The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.
Azerbaijani or Azeri, also referred to as Azeri Turkic or Azeri Turkish, is a Turkic language from the Oghuz sub-branch. It is spoken primarily by the Azerbaijani people, who live mainly in the Republic of Azerbaijan where the North Azerbaijani variety is spoken, and in the Azerbaijan region of Iran, where the South Azerbaijani variety is spoken. North Azerbaijani has official status in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, but South Azerbaijani does not have official status in Iran, where the majority of Azerbaijani people live. Azerbaijani language is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Azerbaijani communities of Georgia and Turkey and by diaspora communities, primarily in Europe and North America.
Chagatai, also known as Turki, Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic, is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia. It remained the shared literary language in the region until the early 20th century. It was used across a wide geographic area including western or Russian Turkestan, eastern or Chinese Turkestan, the Crimea, the Volga region, etc. Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages, which includes Uzbek and Uyghur. Turkmen, which is not within the Karluk branch but in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, was nonetheless heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries.
Turkmen, sometimes referred to as Turkmen Turkic or Turkmen Turkish, is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers in Turkmenistan, and a further 719,000 speakers in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in northwestern Afghanistan, where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and by diaspora communities, primarily in Turkey and Russia.
Bashkir or Bashkort is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by 1.09 million native speakers in Russia, as well as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia and other neighboring post-Soviet states, and among the Bashkir diaspora. It has three dialect groups: Southern, Eastern and Northwestern.
Qashqai is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken by the Qashqai people, an ethnic group living mainly in the Fars Province of Southern Iran. Encyclopædia Iranica regards Qashqai as an independent third group of dialects within the Southwestern Turkic language group. It is known to speakers as Turki. Estimates of the number of Qashqai speakers vary. Ethnologue gave a figure of 1.0 million in 2021.
Karakalpak is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southwestern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Nogai and neighbouring Kazakh languages, being markedly influenced by both. Typologically, Karakalpak belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, thus being closely related to and highly mutually intelligible with Kazakh and Nogai.
Khalaj is a Turkic language spoken in Iran. Although it contains many old Turkic elements, it has become widely Persianized. Khalaj has about 150 words of uncertain origin.
Salar is a Turkic language spoken by the Salar people, who mainly live in the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in China; some also live in Ili, Xinjiang. It is a primary branch and an eastern outlier of the Oghuz branch of Turkic, the other Oghuz languages being spoken mostly in Western and Central Asia. The Salar number about 105,000 people, about 70,000 (2002) speak the Salar language; under 20,000 are monolinguals.
Afshar or Afshari is a Turkic dialect spoken in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and parts of Afghanistan by the Afshars. Ethnologue and Glottolog list it as a dialect of the South Azerbaijani language. The Encyclopædia Iranica lists it as a separate Southern Oghuz language.
Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Turkic (eastern) branches. Candidates for the proto-Turkic homeland range from western Central Asia to Manchuria, with most scholars agreeing that it lay in the eastern part of the Central Asian steppe, while one author has postulated that Proto-Turkic originated 2,500 years ago in East Asia.
The Tati language is a Northwestern Iranian language spoken by the Tat people of Iran which is closely related to other languages such as Talysh, Zaza, Mazandarani and Gilaki.
Khorasani Kurds are Kurds who live in the provinces of North Khorasan and Razavi Khorasan in northeastern Iran, along the Iran-Turkmenistan border. Khorasani Kurds speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish and are Shia Muslims. Many Khorasani Kurds are bilingual in Khorasani Turkic, mainly due to intermarriages with Khorasani Turks. However, Persian is the lingua franca. There are about 696 Kurdish villages in the two Khorasan provinces. Many tribes are closely connected to the Khorasani Turks.
Khorasani Turks are a Turkic ethnic group inhabiting part of North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan and Golestan provinces of Iran, as well as in the neighboring regions of Turkmenistan up to beyond the Amu Darya River and speak Khorasani Turkic. Some can also speak Kurdish due to intermarriages with Khorasani Kurds, and they can also speak Persian as it is the lingua franca of Iran.
Sonqori, also known as Sonqori Turkic, is a moribund Turkic dialect spoken in Sonqor (Sunqur), east of Kermānšāh, in a large valley separated from the rest of Kurdistan.
There is considerable dialectal variation in Turkish.
The Oghuz languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family, spoken by approximately 108 million people. The three languages with the largest number of speakers are Turkish, Azerbaijani and Turkmen, which, combined, account for more than 95% of speakers of this sub-branch.
Turkoman, also known as Turcoman, was a term for the people of Oghuz Turkic origin, widely used during the Middle Ages. Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people that, in the 8th century A.D, formed a tribal confederation in an area between the Aral and Caspian in Khwarezm and seas in Central Asia, and spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family.
Ajem-Turkic or Ajami Turkic, also known as Middle Azeri, is the Turkic vernacular spoken in Iran between the 15th and 18th centuries. The modern Azerbaijani language is descended from this language.
