Turkish is a fascinating language spoken by over 80 million native speakers. Its unique grammar and character set makes it part of an international language family that has enriched lives for millennia.
Turkish belongs to the Turkic language family, which includes Azerbaijani, Kazakh, and Uzbek, among others. It is also related to the Uralic language family, which shares some features with languages like Hungarian and Finnish.
Turkish is written in the Latin alphabet with a few additional characters. It is English-friendly, with some English words used in everyday conversation.
In Turkish, several sounds do not exist in English. One of these, the letter "ı," is a schwa sound and is usually transliterated as "I," as in Istanbul.
Turkish has a complex verb system distinguishing formal and informal styles. It also has several suffixes and prefixes that can alter the meaning of words.
Turkish is a high-context culture and relies heavily on non-verbal cues. Accordingly, much of the language structure involves context and conveying information without saying a word.
Turkish is an agglutinative language, and complex words can be formed by adding prefixes and suffixes. This process is known as adding "word streaks,"-- non segmentable words into individual words.
Turkish has two dialects - Eastern and Western. The Eastern dialect is helpful in more prestigious contexts, and the Western dialect is useful in everyday speech.
Turkish is one of the official languages of the European Union. It is also the first language of millions in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa.
Turkish is full of loan words from other languages due to its long history as part of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish language has adopted many Arabic, Persian, and French words
Turkish has a distinct phonology and pronunciation. Vowels are long and short; Turkish has a specific "itch" sound that sometimes belongs in the language, and others do not.
