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title: Turkish
description: Turkish is the most widely spoken Turkic language, reformed into a Latin orthography under Atatürk. Its vowel harmony, agglutination, and SOV order typify Altaic-contact Eurasian sprachbund features.
llms_summary: "Turkish. (Istanbul, Istanbul Province, Turkey). Profile. Grammatical Typology SOV, Agglutinative. L1 Native Speakers 80 M. Language Family Turkic / Oghuz / Turkish. Language Vitality Index 9 scale. Number of Countries 3 countries. Standard Script Latin (Turkish alphabet). Total Speakers 88 M. UNESCO Risk Category Safe. Web Domain Share (%) 70% %. Linguistics & Culture. Turkish is the most widely spoken Turkic language, reformed into a Latin orthography under Atatürk. Its vowel harmony, agglutination, and SOV order typify Altaic-contact Eurasian sprachbund features.  canonical profile on Chrisyst Datasets"
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---
# Turkish

Turkish is the most widely spoken Turkic language, reformed into a Latin orthography under Atatürk. Its vowel harmony, agglutination, and SOV order typify Altaic-contact Eurasian sprachbund features.

## Record

- **Title**: [Turkish](https://datasets.chrisyst.com/turkish/index.md)
- **Geo target**: Istanbul, Istanbul Province, Turkey
- **Website**: https://www.tdk.gov.tr/
- **Address**: Istanbul, Istanbul Province, Turkey
- **Coordinates**: 41.0082, 28.9784

### Summary

Turkish is the most widely spoken Turkic language, reformed into a Latin orthography under Atatürk. Its vowel harmony, agglutination, and SOV order typify Altaic-contact Eurasian sprachbund features.

### Description

## Historical Evolution
Turkish descends from Oghuz Turkic; Ottoman Turkish layered Persian and Arabic vocabulary in Arabic script until the 1928 alphabet revolution. Language reform (dil devrimi) purged many Arabic/Persian loans, coining native neologisms. Modern standard is based on Istanbul Turkish.

## Phonology
Turkish vowel harmony (front/back, rounded/unrounded) governs suffix allomorphy. Consonants include /ɾ/ flap and /ʃ/, /ʒ/ from loans; vowel-initial suffixes follow harmony rules strictly in native morphology.

## Syntax
Turkish is SOV with extensive suffix chains encoding case (six), possession, plurality, evidentiality, and negation on a single verb form. No grammatical gender; formality via second-person plural (siz). Relative clauses use participial constructions rather than finite complementizers.

### Attributes

- **Grammatical Typology**: SOV, Agglutinative
- **L1 Native Speakers**: 80 M _(quality 80)_
- **Language Family**: Turkic / Oghuz / Turkish
- **Language Vitality Index**: 9 scale _(quality 9)_
- **Number of Countries**: 3 countries _(quality 3)_
- **Standard Script**: Latin (Turkish alphabet)
- **Total Speakers**: 88 M _(quality 88)_
- **UNESCO Risk Category**: Safe
- **Web Domain Share (%)**: 70% % _(quality 1)_