Languages of Turkey


The languages of Turkey, apart from the official language Turkish, include the widespread Kurmanji, the moderately prevalent minority languages Arabic and Zazaki and a number of less common minority languages, some of which are guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Constitutional rights

Official language

Article 3 of the Constitution of Turkey defines Turkish as the official language of Turkey.

Minority language rights

Article 42 of the Constitution explicitly prohibits educational institutions to teach any language other than Turkish as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens.
Due to Article 42 and its longtime restrictive interpretation, ethnic minorities have been facing severe restrictions in the use of their mother languages.
Concerning the incompatibility of this provision with the International Bill of Human Rights, Turkey signed the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights only with reservations constraining minority rights and the right to education. Furthermore, Turkey hasn't signed either of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, or the anti-discrimination Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights.
This particular constitutional provision has been contested both internationally and within Turkey. The provision has been criticized by minority groups, notably the Kurdish community. In October 2004, the Turkish State's Human Rights Advisory Board called for a constitutional review in order to bring Turkey's policy on minorities in line with international standards, but was effectively muted. It was also criticized by EU member states, the OSCE, and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch who observe that "the Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. But the government claims that these are Turkey's only minorities, and that any talk of minority rights beyond this is just separatism".

Supplementary language education

In 2012, the Ministry of Education included Kurdish to the academic programme of the basic schools as optional classes from the fifth year on.
Later, the Ministry of Education also included Abkhaz, Adyghe, Standard Georgian, and Laz languages in 2013, and Albanian as well as Bosnian languages in February 2017.
In 2015, the Turkey’s Ministry of Education announced that as of the 2016-17 academic year, Arabic courses will be offered to students in elementary school starting in second grade. The Arabic courses will be offered as an elective language course like German, French and English. According to a prepared curriculum, second and third graders will start learning Arabic by listening-comprehension and speaking, while introduction to writing will join these skills in fourth grade and after fifth grade students will start learning the language in all its four basic skills.

Lists of languages

The following table lists the mother tongues of people in Turkey by percentage of their speakers.
Mother tonguePercentage
Turkish84.54
Northern Kurdish11.97
Arabic1.38
Zazaki1.01
Other Turkic languages0.28
Balkan languages0.23
Laz0.12
Circassian languages0.11
Armenian0.07
Other Caucasian languages0.07
Greek0.06
West European languages0.03
Jewish languages0.01
Coptic0.01
Other0.12

Ethnologue lists many minority and immigrant languages in Turkey some of which are spoken by large numbers of people.
LanguageDialect or varietySpeakersStatus Notes
Turkish66,850,000 1
KurdishNorthern Kurdish8,130,000 3 3,000,000 monolinguals
ZazakiSouthern Zazaki1,500,000 5
ZazakiNorthern Zazaki184,000 4
ArabicNorth Levantine Arabic1,130,000 3
ArabicModern Standard Arabic686,000 4 Non-indigenous
ArabicNorth Mesopotamian Arabic520,000 6a Do not read Arabic
ArabicOther Mesopotamian Arabic101,000 6a Non-indigenous
Kabardian1,000,000 5 Non-indigenous
Azerbaijani540,000 5
RomaniBalkan Romani500,000 6a Non-indigenous
Domari500,000 8b Non-indigenous
Turkish Sign Language400,000 6a
BulgarianPomak Bulgarian351,000 5
Balkan Gagauz Turkish327,000 7
Adyghe316,000 5 -
GreekPontic Greek5,000 7
GreekStandard Modern Greek3,600 5
Georgian151,000 6b Non-indigenous
Crimean Tatar100,000 5 Non-indigenous
AlbanianTosk Albanian66,000 6b Non-indigenous
AlbanianGheg Albanian5 Non-indigenous
Armenian61,000 6b
Abkhaz44,000 6b Non-indigenous
OssetianDigor Ossetian37,000 5 Non-indigenous
Tatar5 Non-indigenous
Lazuri20,000 6b
AramaicTuroyo15,000 6b
AramaicHértevin1,000 6a
AramaicOther Syriac varieties9
Ladino13,000 7 Non-indigenous
Turkmen5 Non-indigenous
Bosnian4,500 6b Non-indigenous
UzbekSouthern Uzbek3,800 5 Non-indigenous
Kyrgyz5 Non-indigenous
Uyghur5 Non-indigenous

aExpanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale of Ethnologue:

0 : "The language is widely used between nations in trade, knowledge exchange, and international policy."

1 : "The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government at the national level."

2 : "The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government within major administrative subdivisions of a nation."

3 : "The language is used in work and mass media without official status to transcend language differences across a region."

4 : "The language is in vigorous use, with standardization and literature being sustained through a widespread system of institutionally supported education."

5 : "The language is in vigorous use, with literature in a standardized form being used by some though this is not yet widespread or sustainable."

6a : "The language is used for face-to-face communication by all generations and the situation is sustainable."

6b : "The language is used for face-to-face communication within all generations, but it is losing users."

7 : "The child-bearing generation can use the language among themselves, but it is not being transmitted to children."

8a : "The only remaining active users of the language are members of the grandparent generation and older."

8b : "The only remaining users of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language."

9 : "The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community, but no one has more than symbolic proficiency."

10 : "The language is no longer used and no one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language."

1965 Census

Province / LanguageTurkishKurdishArabicZazakiCircassianGreekGeorgianArmenianLazPomakBosnianAlbanianJewish
Adana 866,3167,58122,35633251510289031248329
Adıyaman143,054117,32576,7050008440000
Afyonkarahisar499,4611251912,172169221161421
Ağrı90,021156,3161054227750110300
Amasya279,9782,179921,49761,37820860103361
Ankara 1,590,39236,798814213931244166120712683364
Antalya486,69723200140020010
Artvin190,1834640047,698112,0931100
Aydın523,58316885011271414026880
Balıkesir698,6795603883,1442361,27392051,707314244
Bilecik137,674540736473112630
Bingöl62,66856,8811930,87817011110003
Bitlis56,16192,3273,2632,082205151600012
Bolu 375,786363001,59331,5414881,79104061
Burdur194,9102700312000010
Bursa746,6332132207991062,93835517651,1691,92869
Çanakkale338,3794430251,6045,25849123,6755166121
Çankırı 250,51015810010320000
Çorum474,6388,736401,8081285137000
Denizli462,8602832858971102130
Diyarbakır178,644236,1132,53657,693113134348150
Edirne290,61038610421918212310,2853295892
Elazığ244,01647,4461730,92102023012320
Erzincan243,91114,323132984501223010
Erzurum555,63269,648862,1851098411247151
Eskişehir406,2123274201,3904301423114780
Gaziantep490,04618,95488514604301110
Giresun425,66530511202,029050000
Gümüşhane 260,4192,1890091000170000
Hakkari 10,35772,36516501012120000
Hatay350,0805,695127,072778076711376628441
Isparta265,30568875118910121134
Mersin500,2071,0679,43023761371312193391
İstanbul2,185,7412,5862,8432631735,09784929,4791281653,0724,3418,608
İzmir1,214,21986335251,2878981517151,2892,3491,265753
Kars 471,287133,14461992215685241541
Kastamonu 439,3551,090203218084910000
Kayseri509,9328,45434817,11011969151601
Kırklareli252,59460213624535373,3751,14814411
Kırşehir185,48911,30940200010100
Kocaeli320,8082350101,467632,755462,2643813,827227
Konya 1,092,81927,8116741,1393715111750
Kütahya397,221105132174288900340
Malatya374,44977,7943310145714854030
Manisa746,514241150488426726541161923
Kahramanmaraş386,01046,5482104,185001330090
Mardin 35,494265,32879,687607511151100160
Muğla334,8836410280001004
Muş110,55583,0203,5755078980131030000
Nevşehir203,15622000000000220
Niğde 353,1468,9911002275012401540
Ordu538,9781200504,8153401010
Rize275,291111109405,7541010
Sakarya388,4812,16332353864,53522,671232,8997941
Samsun747,1151,366303,401912,350551319106100
Siirt 46,722179,02338,273484101598301000
Sinop261,3412,1260065911,14422835073
Sivas649,09932,28419232,086002171051500
Tekirdağ284,222548761851952821,627651102
Tokat483,9483,974735,9340367452009640
Trabzon590,7997212004,53511100000
Tunceli120,55333,431202,370280040181080
Şanlıurfa207,652175,10051,09014,554305240200
Uşak190,5061620100410000
Van118,481147,69455731211801166
Yozgat433,3852,424101,59720118001410
Zonguldak 649,7574326051723150111

History

Turkey has historically been the home to many now extinct languages. These include Hittite, the earliest Indo-European language for which written evidence exists. The other Anatolian languages included Luwian and later Lycian, Lydian and Milyan. All these languages are believed to have become extinct at the latest around the 1st century BCE due to the Hellenization of Anatolia which led to Greek in a variety of dialects becoming the common language.
Urartian belonging to the Hurro-Urartian language family existed in eastern Anatolia around Lake Van. It existed as the language of the kingdom of Urartu from about the 9th century BCE until the 6th century. Hattian is attested in Hittite ritual texts but is not related to the Hittite language or to any other known language; it dates from the 2nd millennium BCE.
In the post-Tanzimat period French became a common language among educated people, even though no ethnic group in the empire natively spoke French. Johann Strauss, author of "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," wrote that "In a way reminiscent of English in the contemporary world, French was almost omnipresent in the Ottoman lands." Strauss also stated that French was "a sort of semi-official language", which "to some extent" had "replaced Turkish as an 'official' language for non-Muslims". Therefore late empire had multiple French-language publications, and several continued to operate when the Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923. However French-language publications began to close in the 1930s.