Turkish Language

Turkish is spoken by around 77 million people worldwide, the majority of which live in Turkey, where it is the official language. Significant numbers of Turkish speakers can also be found in Bulgaria, Cyprus (where Turkish is a co-official language with Greek), Greece, Macedonia, Romania, and Uzbekistan.1

Along with Gagauz, Azeri (Azerbaijani), Turkmen, and Khorasan Turkic, Turkish is part of the southwestern (Oguz) branch of the Turkic language family.2 According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, modern Turkish is "the descendant of Ottoman Turkish and its predecessor, so-called Old Anatolian Turkish." Old Anatolian Turkish was greatly influenced by both Arabic and Persian, adopting a large number of the words from these languages, as well as their grammatical forms. This Turkish ancestor also eventually assumed the Arabic script for its own written form. Modern Turkish abandoned this modified Arabic script in 1928 for a Latin-based alphabet.3

Some brief but important facts about Turkey and its people are listed below.

Capital: Ankara
Currency: Turkish lira (TRL)
Government Type: Republican parliamentary democracy
Population: 77,804,122 (July 2010 est.)
Internet Country Code: .tr
Internet Hosts: 3,433,000 (2010)
Internet Users: 35 million (2010)

For additional demographic information on Turkey and its people, please see the following link:

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tu.html

For information on The Turkish Writing System, please see our Quick Facts Library.

1 "Turkish: a language of Turkey (Asia)" Ethnologue.com
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9075318
[Accessed December 15, 2004]

2 "Turkish: a language of Turkey (Asia)" Ethnologue.com
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9075318
[Accessed December 15, 2004]

3 "Turkish: a language of Turkey (Asia)" Ethnologue.com
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9075318
[Accessed December 15, 2004]

 

Find more Turkish translation and localization resources in our translation blog:

Turkish Translation Challenges

For information on The Turkish language and translation, please see our information on Turkish Translation.