Turkmen language

Turkmen(türkmençe,түркменче,تۆرکمنچه‎,[tʏɾkmøntʃø]ortürkmen dili,түркмен дили,تۆرکمن ديلی‎,[tʏɾkmøndɪlɪ])is aTurkic languageof theOghuz branchspoken by theTurkmensofCentral Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers inTurkmenistan(where it is the official language),and a further 719,000 speakers in northeasternIranand 1.5 million people in northwesternAfghanistan,where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities ofUzbekistanandTajikistanand by diaspora communities, primarily inTurkeyandRussia.
Turkmen is a member of theOghuzbranch of the Turkic languages. It is closely related toAzerbaijani,Crimean Tatar,Gagauz,Qashqai, andTurkish, sharing varying degrees ofmutual intelligibilitywith each of those languages.However, the closest relative of Turkmen is consideredKhorasani Turkic, spoken in northeastern regions of Iran and with which it shares the eastern subbranch of Oghuz languages, as well as Khorazm, the Oghuz dialect ofUzbekspoken mainly inKhorezmalong the Turkmenistan border.Elsewhere in Iran, the Turkmen language comes second after the Azerbaijani language in terms of the number of speakers of Turkic languages of Iran.
Thestandardized formof Turkmen (spoken in Turkmenistan) is based on theTekedialect, whileIranian Turkmenuse mostly theYomuddialect, andAfghan Turkmenuse theErsaryvariety.The Turkmen language, unlike other languages of the Oghuz branch, preserved most of the unique and archaic features of the language spoken by the earlyOghuz Turks, includingphonemicvowel length.
IraqiandSyrian "Turkmen"speak dialects that form acontinuumbetweenTurkishandAzerbaijani, in both cases heavily influenced byArabicandPersian. These varieties are not Turkmen in the sense of this article.
Turkmen is a member of the Oghuz branch of theTurkic familyof languages, together with Turkish and Azerbaijani, with which it shares a relatively high degree ofmutual intelligibility. However, an arguably closer language to Turkmen isKhorasani Turkic, with which it shares the eastern subbranch of the Oghuz languages, and also Khorazm, spoken mainly in northwestern Uzbekistan.
Turkmen hasvowel harmony, isagglutinativeand has no grammatical gender. Word order issubject–object–verb.
Written Turkmen today is based on theTeke(Tekke) dialect. The other dialects are Nohurly,Ýomud,Änewli, Hasarly, Nerezim,Gökleň,Salyr, Saryk,ÄrsaryandÇowdur. The Teke dialect is sometimes (especially inAfghanistan) referred to as "Chagatai", but like all Turkmen dialects it reflects only a limited influence from classicalChagatai.
Turkmen has dental fricatives/θ/and/ð/unlike other Oghuz Turkic languages, where these sounds are pronounced as/s/and/z/. The only other Turkic language with a similar feature isBashkir. However, in Bashkir/θ/and/ð/are two independent phonemes, distinct from/s/and/z/, whereas in Turkmen[θ]and[ð]are the two mainrealizationsof the common Turkic/s/and/z/. In other words, there are no/s/and/z/phonemes in Turkmen, unlike Bashkir, which has/s/,/z/,/θ/and/ð/.
The 1st person personal pronoun is "men" in Turkmen, just as"mən"inAzerbaijani, whereas it is "ben" in Turkish. The same is true for demonstrative pronouns "bu", where sound "b" is replaced with sound "m". For example:"bunun>munun//mının, muna//mına, munu//munı, munda//mında, mundan//mından".In Turkmen, "bu" undergoes some changes just as in:"munuñ, munı, muña, munda, mundan".
Here are some words with a different pronunciation in Turkmen and Azerbaijani that mean the same in both languages:
Turkeywas first to recognize Turkmenistan's independence on 27 October 1991, following theDissolution of the Soviet Unionand to open its embassy inAshgabaton 29 February 1992. Sharing a common history, religion, language and culture, the two states have balanced special relations based on mutual respect and the principle of "One Nation, Two States".
Turkmen language is very close to Turkish with regard to linguistic properties. However, there are a couple of differences due to regional and historical reasons. Most morphophonetic rules are common in Turkmen and Turkish languages. For instance, both languages show vowel harmony and consonant mutation rules, and have similar suffixes with very closesemantics.
Here are some words fromthe Swadesh listin Turkmen and Turkish that mean the same in both languages:
Turkmen written language was formed in the 13–14th centuries.During this period, theArabic alphabetwas used extensively for writing. By in the 18th century, there had been arich literary traditionin the Turkmen language. At the same time, theliteracyof the population in their native language remained at low levels; book publishing was extremely limited, and the first primer in the Turkmen language appeared only in 1913, while the first newspaper ("Transcaspian native newspaper") was printed in 1914.
The Arabic script was not adapted to the phonetic features of the Turkic languages. Thus, it did not have necessary signs to designate specific sounds of the Turkmen language, and at the same time there were many letters to designateArabicsounds that were not in the Turkmen language.
During the first years after theestablishment of the Soviet power, the Arabic alphabet of Turkmen under theUSSRwas reformed twice, in 1922 and 1925. In the course of the reforms, letters withdiacriticswere introduced to denote Turkic phonemes; and letters were abolished for sounds that are absent in the Turkmen language.
The Turkmens of Afghanistan and Iran continue to use Arabic script.
In January 1925, on the pages of the republican newspaperTürkmenistan, the question of switching to a new,Latin alphabetwas raised. After the first All-Union Turkological Congress inBaku(February–March 1926), the State Academic Council under the People's Commissariat of Education of theTurkmen SSRdeveloped a draft of a new alphabet. On 3 January 1928, the revised new Latin alphabet was approved by the Central Executive Committee of the Turkmen SSR.
At the end of the 1930s, the process of theCyrillizationof writing began throughout the USSR. In January 1939, the newspaper "Sowet Türkmenistany" published a letter from teachers inAshgabatand theAshgabat regionwith an initiative to replace the Turkmen (Latin) script with Cyrillic. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Turkmen SSR instructed the Research Institute of Language and Literature to draw up a draft of a new alphabet. The teachers of the Ashgabat Pedagogical Institute and print workers also took part in the development of the new writing system. In April 1940, the draft alphabet was published.
In May 1940, the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkmen SSR adopted a resolution on the transition to a new alphabet of all state and public institutions from 1 July 1940, and on the beginning of teaching the new alphabet in schools from 1 September of the same year.
After thedissolution of the Soviet Union, in January 1993, a meeting was held at theAcademy of Sciences of Turkmenistanon the issue of replacing the Cyrillic with the Latin alphabet, at which a commission was formed to develop the alphabet. In February, a new version of the alphabet was published in the press. On 12 April 1993, theMejlis of Turkmenistanapproved a presidential decree on the new alphabet.
Turkmen is a highly agglutinative language, in that much of the grammar is expressed by means of suffixes added to nouns and verbs. It is very regular compared with many other languages of non-Turkic group. For example,obalardan"from the villages" can be analysed asoba"village", -lar (plural suffix), -dan (ablative case, meaning "from");alýaryn"I am taking" asal"take",-ýar(present continuous tense),-yn(1st person singular).
Another characteristic of Turkmen is vowel harmony. Most suffixes have two or four different forms, the choice between which depends on the vowel of the word's root or the preceding suffix: For example, the ablative case ofobalarisobalardan"from the villages" but, the ablative case ofitler"dogs" isitlerden"from the dogs".
Levels of respect or formality are focused on the final suffix of commands, while in normal sentences adding -dyr can increase formality.
Turkmen literature comprisesoral compositionsand written texts in OldOghuz Turkicand Turkmen languages.Turkmensare direct descendants of theOghuz Turks, who were a westernTurkic peoplethat spoke the Oghuz branch of theTurkic language family.
The earliest development of the Turkmen literature is closely associated with the literature of the Oghuz Turks.Turkmens have joint claims to a great number of literary works written in Old Oghuz andPersian(bySeljuksin 11-12th centuries) languages with other people of the Oghuz Turkic origin, mainly ofAzerbaijanandTurkey. These works include, but are not limited to theBook of Dede Korkut, Zöhre Tahyr,Gorogly,Layla and Majnun,Yusuf Zulaikhaand others.
There is general consensus, however, that distinctively modern Turkmen literature originated in the 18th century with thepoetryofMagtymguly Pyragy, who is considered the father of the Turkmen literature.Other prominent Turkmen poets of that era areDöwletmämmet Azady(Magtymguly's father), Mollanepes, Nurmuhammet Andalyp, Mämmetweli Kemine,Abdylla Şabende,Şeýdaýy,Mahmyt Gaýybyand Gurbanally Magrupy.
Note: Numbers are formed identically to other Turkic languages, such as Turkish. So, eleven (11) is "on bir" (lit.'ten-one'). Two thousand seventeen (2017) isiki müň on ýedi(two-thousand-ten-seven).
The following isMagtymguly'sTürkmeniň(of the Turkmen) poem with the text transliterated into Turkmen (Latin) letters, whereas the original language is preserved. Second column is the poem'sTurkishtranslation, third one is the Azerbaijani translation, while the last one is the English translation.
Irani Turkmensspeak a dialect of Turkmen in the province ofGolestan.It is mutually intelligible with the Turkmen dialects in Afghanistan, and is written in theNastaliq script.