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 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.
The Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia. Today, much of the populations of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are descendants of Oghuz Turks. Byzantine sources call them Uzes. The term Oghuz was gradually supplanted by the terms Turkmen and Turcoman by 13th century.
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.
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.
The Iraqi Turkmen, also referred to as Iraqi Turks, Turkish-Iraqis, the Turkish minority in Iraq, and the Iraqi-Turkish minority are Iraq's third largest ethnic group. They make up to 13% of the Iraqi population and are native to northern Iraq. Iraqi Turkmen share ties with Turkish people, and do not identify with the Turkmen of Turkmenistan and Central Asia.
Khorasani Turkic or Khorasani Turkish is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken in the North Khorasan Province and the Razavi Khorasan Province in Iran. Nearly all Khorasani Turkic speakers are also bilingual in Persian.
The Kipchak languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken by approximately 28 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanning from Ukraine to China. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar.
The Bayandur or Bayundur, is an Oghuz Turkic tribe. Originally one of the 7 original tribes that made up the Kimek–Kipchak confederation, they later joined the Oghuz Turks. The Bayandur originated from Central Asia.
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.
Middle Turkic refers to a phase in the development of the Turkic language family, covering much of the Middle Ages. In particular the term is used by linguists to refer to a group of Karluk and Oghuz and related languages spoken during this period in Central Asia, Iran, and other parts of the Middle East controlled by the Seljuk Turks.
The Khalaj are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly reside in Iran. In Iran they still speak the Khalaj language, although most of them are Persianized.
Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages.
There is considerable dialectal variation in Turkish.
Lars Johanson is a Swedish Turcologist and linguist, an emeritus professor at the University of Mainz, and docent at the Department of Linguistics and Philology, University of Uppsala, Sweden.
Uzes were a group of medieval Turkic people in East Europe. They were known as Tork in Russian chronicles. Like most medieval Turkic people, they were Tengrists.
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 seas in Central Asia, and spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family.
Turkic history is the systematic documentation and study of events involving the Turkic peoples.
Argu or Arghu languages is a branch of Common Turkic languages along with Oghuz, Kipchak, Karluk and Siberian Turkic. Unlike other branches, this group is not multilingual. The historical Argu language and its descendant Khalaj are the only languages of this group.
