- Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language. To what family does your language belong? What sounds, words, or structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures?
According to research, Turkish belongs to the Altay branch of the Ural-Altaic linguistic family, same as Finnish and Hungarian. It is the westernmost of the Turkic languages spoken across Central Asia and is generally classified as a member of the South-West group, also known as the Oguz group. Turkey is on two continents- Asia and Europe, surrounded by Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Aegean Sea. Considering its location, its language is also influenced by many other cultures. As I studied French before, I saw lots of similar spellings. Gokhan said that French people had a huge influence on Turkish. Many Turkish words and phrases are originated from French. Three languages were used during the Ottoman Empire, which are Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and they all based on Arabic script. Thus, Turkish also borrow heavily from Arabic and Persian. Before the letter reforms introducing the standardized Turkish, people from different parts of Turkey spoke different Turkish, and they might find difficulties understanding each other. At that time, with arabic Turkish, people need to understand Persian and Arabic to be able interpret others well and write well.
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Did Gökhan also talk with you about Eurasian influences on Turkish? Turks actually migrated to Anatolia, and their linguistic roots are generally attributed to an origin much further to the East. For this reason, linguists have actually explored linguistic similarities between Turkish, Japanese, and Korean. Although the Altaic language family, has largely been discredited, it at one point was thought to include all of these different languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altaic_languages