page_title: Turkish language
section_title: Dialects
hierarchical_section_title: Turkish language / Geographic distribution / Dialects
caption_attribution_description: English: Turkey Turkish dialects map: Main subgroups References of Map: Main references: Karahan, Leyla 1996, Anadolu Ağızlarının Sınıflandırılması, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara Németh, Gyula 1983, “Bulgaristan Türk Ağızlarının Sınıflandırılması Üzerine”, TDAY Belleten 1981-1982, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara, 113-167 Other references: Bayatlı, Hidayet Kemal 1996, Irak Türkmen Türkçesi, Türk Dil Kurumu, Ankara Demir, Nurettin 2003, “Kıbrıs Ağızları Üzerine Çeşitlemeler”, Türk Dili, Sayı 614 / Şubat 2003, 203-208 İğci, Alpay 2013, “Konuşulan Dil Türkiye Türkçesinin Sahası”, Ufuk Dergisi, S: 21, Ocak-Mart 2013, 6-8 Saracoğlu, Erdoğan 2012, Kıbrıs Ağzı, Akçağ, Ankara
context_page_description: Turkish, also referred to as Istanbul Turkish or Turkey Turkish, is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 70 to 80 million speakers, mostly in Turkey. Outside its native country, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official language, even though Turkey is not a member state.
  To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish—the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire—spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. In 1928, as one of Atatürk's Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet.
  The distinctive characteristics of the Turkish language are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination. The basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no noun classes or grammatical gender.
context_section_description: Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul. This "Istanbul Turkish" (İstanbul Türkçesi) constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish, as recommended by Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfettin and others.
  Dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and in the Turkish education system since the 1930s. Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as ağız or şive, leading to an ambiguity with the linguistic concept of accent, which is also covered with these words. Several universities, as well as a dedicated work-group of the Turkish Language Association, carry out projects investigating Turkish dialects. As of 2002 work continued on the compilation and publication of their research as a comprehensive dialect-atlas of the Turkish language.
  Some immigrants to Turkey from Rumelia speak Rumelice, which includes the distinct dialects of Ludogorie, Dinler, and Adakale, which show the influence of the theoretized Balkan sprachbund. Kıbrıs Türkçesi is the name for Cypriot Turkish and is spoken by the Turkish Cypriots. Edirne is the dialect of Edirne. Ege is spoken in the Aegean region, with its usage extending to Antalya. The nomadic Yörüks of the Mediterranean Region of Turkey also have their own dialect of Turkish. This group is not to be confused with the Yuruk nomads of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, who speak Balkan Gagauz Turkish.
  Güneydoğu is spoken in the southeast, to the east of Mersin. Doğu, a dialect in the Eastern Anatolia Region, has a dialect continuum. The Meskhetian Turks who live in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia as well as in several Central Asian countries, also speak an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, originating in the areas of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin and sharing similarities with Azerbaijani, the language of Azerbaijan.
  The Central Anatolia Region speaks Orta Anadolu. Karadeniz, spoken in the Eastern Black Sea Region and represented primarily by the Trabzon dialect, exhibits substratum influence from Greek in phonology and syntax; it is also known as Laz dialect (not to be confused with the Laz language). Kastamonu is spoken in Kastamonu and its surrounding areas. Karamanli Turkish is spoken in Greece, where it is called Kαραμανλήδικα. It is the literary standard for the Karamanlides.
caption: Map of the main subgroups of Turkish dialects across Southeast Europe and the Middle East.
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