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Languages of Turkey

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Languages of Turkey
OfficialTurkish
MinorityKurmanji, Azerbaijani, Arabic, Zazaki, Pomak Bulgarian, Balkan Gagauz Turkish,[a] Laz, Armenian, Greek, Pontic Greek, Judaeo-Spanish
ImmigrantAdyghe, Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Crimean Tatar,[a] Georgian, Kabardian[1] (in alphabetical order)
ForeignEnglish (17%)
German (4%)
French (3%)[2]
SignedTurkish Sign Language
Mardin Sign Language
Keyboard layout
a^ may be subsumed under the Turkish language.
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The languages of Turkey, apart from the official language Turkish, include the widespread Kurmanji, the moderately prevalent minority languages Arabic and Zazaki and a number of less common minority languages, some of which are guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Constitutional rights

Official language

Article 3 of the Constitution of Turkey defines Turkish as the official language of Turkey.[3]

Minority language rights

Article 42 of the Constitution explicitly prohibits educational institutions to teach any language other than Turkish as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens.[4]

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.[5]

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.[6] 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".[7]

Supplementary language education

In 2012, the Ministry of Education included Kurdish (based on both Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects)[8] to the academic programme of the basic schools as optional classes from the fifth year on.[8]

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.[9]

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.[10][11]

Lists of languages

The following table lists the mother tongues of people in Turkey by percentage of their speakers.

Mother tongues in Turkey[12]
Mother tongue Percentage
Turkish 84.54
Northern Kurdish 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
Coptic 0.01
Other 0.12

Ethnologue lists many minority and immigrant languages in Turkey some of which are spoken by large numbers of people.

Languages by number of speakers in Turkey (with Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale)[13][14]
Language Dialect or variety Speakers Status (EGIDS)[a] Notes
Turkish 66,850,000 (2006) 1 (National)
Kurdish Northern Kurdish 8,130,000 Decrease (2014) 3 (Wider communication) 3,000,000 monolinguals
Zazaki Southern Zazaki 1,500,000 Decrease (1998) 5 (Developing)
Northern Zazaki 184,000 (2014) 4 (Educational)
Arabic North Levantine Arabic 1,130,000 (2014) 3 (Wider communication)
Modern Standard Arabic 686,000 (2015) 4 (Educational) Non-indigenous
North Mesopotamian Arabic 520,000 (2014) 6a (Vigorous) Do not read Arabic
Other Mesopotamian Arabic 101,000 (2014) Non-indigenous
Kabardian 1,000,000 (2005) 5 (Developing) Non-indigenous
Azerbaijani 540,000 (2014) 5 (Dispersed)
Romani Balkan Romani 500,000 (1985) 6a (Vigorous) Non-indigenous
Domari 8b (Nearly extinct)
Turkish Sign Language 400,000 (1998) 6a (Vigorous)
Bulgarian Pomak Bulgarian 351,000 (2014) 5 (Dispersed)
Balkan Gagauz Turkish 327,000 (1993) 7 (Shifting)
Adyghe 316,000 (2014) 5 (Dispersed)
Greek Pontic Greek 5,000 (2009) 7 (Shifting)
Standard Modern Greek 3,600 (2014) 5 (Dispersed)
Georgian 151,000 (2014) 6b (Threatened) Non-indigenous
Crimean Tatar 100,000 (2014) 5 (Developing) Non-indigenous
Albanian Tosk Albanian 66,000 (2014) 6b (Threatened) Non-indigenous
Gheg Albanian 5 (Dispersed)
Armenian 61,000 (2014) 6b (Threatened)
Abkhaz 44,000 (2014) 6b (Threatened) Non-indigenous
Ossetian Digor Ossetian 37,000 (2014) 5 (Developing) Non-indigenous
Tatar 5 (Dispersed) Non-indigenous
Lazuri 20,000 (2007) 6b (Threatened)
Aramaic Turoyo 15,000 (2014) 6b (Threatened)
Hértevin 1,000 (1999) 6a (Vigorous)
Other Syriac varieties 9 (Dormant)
Ladino 13,000 (2007) 7 (Shifting) Non-indigenous
Turkmen 5 (Dispersed) Non-indigenous
Bosnian 4,500 (2013) 6b (Threatened) Non-indigenous
Uzbek Southern Uzbek 3,800 (2014) 5 (Dispersed) Non-indigenous
Kyrgyz 5 (Dispersed) Non-indigenous
Uyghur 5 (Dispersed) Non-indigenous

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."

1965 Census

Languages spoken in Turkey, 1965 census[15]
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
Languages spoken in Turkey by provinces, 1965 census[16]
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) 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 parts of 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 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 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 (including parts of Düzce) 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 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) 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 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 parts of 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 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

  • Turkish- and Kurdish-speaking pluralities
    Turkish- and Kurdish-speaking pluralities
  • Turkish-speaking population
    Turkish-speaking population
  • Kurdish-speaking population
    Kurdish-speaking population
  • Arabic-speaking population
    Arabic-speaking population
  • Zaza-speaking population
    Zaza-speaking population
  • Circassian-speaking population
    Circassian-speaking population
  • Greek-speaking population
    Greek-speaking population
  • Armenian-speaking population
    Armenian-speaking population
  • Georgian-speaking population
    Georgian-speaking population
  • Laz-speaking population
    Laz-speaking population
  • Pomak-speaking population
    Pomak-speaking population
  • Bosnian-speaking population
    Bosnian-speaking population
  • Albanian-speaking population
    Albanian-speaking population
  • Hebrew-speaking population
    Hebrew-speaking population

History

See also: Languages of the Ottoman Empire
A 1901 postcard depicting Galata in Constantinople (Istanbul), showing signage in Ottoman Turkish, French, Greek, and Armenian

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.[17] 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."[18] Strauss also stated that French was "a sort of semi-official language",[19] which "to some extent" had "replaced Turkish as an 'official' language for non-Muslims".[20] 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.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. "Refworld - World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Turkey".
  2. ^ Europeans and Their Languages
  3. ^ "Constitution of the Republic of Turkey". Republic of Turkey. Article 3 . {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  4. ^ "Constitution of the Republic of Turkey". Republic of Turkey. Article 42 . {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  5. ^ European Commission 2005, pp. 35 f..
  6. ^ European Commission 2005, p. 35.
  7. ^ Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. New York: Human Rights Watch. April 2002.
  8. ^ a b "Kürtçe İlk Kez Müfredata Girdi" [Kurdish Is on the Academic Programme for the First Time]. Hürriyet Eğitim. Milliyet.com.tr (in Turkish). Milliyet. 12 September 2012. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |registration=, |subscription=, |editorlink=, and |editors= (help)
  9. ^ "Boşnakça ve Arnavutça Müfredata Girdi" [Bosnian and Albanian Languages Are on the Academic Programme]. Hürriyet Eğitim. Hurriyet.com.tr (in Turkish). Hürriyet. 23 February 2017. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |registration=, |subscription=, |editorlink=, and |editors= (help)
  10. ^ Al-Monitor: Turks divided over plans to introduce Arabic-language teaching, 2 November 2015, Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  11. ^ Hürriyet Daily News: Arabic to be offered as second language in Turkish elementary schools, 23 October 2015, Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  12. ^ "Etnik Kimlikler: Anadil [Ethnic Identitites: Mother Tongue]". Toplumsal Yapı Araştırması 2006 [Social Structure Research 2006] (PDF) (Report). KONDA. September 2006. p. 19. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-02-15. Retrieved 2016-04-24. {{cite report}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |authors= (help)
  13. ^ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.) (2009). "Ethnologue report for Turkey (Europe)". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International. Archived from the original on 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2009-09-08. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  14. ^ Lewis, M. Paul (ed.) (2009). "Ethnologue report for Turkey (Asia)". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International. Archived from the original on 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2009-09-08. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  15. ^ Heinz Kloss & Grant McConnel, Linguistic composition of the nations of the world, vol,5, Europe and USSR, Québec, Presses de l'Université Laval, 1984, ISBN 2-7637-7044-4
  16. ^ Ahmet Buran Ph.D., Türkiye'de Diller ve Etnik Gruplar, 2012
  17. ^ Strauss, Johann (2010). "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanun-ı Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages". In Herzog, Christoph; Malek Sharif (eds.). The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy. Wurzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul. pp. 21–51. (info page on book at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 26 (PDF p. 28): "French had become a sort of semi-official language in the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Tanzimat reforms.[...]It is true that French was not an ethnic language of the Ottoman Empire. But it was the only Western language which would become increasingly widespread among educated persons in all linguistic communities."
  18. ^ Strauss, Johann (2016-07-07). "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire". In Murphey, Rhoads (ed.). Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule. Routledge. (ISBN 1317118456, 9781317118459), p. 122.
  19. ^ Strauss, Johann (2016-07-07). "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire". In Murphey, Rhoads (ed.). Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule. Routledge. (ISBN 1317118448, 9781317118442), Google Books PT192.
  20. ^ Strauss, Johann (2016-07-07). "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire". In Murphey, Rhoads (ed.). Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule. Routledge. (ISBN 1317118448, 9781317118442), Google Books PT193.
  21. ^ Tanatar Baruh, Lorans; Sara Yontan Musnik. "Francophone press in the Ottoman Empire". French National Library. Retrieved 2019-07-13.

Bibliography and further reading

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