Turkish languageArticle Free Pass Turkish language, Turkish
Türkçe or Türkiye Türkçesi, the major member of the Turkic
language family, which is a subfamily of the Altaic languages.
Turkish is spoken in Turkey, Cyprus, and elsewhere in Europe and
the Middle East. With Gagauz, Azerbaijani (sometimes called
Azeri), Turkmen, and Khorāsān Turkic, it forms the southwestern,
or Oğuz, branch of the Turkic languages. Modern Turkish is the
descendant of Ottoman Turkish and its predecessor, so-called Old
Anatolian Turkish, which was introduced into Anatolia by the
Seljuq Turks in the late 11th century ad. Old Turkish gradually
absorbed a great many Arabic and Persian words and even
grammatical forms and was written in Arabic script. After the
founding of the Turkish republic in 1923, the Arabic script was
replaced by the Latin alphabet (1928). The reform of the
language was initiated and supported by the Turkish republican
government. In spite of disputes and resistance, the movement
contributed greatly to purifying th