Turkmen language

Spoken in

• Altaic languages Turkic languages Oghusische languages Ostoghusisch Turkmen

Tk

Tuk

Tuk

The Turkmen language ( Turkmen Turkmen dili / Tүркмен дили / Türkmençe / Tүркменче ) is a southwestern Turkish language within the Turkic languages ​​. Turkmen is the official language of the Republic of Turkmenistan and minority language in many countries.

Main distribution area

The Turkmen language is now the native language of around 7.6 million people and is spoken mainly in the following states.

The linguistic classification of the Turkmen in the Arab countries Iraq, Syria and Jordan, however, is controversial among linguists.

Alternative names

Older names in German sources are Turkomanisch and Truchmenisch.

Classification options

Turkmen is classified differently. So it is in the " Fischer Lexicon languages ​​" (1987) classified as following described:

• Turkic languages western branch Bulgarian group
• Oghusische group Oghusisch - Turkmen Turkmen

In contrast, the Turkmen language (1993 ) as classified in the " Metzler Lexikon Sprache ":

• Turkic languages Southwest Turkish ( Oghusisch ) Turkmen

Another classification is in Article Turkic languages ​​.

Dialects

The Turkmen has many dialects. Among the most important dialects include:

The dialects with the largest speakers were: Yomut in the west of Turkmenistan, Ärsary or Äsary in the Southeast and Teke in the Karakum Desert.

In the Middle Ages was spoken by the Turkmen steppe and Wüstennomanden the so-called " Khorezm - Turkish " that is often regarded as a precursor of Chorasantürkischen. This was replaced in the 15th century by an eastern Turkish idiom, the Chagatai.

From the 17th to the 19th century migrated numerous Turkmens to Russia. From Mangyshlak over Astrakhan these Turkmen cattle nomads moved into the area of Stavropol. There they settled down and founded 18 villages.

Alphabet

Until the 18th century wrote the Turkmen - in addition to Persian - alone on Tschagataiisch. It was not until this century has been proven an independent and significant Turkmen literature, which was driven by various Turkmen dialects. Two forms of language were written in the Arabic alphabet. But Turkmen remained basically only the language of the nomads, because of the population of the few cities and farmers in the oases predominantly Persian was spoken. But even in the thin top layer Turkmen Persian was used rather than one of the Turkmen dialects.

1928, already in Soviet times, Tschagataiisch and the Arabic alphabet were abolished. The latter was abandoned in favor of a newly developed Latin alphabet. At the same time a unified grammar for the various Turkmen dialects was developed. Here, the westturkmenische Yomut dialect was revalued by the Turkmen Soviet leadership and used as the basis of the modern high-level language. In developing the Turkmen high-level language in the 1920s, they built a modern vocabulary based on the Azerbaijani language, which existed as the only written language among the Turkic peoples of Russia before the October Revolution of 1917.

1940 has been replaced as a result of the now compulsory Russian lessons from the Latin by a modified Cyrillic alphabet.

As part of the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev's 1988/89 nationalist circles in the Turkmen population already called for the abolition of the present-day Turkmenistan written language and the reintroduction of the end of the 1920s abolished Chagatai. Tention of the present written language these circles demanded as a minimum requirement, the close alignment of the Turkmen in this eastern Turkish idiom. On the other hand, the Muslim- oriented segments of the population of Turkmenistan were. This demanded that the Turkmen SSR State support of Islam and thus the associated re-Islamization of Turkmenistan. A point united the nationalists and traditionalists: Both called vehemently the reintroduction of the Arabic alphabet. But both groups remained a minority in the Turkmen population. The former mass of the Turkmen wanted a close cooperation with the Western countries, especially with Europe and Turkey, with which the Turkmen felt closely connected by the common oghusische descent.

With the foreseeable end of the USSR Minister of Culture of Turkmenistan in 1990 took part in a Turkgipfel in Turkey. In Ankara advocated all Turkic-speaking Central Asian Ministers of Education including their Azerbaijani colleagues to develop Latin alphabets for the Turkic peoples in the Central Asian countries within 15 years. Base alphabet should be the modern alphabet Turkey.

But even in 1993, Turkmenistan opted for a new Latin alphabet, which is now slightly from the required " new Turkish alphabet " differed. Later minor changes to individual letters were made again. The modern Latin and the Cyrillic alphabet former is compared in the table below:

The Turkmens of Iran and Afghanistan and in the Arab states remained untouched by the later taking place in Central Asia font reforms. You write up today in the Arabic alphabet. The predominant dialect of Göklen used in Iran as " high Turkmen language." The Turkmen in neighboring Afghanistan and in the Arab countries write in different dialects.