | 118 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 1 | 0 |
Zonguldak (including Bartın and parts of Karabük) | 649,757 | 43 | 26 | 0 | 5 | 17 | 2 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Provinces with Turkish speakers in majority Provinces with Turkish speakers in plurality Provinces with Kurdish speakers in plurality Provinces with Kurdish speakers in majority
The following table lists the mother tongues of people in Turkey by percentage of their speakers.
Mother tongue | Percentage |
---|---|
Turkish | 84.54 |
Kurdish (Kurmanji) | 11.97 |
Arabic | 1.38 |
Zazaki | 1.01 |
Other Turkic languages | 0.28 |
Balkan languages | 0.23 |
Laz | 0.12 |
Circassian languages | 0.11 |
Armenian | 0.07 |
Other Caucasian languages | 0.07 |
Greek | 0.06 |
West European languages | 0.03 |
Jewish languages | 0.01 |
Other | 0.12 |
Ethnologue lists many minority and immigrant languages in Turkey some of which are spoken by large numbers of people.
Family | Language | ISO | Speakers | Status (EGIDS) [a] | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Turkic languages | |||||
Oghuz | Turkish | tur | 83,440,000 (2019) | 1 (National) | |
South Azerbaijani | azb | 596,000 (2019) | 5 (Dispersed) | ||
Balkan Gagauz Turkish | bgx | 460,000 (2019) | 7 (Shifting) | ||
Turkmen | tuk | 5 (Dispersed) | Non-indigenous | ||
Kipchak | Crimean Tatar | crh | 110,000 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | Non-indigenous |
Karakalpak | kaa | 81,700 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Tatar | tat | 28,700 (2019) | 5 (Dispersed) | Non-indigenous | |
Kazakh | kaz | 8,500 (2019) | 5 (Dispersed) | Non-indigenous | |
Kyrgyz | kir | 5 (Dispersed) | Non-indigenous | ||
Kumyk | kum | 1,600 (2021) | 6b (Threatened) | Non-indigenous | |
Karluk | Southern Uzbek | uzs | 4,200 (2019) | 5 (Dispersed) | Non-indigenous |
Uyghur | uig | ||||
Indo-European languages | |||||
Iranian | Northern Kurdish | kmr | 9,000,000 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | 3,000,000 monolinguals |
Southern Zazaki | diq | 1,280,000 (2019) | |||
Northern Zazaki | kiu | 203,000 (2019) | |||
Persian | pes | 682,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Digor Ossetian | oss | 41,000 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | Non-indigenous | |
Indo-Aryan | Balkan Romani | rmn | 72,900 (2019) | 6a (Vigorous) | Non-indigenous |
Domari | rmt | 6b (Threatened) | |||
Urdu | urd | 24,300 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Slavic | Pomak Bulgarian | bul | 395,000 (2019) | 5 (Dispersed) | |
Bosnian | bos | 112,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Russian | rus | 600,000 (2012) | |||
Macedonian | mkd | 35,000 (2019) | |||
Serbian | srp | 5,000 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | ||
Greek | Pontic Greek | pnt | 5,000 (2015) | 7 (Shifting) | |
Greek | ell | 4,000 (2019) | 5 (Dispersed) | Non-indigenous, due to emigration | |
Albanian | Tosk Albanian | als | 72,900 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | Non-indigenous |
Gheg Albanian | aln | 5 (Dispersed) | |||
Armenian | Western Armenian | hyw | 67,300 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | |
Italic | Ladino | lad | 8,000 (2018) | 7 (Shifting) | Non-indigenous |
Spanish | spa | 16,000 (2019) | |||
French | fra | 4,300 (2019) | |||
Germanic | English | eng | 47,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | |
German | deu | 6,700 (2019) | |||
Semitic languages | |||||
Arabic | Levantine Arabic | apc | 4,250,000 (2021) | 6b (Threatened) | The vast majority of speakers are Syrian refugees and migrants. |
Modern Standard Arabic | arb | 686,000 (2015) | 4 (Educational) | Non-indigenous | |
North Mesopotamian Arabic | ayp | 574,000 (2019) | 6a (Vigorous) | Do not read Arabic | |
Mesopotamian Arabic | acm | 112,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Aramaic | Turoyo | tru | 16,600 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | |
Hértevin | hrt | 4 (2012) | 8b (Nearly extinct) | ||
Syriac | syc | 0 | 9 (Dormant) | ||
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic | aii | 27,600 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Northwest Caucasian languages | |||||
Circassian | Kabardian | kbd | 1,170,000 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | Non-indigenous |
Adyghe | ady | 349,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Abazgi | Abkhaz | abk | 48,600 (2019) | Non-indigenous | |
Abaza | abq | 13,200 (2019) | Non-indigenous | ||
Ubykh | Ubykh | uby | 0 | 10 (Extinct) | Last speaker died in 1992 |
Kartvelian languages | |||||
Karto-Zan | Georgian | kat | 167,000 (2019) | 6b (Threatened) | |
Lazuri | lzz | 20,000 (2007) | |||
Northeast Caucasian languages | |||||
Lezgic | Lezgi | lez | 1,200 (1996) | Non-indigenous | |
Nakh | Chechen | che | 112,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | |
Sino-Tibetan languages | |||||
Sinitic | Mandarin Chinese | cmn | 42,000 (2019) | Non-indigenous | |
Sign languages | |||||
Deaf community | Turkish Sign Language | tsm | 250,000 (2021) | 6a (Vigorous) | |
Mardin Sign Language | dsz | 40 (2012) | 8b |
Not included in the report by Ethnologue is the Megleno-Romanian language, spoken by the Megleno-Romanians, who number around 5,000 in the country. [42]
a ^ Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) of Ethnologue:
0 (International): "The language is widely used between nations in trade, knowledge exchange, and international policy."
1 (National): "The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government at the national level."
2 (Provincial): "The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government within major administrative subdivisions of a nation."
3 (Wider Communication): "The language is used in work and mass media without official status to transcend language differences across a region."
4 (Educational): "The language is in vigorous use, with standardization and literature being sustained through a widespread system of institutionally supported education."
5 (Developing): "The language is in vigorous use, with literature in a standardized form being used by some though this is not yet widespread or sustainable."
6a (Vigorous): "The language is used for face-to-face communication by all generations and the situation is sustainable."
6b (Threatened): "The language is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users."
7 (Shifting): "The child-bearing generation can use the language among themselves, but it is not being transmitted to children."
8a (Moribund): "The only remaining active users of the language are members of the grandparent generation and older."
8b (Nearly Extinct): "The only remaining users of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language."
9 (Dormant): "The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community, but no one has more than symbolic proficiency."
10 (Extinct): "The language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language."
The following languages are listed as having 50,000 or more total speakers in Turkey according to the 2022 edition of Ethnologue . [43] Entries identified by Ethnologue as macrolanguages (such as Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Chinese, and Zaza, encompassing all their respective varieties) are not included in this section.
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy, southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.
Demographic features of the population of Turkey include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The Treaty of Lausanne is a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–23 and signed in the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The treaty officially resolved the conflict that had initially arisen between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied French Republic, British Empire, Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, and the Kingdom of Romania since the outset of World War I. The original text of the treaty is in English and French. It emerged as a second attempt at peace after the failed and unratified Treaty of Sèvres, which had sought to partition Ottoman territories. The earlier treaty, signed in 1920, was later rejected by the Turkish National Movement which actively opposed its terms. As a result of the Greco-Turkish War, İzmir was reclaimed, and the Armistice of Mudanya was signed in October 1922. This armistice provided for the exchange of Greek-Turkish populations and allowed unrestricted civilian, non-military passage through the Turkish Straits.
The Treaty of Sèvres was a 1920 treaty signed between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty ceded large parts of Ottoman territory to France, the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy, as well as creating large occupation zones within the Ottoman Empire. It was one of a series of treaties that the Central Powers signed with the Allied Powers after their defeat in World War I. Hostilities had already ended with the Armistice of Mudros.
Yevanic, also known as Judaeo-Greek, Romaniyot, Romaniote, and Yevanitika, is a Greek dialect formerly used by the Romaniotes and by the Constantinopolitan Karaites. The Romaniotes are a group of Greek Jews whose presence in the Levant is documented since the Byzantine period. Its linguistic lineage stems from the Jewish Koine spoken primarily by Hellenistic Jews throughout the region, and includes Hebrew and Aramaic elements. It was mutually intelligible with the Greek dialects of the Christian population. The Romaniotes used the Hebrew alphabet to write Greek and Yevanic texts. Judaeo-Greek has had in its history different spoken variants depending on different eras, geographical and sociocultural backgrounds. The oldest Modern Greek text was found in the Cairo Geniza and is actually a Jewish translation of the Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet).
The history of the Jews in Turkey covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.
Assyrians in Turkey or Turkish Assyrians are an indigenous Semitic-speaking ethnic group and minority of Turkey who are Eastern Aramaic–speaking Christians, with most being members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church, or Ancient Church of the East.
Education in Turkey is governed by a national system which was established in accordance with the Atatürk's Reforms. It is a state-supervised system designed to produce a skillful professional class for the social and economic institutes of the nation.
Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization describes a shift whereby populations or places received or adopted Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specifically Turkish rather than merely Turkic, meaning that it refers more frequently to the Ottoman Empire's policies or the Turkish nationalist policies of the Republic of Turkey toward ethnic minorities in Turkey. As the Turkic states developed and grew, there were many instances of this cultural shift.
Minorities in Greece are small in size compared to Balkan regional standards, and the country is largely ethnically homogeneous. This is mainly due to the population exchanges between Greece and neighboring Turkey and Bulgaria, which removed most Muslims and those Christian Slavs who did not identify as Greeks from Greek territory. The treaty also provided for the resettlement of ethnic Greeks from those countries, later to be followed by refugees. There is no official information for the size of the ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities because asking the population questions pertaining to the topic have been abolished since 1951.
Armenians in Turkey, one of the indigenous peoples of Turkey, have an estimated population of 50,000 to 70,000, down from a population of over 2 million Armenians between the years 1914 and 1921. Today, the overwhelming majority of Turkish Armenians are concentrated in Istanbul. They support their own newspapers, churches and schools, and the majority belong to the Armenian Apostolic faith and a minority of Armenians in Turkey belong to the Armenian Catholic Church or to the Armenian Evangelical Church. They are not considered part of the Armenian Diaspora, since they have been living in their historical homeland for more than four thousand years.
The Greeks in Turkey constitute a small population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos. Greeks are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, together with Jews, Armenians, and Bulgarians.
Turks of Western Thrace are ethnic Turks who live in Western Thrace, in the province of East Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece.
The Muslim minority of Greece is the only explicitly recognized minority in Greece. It numbered 97,605 according to the 1991 census, and unofficial estimates ranged up to 140,000 people or 1.24% of the total population, according to the United States Department of State.
The partition of the Ottoman Empire was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French, and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany to form the Ottoman–German Alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonization after World War II.
Kurdish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, representing an estimated 25 to 28 percent of the population. Historically, in the Ottoman Empire, Islam was the official and dominant religion, with Muslims having more rights than non-Muslims, whose rights were restricted. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious groups were legally identified by different millet ("nations").
The language of the court and government of the Ottoman Empire was Ottoman Turkish, but many other languages were in contemporary use in parts of the empire. The Ottomans had three influential languages, known as "Alsina-i Thalātha", that were common to Ottoman readers: Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Persian. Turkish was spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except in Albania, Bosnia, and various Aegean Sea islands; Persian was initially a literary and high-court language used by the educated in the Ottoman Empire before being displaced by Ottoman Turkish; and Arabic, which was the legal and religious language of the empire, was also spoken regionally, mainly in Arabia, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant.
In Turkey, xenophobia and discrimination are present in its society and throughout its history, including ethnic discrimination, religious discrimination and institutional racism against non-Muslim and non-Sunni minorities. This appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some people towards people who are not considered ethnically Turkish, notably Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, and peripatetic groups like Romani people, Domari, Abdals and Lom.
The Citizen, speak Turkish! campaign was a Turkish government-funded initiative created by law students which aimed to put pressure on non-Turkish speakers to speak Turkish in public in the 1930s and onwards. In some municipalities, fines were given to those speaking in any language other than Turkish. The campaign has been considered by some authors as a significant contribution to Turkey's sociopolitical process of Turkification.
The Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
In the Lausanne treaty, people of the republic were defined through a religion based definition, similar to the Ottoman concept of millet (nation). For example, the non-Muslim minorities such as Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were recognized as minorities, and their language rights were identified in articles 39, 40, and 41.
This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.
"Mother tongue" education is mostly limited to Turkish teaching in Turkey. No other language can be taught as a mother tongue other than Armenian, Greek, and Hebrew, as agreed in the Lausanne Treaty [...] Like Jews and Greeks, Armenians enjoy the privilege of an officially recognized minority status. [...] No language other than Turkish can be taught at schools or at cultural centers. Only Armenian, Greek, and Hebrew are exceptions to this constitutional rule.
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(help) .Turkey is a nation–state built on remnants of the Ottoman Empire where non-Muslim minorities were guaranteed the right to set up educational institutions; however, since its establishment, it has officially recognised only Armenians, Greeks and Jews as minorities and guaranteed them the right to manage educational institutions as enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne. [...] Private language teaching courses teach 'traditionally used languages', elective language courses have been introduced in public schools and universities are allowed to teach minority languages.
The population of Armenian Turkish citizens living in Turkey is unclear, with estimates ranging up to 70,000. With a legal minority status in Turkey as defined by the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 for all non-Muslim minority groups, they are entitled to "an equal right to establish, manage and control at their own expense, any charitable, religious and social institutions, any schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their own religion freely therein".
Turkey signed the Covenant on 15 August 2000 and ratified it on 23 September 2003. However, Turkey put a reservation on Article 27 of the Covenant which limited the scope of the right of ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion or to use their own language. This reservation provides that this right will be implemented and applied in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Turkish Constitution and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. This implies that Turkey grants educational right in minority languages only to the recognized minorities covered by the Lausanne who are the Armenians, Greeks and the Jews.
As mentioned above, the Jews, the Greek Orthodox Christians, and the Armenian Orthodox Christians are the only recognized minorities in Turkey.
The legal status of Armenians designed by the Treaty of Lausanne gave them the opportunity to establish their own schools, religious and secular organizations, to teach younger generations the Armenian language, to publish books and newspapers in Armenian, to worship in their churches etc. These regulations helped them to live as a community, to maintain their cultural values, i.e. to prolong Armenian identity.