Turkish (Türkçe [ˈtyɾctʃe] ⓘ, Türk dili; also known as Türkiye Türkçesi 'Turkish of Turkey'[15]) is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 100 million speakers.

The language makes usage of honorifics and has a strong T–V distinction which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee.

[21] The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features: agglutination, vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender.

The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, Oghuz—the direct ancestor of today's Turkish language—into Anatolia during the 11th century.

[25] Following the adoption of Islam around the year 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks, who are both regarded as the ethnic and cultural ancestors of the Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian.

Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words.

One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents.

[e] The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English.

[35] Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic members of the diaspora speak the language with native fluency.

[f] In 2005, 93% of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish,[37] about 67 million at the time, with Kurdish languages making up most of the remainder.

This status continued until August 1983, when it was again made into a governmental body in the constitution of 1982, following the military coup d'état of 1980.

[45] Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as ağız or şive, leading to an ambiguity with the linguistic concept of accent, which is also covered with these words.

Some immigrants to Turkey from Rumelia speak Rumelian Turkish, which includes the distinct dialects of Ludogorie, Dinler, and Adakale, which show the influence of the theorized Balkan sprachbund.

[48] This group is not to be confused with the Yuruk nomads of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, who speak Balkan Gagauz Turkish.

[55][56] This is analogous to languages such as German and Russian, but in the case of Turkish it only applies, as the above examples demonstrate, to stops and affricates, not to fricatives.

[52] The principle of vowel harmony, which permeates Turkish word-formation and suffixation, is due to the natural human tendency towards economy of muscular effort.

[63] The following examples, based on the copula -dir4 ("[it] is"), illustrate the principles of i-type vowel harmony in practice: Türkiye'dir ("it is Turkey"),[j] kapıdır ("it is the door"), but gündür ("it is the day"), paltodur ("it is the coat").

In the case of a nominal sentence, then mi comes after the predicate but before the personal ending, so for example Necla, siz öğretmen misiniz?

However, as Turkish possesses a case-marking system, and most grammatical relations are shown using morphological markers, often the SOV structure has diminished relevance and may vary.

[54]: Chapter XIV The only native prefixes are alliterative intensifying syllables used with adjectives or adverbs: for example sımsıcak ("boiling hot" < sıcak) and masmavi ("bright blue" < mavi).

[l] The extensive use of affixes can give rise to long words, e.g. Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınızcasına, meaning "In the manner of you being one of those that we apparently couldn't manage to convert to Czechoslovakian".

Since the postposition ile often gets suffixed onto the noun, some analyze it as an instrumental case, although in formal speech it takes the genitive with personal pronouns, singular demonstratives, and interrogative kim.

[citation needed] The Turkish personal pronouns in the nominative case are ben (1s), sen (2s), o (3s), biz (1pl), siz (2pl, or 2h), and onlar (3pl).

Furthermore, Turkish verbs show tense (present, past, future, and aorist), mood (conditional, imperative, inferential, necessitative, and optative), and aspect.

The most important function of some of these attributive verbs is to form modifying phrases equivalent to the relative clauses found in most European languages.

[v] şimdinowkonuşanspeakingadammanşimdi konuşan adamnow speaking manthe man (who is) now speakingbabasıfather-isşimdinowkonuşanspeakingadammanbabası şimdi konuşan adamfather-is now speaking manthe man whose father is now speakingbabasınıfather-is-ACCdünyesterdaygördüğümseen-myadammanbabasını dün gördüğüm adamfather-is-ACC yesterday seen-my manthe man whose father I saw yesterdayresimlerinepictures-is-tobaktığımızlooked-ourressamartistresimlerine baktığımız ressampictures-is-to looked-our artistthe artist whose pictures we looked atmuhtarımayor-itsseçildiğibeen-chosen-hisköyvillagemuhtarı seçildiği köymayor-its been-chosen-his villagethe village of which he was elected mayormuhtarıseçilmekistediğiköymuhtarı seçilmek istediği köythe village of which he wishes to be elected mayoryazdığımwritten-mymektupletteryazdığım mektupwritten-my letterthe letter (which) I wroteçıktığımızemerged-ourkapıdoorçıktığımız kapıemerged-our doorthe door from which we emergedgeldiklericome-theirvapurshipgeldikleri vapurcome-their shipthe ship they came onyaklaştığınıapproach-their-ACCanladığıunderstood-hishapishaneprisongünleridays-itsyaklaştığını anladığı hapishane günleriapproach-their-ACC understood-his prison days-itsthe prison days (which) he knew were approachingLatest 2011 edition of Güncel Türkçe Sözlük (Current Turkish Dictionary), the official dictionary of the Turkish language published by Turkish Language Association, contains 117,000 vocabularies and 93,000 articles.

The majority of Turkish words originate from the application of derivative suffixes to a relatively small set of core vocabulary.

The task of preparing the new alphabet and selecting the necessary modifications for sounds specific to Turkish was entrusted to a Language Commission composed of prominent linguists, academics, and writers.

Instances include a 1635 Latin-Albanian dictionary by Frang Bardhi, who also incorporated several sayings in the Turkish language, as an appendix to his work (e.g. alma agatsdan irak duschamas[y]—"An apple does not fall far from its tree").

A circumflex is written over back vowels following ⟨k⟩ and ⟨g⟩ when these consonants represent [c] and [ɟ]—almost exclusively in Arabic and Persian loans.