The Turkish (Türkçe or Türk dili) belongs to the linguistic family of Turkic languages, which geographic area stretches from western China to the Balkans. This in turn is part of the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic languages. The languages are close to the Turkish Turkmen and Azarbeycani.

Official in Turkey, The language was spoken from the middle Ages, when the Turks from central Asia settled in Anatolia, which was then part of the Byzantine Empire. It is also official in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. In some Balkan areas a variety known as Turkish Ottoman (Osmanlı Türkçesi) is also spoken. This dialect is quite different from the Turkish of Turkey. In several Western European countries there are large communities of Turkish speakers, emigrated from Turkey in recent days.

It is an agglutinative language which is based on adding a suffix and/ or infix added to root words that can express many meanings in few words. There is no grammatical gender.

The language has had several scripts. It was written with Arabic characters adapted from the thirteenth century to the spelling reform undertaken in the 20’s by the government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who undertook several initiatives to westernization of the country in the belief that it would contribute to its modernization. The spelling reform was accompanied by an attempt to “debug” nationalist, that is, to replace the huge number of loan words (mostly Arabic) by Turkish root words, objective force today that has not reaped the expected success is regulated by the Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Society, TDK).

USEFUL EXPRESSIONS

Hello Merhaba
How are you.? Nasilsiniz?
Well Iyiyim
Thanks Sagol or Mersi
OK Tamam
Sorry Pardon
Yes evet
No Hayir
Goodbye (the bouncing) Gule gule
Goodbye (the part) Hosçakalin
Good morning (morning) Günaydin
Good morning (day) Iyi GUnload
Good evening Iyi aksamlar
Here Burada
When? Ne zaman?
Why? Neden?
Where? Nered?
What? Ne?
I do not understand Anlamiyorum
Emergency
Police Polis
Ambulance Ambulans
Stop! Dur
Help! Imdat
Fire! Yangin
Hastane Hospital
Doctor Doktor
Shopping
Very expensive cok pahali
How much does it cost? Bu ne kadar?
Credit card Kredi Karti
Race Pazarlik
Travel
Havaalani Airport
Puerto Liman
Otogar bus station
Parking Otopark
Ticket Bilet
Istasyon Station
Hours Tarife
Gise Box Office
Turizm Ofisi Tourist Office
Taxi Taksi

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