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The
Oghuz languages, a major branch of the
Turkic language familyThe Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
, are spoken by more than 110 million people in an area spanning from the Balkans to
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
.
Oghuz in old Turkic means thirty, in terms of the thirty tribes.
Linguistic Features
The Oghuz languages share a number of features that have led linguists to classify them together. Some of these features are shared with other Turkic languages; others are unique to the Oghuz family.
Shared features
- Loss of initial *h sound (preserved only in Khalaj
Khalaj is a language spoken primarily in Iran and Afghanistan. It belongs to the Turkic family of languages. There were approximately 42,000 speakers of this language as of 2000...
)
- Loss of the instrumental case
The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...
(preserved only in SakhaSakha, or Yakut, is a Turkic language with around 460,000 speakers spoken in the Sakha Republic in the Russian Federation by the Sakha or Yakuts.-Classification:...
and Khalaj)
Unique features
- Voicing of stops before front vowels (e.g. gör- < kör- "to see")
- Loss of after (e.g. quru < quruq "dry", < "yellow")
- Change in form of participial -gan- to -an-
Classification
The Oghuz languages may be broken down into three main groups, based on geography and shared features:
- a Western group, including
- Turkish, including Turkish
Turkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other...
, Ottoman TurkishOttoman Turkish is the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. It contains extensive borrowings from Arabic and Persian languages and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
, GagauzThe Gagauz language is a Turkic language, spoken by the Gagauz people, and the official language of Gagauzia, Republic of Moldova. It is spoken by approximately 150,000 people. There are two dialects, Bulgar Gagauzi and Maritime Gagauzi. This is a different language from Balkan Gagauz Turkish...
, Balkan Gagauz TurkishBalkan Gagauz Turkish is a Turkic language spoken in European Turkey, Greece, and in the Kumanovo and Bitola areas of the Republic of Macedonia. . Dialects include Gajol, Gerlovo Turk, Karamanli, Kyzylbash, Surguch, Tozluk Turk, Yuruk, and Macedonian Gagauz...
, and the language of the Meskhetian TurksMeskhetian Turks, also known as Muslim Meskhetians, or simply Meskhetians are the former Turkish inhabitants of Meskheti , along the border with Turkey...
- Azerbaijani, including the northern and southern varieties of Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani is a language belonging to the Turkic language family, spoken in southwestern Asia, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran...
, the languages of the Iraqi TurkmenThe Iraqi Turks or Iraqi Turkmens are a distinct Turkic ethnic group, the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq, living mostly in northern Iraq, in an area which they call "Turkmeneli", notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul...
of Iran and Iraq, Qashqa'iQashqai is a Turkic language spoken by the Qashqai, an ethnic group living mainly in the Fars region of Iran. Estimates of the number of Qashqai speakers vary, Ethnologue gives a figure of one and a half million...
, and AfsharAfshar or Afshari, is a Turkic language spoken in parts of Afghanistan and Iran. There are some speakers in Syria and Turkey. It is considered by many to be a dialect of Azerbaijani...
- Turkmen group, including Turkmen
Turkmen is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,000,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by an additional approximately 380,000 in northwestern Afghanistan and 500,000 in northeastern Iran.- Classification, related languages and dialects :Turkmen is in the...
, Khorasani TurkishKhorasani Turkish , or Qizilbash Turkic , is a language variety in the Turkic language family. It is spoken in northern Khorasan in Iran. Khorasani Turkic speakers also speak Persian. -Geographic Distribution:...
in Iran, and the Oghuz dialect of UzbekUzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 23.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
- a southern group, including dialects of Iran (Kashkay
Qashqai is a Turkic language spoken by the Qashqai, an ethnic group living mainly in the Fars region of Iran. Estimates of the number of Qashqai speakers vary, Ethnologue gives a figure of one and a half million...
, Sonqori, Aynallu etc.) and Afghanistan (Afshar).
An outlying language,
SalarSalar is a Turkic language spoken by the Salar people, who mainly live in the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in China; some also live in Ghulja, Xinjiang...
, is spoken by about 70,000 people in China.
Two languages,
Crimean TatarThe Crimean Tatar language , also known as Crimean and Crimean Turkish is the language of the Crimean Tatars. It is spoken in Crimea, Central Asia , and the Crimean Tatar diasporas in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria...
and
UrumUrum is a Turkic language spoken by several thousand people who inhabit a few villages in the Southeastern Ukraine and in diaspora communities world wide. Urum language are often considered variants of Crimean Tatar language....
are historically
Kypchak languagesThe Kypchak languages , are a major branch of the Turkic language family spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China.-Linguistic features:...
, but have been so heavily influenced by Oghuz languages that it is difficult to classify them definitively as either Oghuz or Kypchak.
The extinct
Pecheneg languagePecheneg language is the extinct Turkic language spoken by the Pechenegs in Eastern Europe.It is most likely a member of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic family, but the poor documentation to it and the absence of any descendant languages of Pecheneg has prevented linguists from making a definite...
is likely Oghuz, but as it is poorly documented, it is difficult to further classify it within the Oghuz family.
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