Turkish is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. It is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), the Republic of Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia.
More than two million Turkish speakers live in Germany, and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Turkish is a member of the Turkish, or Western, subgroup of the Oghuz languages, which includes Gagauz and Azeri. The Oghuz languages form the Southwestern subgroup of the Turkic languages, a language family comprising some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia. Some linguists believe the Turkic languages to be a part of a larger Altaic language family.
The earliest known Turkic inscriptions are the two monumental Orkhon inscriptions dating back to some time between 732 and 735. Following the adoption of Islam c. 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks, who are both regarded as the cultural ancestors of the Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian.Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Ottoman Divan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire (c. 1299–1922) was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably from the period's everyday spoken Turkish and is termed Ottoman Turkish.
After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, loanwords replacement of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents was initiated. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the new Republic of Turkish succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. Although there are still some loanwords from Arabic and Persian, most of the words used today in modern Turkish are originally Turkic.
-- by Mehmet, Turkish teacher, Language Door San Diego.
