Gagauz belongs to the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, alongside Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Turkish.

[11] Between 1750[citation needed] and 1846, ancestors of the Gagauz today emigrated from the current-day Bulgarian Black Sea coast north of Varna to Russia and settled in the region that is now the current-day Republic of Moldova, allowed to do so on the condition that they converted to Orthodox Christianity by Empress Catherine.

[12] In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the 1994 law on Special Legal Status of Gagauzia was passed in Moldova, which was put into effect in 1995, granting the Gagauz territorial autonomy.

For example, orientalist Otto Blau claims that plays of Euripides had been translated into the Gagauz language and had been written with Greek letters.

On May 13, 1993, the parliament of the Republic of Moldova passed a decision providing for the official adoption of the Latin-based alphabet for the Gagauz language.

[19] Despite various laws that support the rights of citizens to education in their native language, almost all instruction in Gagauzian schools is in Russian.

Zanet has also contributed significantly to efforts to standardize the language and increase its accessibility through print and other mediums.