| Turkish The official language in
Turkey is Turkish and this is spoken by about
90-95% of the population. About 5-10% of the
Turkish people who come from different ethnic
origins, speak their mother tongues in daily life
besides Turkish.
Evolution of the Turkish
Turkish is a
branch of Ural-Altaic languages. These were
originally spoken by the Altai people who lived
in the steppe area around the Altai mountains
which form part of the border between China,
Mongolia and Russia. The Altai spread out over a
vast geographical area reaching as far as the
Balkans and today 100-120 million people speak
these languages, generally called the Turkic
Languages.
As a version of
these languages, Turkish came to Anatolia with
these people from the 11C onward and it can be
classified in 3 separate periods:
1) Turkish in the Pre-Islamic Period
This is the period
until the 10C AD, before the Turks adopted Islam
and came to Anatolia. The Turkish language was
pure during this period because it was not
influenced by any other languages. Gokturk and
Uighur Alphabets were used.
2) Turkish in the Islamic Period
This is the period
between the 10C and 20C. From the 11C onward the
Turks started to settle in Anatolia in large
numbers, first as Seljuks and then later as
Ottomans. They had already adopted Islam, which
meant they were influenced by Arabic since the
Koran was written in that language. However,
Persian remained the language of art, refined
literature and diplomacy.
Common people
spoke Turkish but used the Arabic alphabet to
write it. This mixture was called Ottoman Turkish
or the Ottoman language.
3) Modern Turkish in the 20C
In the beginning
of the 20C, parallel to all the changes and
reforms in the country, there was consciousness
towards the language as well. In this period no
one played a more important role in the
development of modern Turkish than Ataturk, the
founder of the Turkish Republic. His language
reforms as a result of his Westernization
philosophy—for instance the replacement of
the Arabic alphabet with the Latin, or
"purifying" it of the Arabic and
Persian words and idioms that had invaded the
literary language during the Ottoman Empire—
have profoundly affected the course of Modern
Turkish spoken today. This is a remarkable fact
but not actually so difficult to achieve in an
era when the literacy rate was less than 20%.
Language reform
has closed the language gap that used to exist
between the classes in Turkish society and a
certain democratization of language and
literature has occurred during the 20C.
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