Talk:Turkish language/Archive 3

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Copyedit question

Hello! I'm with the WP:LoCE and did a small edit on the first paragraph in the lead this morning. I have a question: in the infobox, it lists several Western European countries and the United States as having substantial immigrant Turkish-speaking populations. However, the final sentence of the first paragraph currently reads, "Turkish is also spoken by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly in Germany." Additionally, the United States are not mentioned in the "Geographic Distribution" section. However, here on the talk pages, I saw a population figure quoted (117,000) that was on a par with the other nations listed in the infobox and article. If this is correct, shouldn't the U.S. be included in the article text? The sentence in the lead could read, "Turkish is also spoken by several million immigrants spread throughout the United States and Western Europe, particularly in Germany." and you could easily add the U.S. in your distribution section.

Or if not, then perhaps the U.S should be removed from the infobox? Not trying to be a pain...it just seems a bit inconsistent. Galena11 01:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful copyedit in the lead section: a great improvement!

As for the US, see my (only slightly) tongue-in-cheek comment under Alaska. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 13:56, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit

Hello! I put several clarifying questions/suggestions in hidden comments within the article text, labeled "COPYEDITOR'S NOTES". Overall, this was an easy copyedit and most of my changes were to punctuation and some sentence refinement. I also moved one image to the right side, because it was cluttering up the other images and obscuring the text. Nice job! Galena11 14:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Tiresome translators

I have had to remove Turkish translators in 200 countries several times recently from the External Links. Can someone please block this spam? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

PS And it's probably time to archive this discussion page: any volunteers? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done—including To do list. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

FSI course no longer free?

The Foreign Service Institute Turkish course mentioned in Learning resources appears to be no longer free for download. I think this must be a very recent change, because I got through to the website only a month or so ago. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

PS I think it's still available here—for the time being! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Is Dünya a turkish word?

In the turkish language you have two words for world, Dünya and Cihan if both arabish words?? Can someone help me,please? Deniz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.190.114.222 (talk) 19:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know; Cihan is Persian, Dünya is arabic, and Acun is Turkic. Kerem Özcan (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I must admit I'd never heard acun, but the other two are indeed from those languages. Dünya is also used in Persian—and even in Modern Greek (ντουνιάς): in Arabic it literally means "lower/inferior" (as opposed to heaven). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a Q. could Dunya be actually an Aramaic word? Similarly Leyla is often said to be Arabic but it is in fact Aramaic, a language which is similar to Arabic any way.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I had never thought of the original meaning of Dunya in Arabic. It is very correct. As I know Dun in Arabic means inferior. I have thought about the possible etymology of Jahan (Cihan(. I gueessed it came from Jahesh (movement, motion( , but I found out that thjis and the other word Keyhan (cosmos) both come from the Pahlevi Gêhan. So it is more complicated than I thought. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 07:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, do you know the Etmology Dictionary of the official Language Institute of the Turkey TDK?

Here are answers to your questions:

Dünya is arabic: http://www.tdk.org.tr/TR/SozBul.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4376734BED947CDE&Kelime=d%c3%bcnya

Cihan is persian: http://www.tdk.org.tr/TR/SozBul.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4376734BED947CDE&Kelime=cihan

Acun is turkish: http://www.tdk.org.tr/TR/SozBul.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4376734BED947CDE&Kelime=acun

Look also to my site: http://turki-loanwords.freehost.ag/index.html --Meyman (talk) 19:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Turkish words for world/earth are: "yer" and "yeryüzü". They are both commonly used. "Yer" also means place and ground. Examples: yer gök = the earth and the sky (notice that the word "and" is in often dropped in Turkish), yeryüzündeki en uzun ırmaklar = the longest rivers on earth / in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpy01 (talk • contribs) 08:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Citations and references

I see that this has already been discussed (see the archive). I didn't notice the discussion at the time, but I really don't think a footnote merely mentioning an author's name (eg Soucek or Findley) is sufficient—even though the full references are given in the References section. At the very least, the year of publication should be given in the footnote; and a page reference would be useful (otherwise you're expecting the reader to wade through an entire book to verify one statement!). (See WP:CITE for further details.)

In other words, a typical footnote should read something like Soucek (2000): 15-25. I'm a little bit surprised this wasn't picked up at the FAC stage (or was it?). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Translation of Asik Veysel Poem

I redid the translation, the English in the prior version was not very good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaanatakan (talk • contribs) 05:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think this tanslation is weak 195.145.80.224 (talk) 07:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree the current translation is very poor. For one thing, in the translation of the repetitive verse "Dostlar beni hatırlasın" an article "the" before friends is grammatically inappropriate in English - it would read better as "May friends remember me". I also think the verse would be better translated as "Friends should remember me" to convey the poet's literary meaning - it is a verse that is directive, not wishful. I can suggest changes to the rest of the poem if that is ok by everyone. --BaharEngur (talk) 03:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Fact tag

Babakexorramdin, your insertion of fact tag in front of Azerbaijan for speaking Turkish language is a baseless edit. Please refer to CIA World Factbook and variety of research material from historians like Vladimir Minorsky, to realize that language spoken in the region of historical Azerbaijan is Turkish/Oghuz Turkic. Atabek (talk) 00:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Dialects

What is Rumelice? I'm hearing it for first time! As I know there is not such a language or dialect. I know it because I'm from Bulgaria. --Ilhanli (talk) 23:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Question

If Turkish is an official language of Cyprus, and Cyprus is in the European Union, doesn't that mean that Turkish is one of the official languages of the EU? Polibiush (talk) 21:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm actually no. I don't know the reason for it but

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/languages/index_en.html[1]--Emredm (talk) 10:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Cyprus is divided into to countries, however most of the countries are not recognise Northern Cyprus as a free republic. Also, Southern Cyprus is in the European Union, not Northern Cyprus. So, Turkish is not a eu language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.45.129.226 (talk) 22:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Geoffrey Lewis (1920-2008)

My former teacher Geoffrey Lewis, whose grammar and other works are referred to throughout this article, has just died (see the London Times obituary ). He was a lovable man, a great scholar and a friend of Turkey, its language and its culture. May he rest in peace. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Another obituary was published in The Guardian on 12 March. There is also a tribute to Lewis on the BBC Turkish site, including an audio clip by Dr Bengisu Rona. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

İzafet (tamlama)

I've added a section on this basic grammatical feature. The table could be condensed a bit if necessary; but I feel it's important to keep the pairs of examples illustrating the difference between definite & indefinite compounds. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Population

dear E..... This article is about Turkish. This is the language of the republic of Turkey. Known as Anatolian or istanbuli Turkish., It is also spoken in some former dominions of the Ottoman empire such as Bulgaria etc... But it is not about Turkic languages. Turkic languages is a family of languages to which also other languages such as Uzbek, Uyghur, Azeri Turkic etc.... belong. These two terms are sometimes confused enormously, because many languages lack two different words which can distinguish these two terminology properly. In the Box on Turkish people, these articles are used which confuse the two terms. But even if you read the sources there too, you do not come to conclusion that they speak about Turkish being a native language in Tajikistan, Ubzkeistan, Iran, Azerbaijan etc...

As for other sections: I am not deleting anything. Only in place of Central Asia I use Siberia and Mongolia, or better said the Inner Asia, which is correct. Inner Asia is larger than Central Asia, and the location of the original Turkic is originally in this area ( The Orkhon-Yenissei inscriptions), not in what is known now as the former central Asian republics. I hope that I could informed you. I see from your edits that you are very sensetive to the Iranian edits and try to revert them at any costs. In any case I do not experience that Iranians and Turks are at odds, nor there is any ground for such prejuduices. Some people have here a hidden agenda, but I can assure you that edits on Turkey/related articles or Iran-related articles by Iranians does not follow such an agenda, at least not my edits. It is only about the correct information.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you please format the first part of your contribution so that it displays properly? In Firefox, at any rate, it disappears off to the right of the screen. Thanks. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• Hi, Babak. There are Turkish populations in these countries, you can check this from the Turkish people article. In addition, there is nothing wrong if the relativeness of these languages is introduced in the article. It's informative. Since all these languages belong to the same group: the Turkic languages. There is no confusion here. Regards. E104421 (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The people you mentioned are already mentioned in the article about Turkic peoples. It is veruy essential to take Turkic languages (the group you mentioned( and the Turkish language as separate. I have answered to this in my previous edit: this article is about Turkish, the language spoken in Turkey and some former Ottoman dominions in the Balkans and Cyprus> I think that you do afgree that this language (yours) deserves an article of its own!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to follow exactly what the two of you are arguing about. There is a difference between the TurkIC languages and TurkISH. There are Turkic languages spoken throughout Central Asia from the Aegean Sea up to the Arctic Ocean. This article does not need an extensive introduction to TurkIC but only a reference to Turkic languages where the history of the family should be located. This is not the place for an overall view of TurkIC. As far as the countries where TurkISH is spoken, here is the statement from Ethnologue: "Spoken throughout Turkey as first or second language. Also spoken in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Netherlands, Romania, Russia (Asia), Serbia and Montenegro, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, Uzbekistan." In many of the Central Asian countries there are BOTH the local TurkIC language community and expatriate communities of TurkISH speakers. These regions of expatriate TurkISH speakers can be mentioned here in this article, but the discussion of TurkIC should be moved to that article. (Taivo (talk) 18:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC))

yes, If you read my comments, I am exactly saying the same as you. I say this article is about TurkISH. and NOT about other Turkic languages such as Uzbek, Azeri, Turkmen, Kazakh --Babakexorramdin (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)etc...

I think there is a conflict in the population of people speaking Turkish. There are already more than 70 million people who lives in Turkey that it is impossible only 50 million people use Turkish in their daily life all around the world. Also, it is written that Turkic languages include Azeri, Uzbek and other Central Assian languages. Even, only in Iran there are 35 million Azeris who speaks Azeri Turkic Language. The other 30 Turkic countries have not even been pointed out. So, the number 50 million is not a correct amount. Many articles state that Turkic Languages are spoken by 250 million people including Europe, Asia and America. I think this mistake which underestimates Turkic population around the world, should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.226.25.240 (talk) 19:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The fact that you mention Azeris and and "other Turkic languages" shows that you have not understood that this article is NOT about "Turkic languages" but ONLY about the "TurkISH language". The entire population of Turkey does NOT speak Turkish as a first language. There are Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, etc. who do not speak Turkish as their first language. Ethnologue is considered to be an accurate and reliable source by the vast majority of linguists. If you have a better source please say so. (Taivo (talk) 01:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC))

This is when reliance on sources alone becomes a bit ridiculous. Let's take a look at the source: 46 million in Turkey in 1987, for a total of a bit over 50 million worldwide. This chart shows the population of Turkey since then, which has gone from 54 million in 1987 to over 70 million today. Now unless we have a source that shows that since 1987 Turkey has somehow obtained an extra 20 million non-Turkish-speaking citizens, it's safe to say that it has at least 70 million people worldwide. That's not original research either, merely a simple extrapolation. I can understand not changing population numbers for cities for example until an official census comes out for the year, but sticking to a single source from 1987 is a bit silly. Mithridates (talk) 15:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

"Extrapolating" is original research. Unless you have a reliable source that says "there are X native speakers of Turkish as of 2008", then we are stuck with the only reliable number that has been published--even though it is 20 years old. That's just the way that Wikipedia works--you must have a reliable source for statements such as this. "Extrapolation" is original research. (Taivo (talk) 15:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC))

No, there's no original research there. We have a sourced number for population, a sourced number for the percentage of people that speak it in Turkey (90%), and no evidence suggesting that people born in Turkey for the past 20 years have somehow not ended up learning the language. That's a simple calculation, not research. Turkish is actually an exceptionally easy language for which to estimate the minimum number of speakers. I would agree with you on languages such as Spanish where there are far too many variables. Mithridates (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Mithridates to a point that many of these language estimates might seem "ridiculous" to some; however, "extrapolating" the numbers would be against Wikipedia policy (I think it may be called "synthesis"). The same thing happens for other languages as well such as English. The estimate for that in Ethnologue is currently 309 million world wide, which I think is ridiculously low; however, there are other reliable sources for English that give higher numbers. Does the Turkey Census not ask "mother tongue"? We cannot just assume that an entire population speaks one language as their mother tongue. Kman543210 (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The fact that Katzner explicitly says "over 60 million" is an acceptable reference. Now change it in the language template as well. (Taivo (talk) 19:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC))

Hapis(h)ane

User:Uannis has quite correctly changed the spelling of hapisane in the participial example yaklaştığını anladığı hapisane günleri to hapishane. Actually Orhan Pamuk, from whose novel Kar this quotation is taken, uses the informal spelling hapisane. I've compromised by mentioning the original spelling in the footnote. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Turkish style in examples

I would be interested to know other editors' opinions about the recent changes in some examples (mainly taken from Lewis 2001): isim, cevap, sene & imtihan were replaced with their "pure Turkish" equivalents ad, yanıt, yıl & sınav. Are these all improvements? Personally I find the first two changes unnecessary—but then I'm not a native speaker! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"Ad", "yıl" and "yanıt" are more commonly used.--78.163.176.197 (talk) 14:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Google searches, restricted to Turkish pages:

• isminiz: 1.23 million hits
• adınız: 0.87 MH

• cevabı: 8.8 MH
• yanıtı: 2.0 MH

--NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

So, do I take it that there is a consensus for yanıt rather than cevap? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

PS Or perhaps I should rephrase the question: how many editors were actually unhappy with the words isim, cevap, sene & imtihan used in the Lewis examples? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You have right for the word cevap, the others may remain as is. --Chapultepec (talk) 17:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That was more or less what I thought. I used the original words because they were in Lewis's first edition from the 1960s (I'm not sure about the more recent edition). I shall go ahead and change yanıt back to cevap. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have changed my site.--78.183.238.241 (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC) fatihcokoy--78.183.238.241 (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

In the article Saz semai, what does the "-si" at the end of the alternate name "saz semaisi" mean? Is this a plural modifier or some other kind of modifier? Badagnani (talk) 23:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the possessive suffix. --Chapultepec (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a very good question. This suffix is very revealing of the fundamental structure of Turkish language. (Or turkic languages) Is it the possessive suffix or is it the article or is it a suffix to make a new word (although the two words are not adjoined.) One could say "I will play a 'saz semaisi'". This does not necessarily mean the the "semai" is owned by "saz"; it just means that is is a form of "semai" that is an instrumental piece. It is very much like saying "Kaz cigeri" (goose liver in English.) "Goose liver" means something in English but "kaz ciger" does not not mean anything in turkish. If a sentence starts with the words Kaz and ciger (two nouns), one would expect to hear verb right after that. (something like: "Kaz ciger yemez" "Geese don't eat liver" in English. ) So if we treat the compound word "saz semaisi" as a complete (SOV) sentence in turkish; "saz" becomes the subject "semai" becomes the object "-si" or "-i" becomes the verb. All together it looks like a complete sentence but it is a noun (a compound noun). That is how turkish grammar works. You first make nouns using suffixes then you place them in the "S" and "O" slots of SOV and add a verb and add suffixes for person, mood, negation and tense. A complete sentence is treated like a noun. Every structure in turkish is in postfix notation (that is "A B +" as opposed to" A + B") To say "Ahmet and Ali went to school" in turkish we would say " Ahmet Aliyle okula gitti". In this sentence we can see the recursive structure of the grammar. "Ahmet Ali -yle" fits into SOV structure and it becomes a noun. Then we fit this noun into the "S" slot of a probable final sentence. After this the listener expects to hear an Object or a Verb (SV is also a valid sentence structure but SOV is has precedence over SV.) and "Okul" (shool) comes along. At this point we have S and O slots and we are expecting to hear a "V" and we hear "-a" which means "to". We again have a sentence like structure and we treat it as a noun and we put this in the "S" slot of another probable final sentence. Then we need either an "OV" or a "V" to finish the sentence. And the final verb comes along "Git-ti" ( he/she/it went.)

If you want to summarize a turkish sentence you can pretty much do it in two words: Just take the first and the last words in a sentence and that is your summary(generally speaking.)

This is the whole grammar of the Turkish language. There are suffixes to make nouns out of verbs and suffixes to make verbs out of nouns. Nouns go to "S" and "O" slots of SOV the the final sentence ends with a verb. AverageTurkishJoe (talk) 09:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I have been a new site.--85.102.106.199 (talk) 14:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

NEW MESSAGE

I have been added a new site.--85.102.106.199 (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

How is Turkish an official language of the EU? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.138.43 (talk) 01:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm actually no. I don't know the reason for it but

[2]--Emredm (talk) 10:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

evidentiality

by the way, for those interested in Turkish grammar, we've been talking about the interpretation of evidentials here: Talk:Evidentiality#Comments about Turkish. – ishwar  (speak) 20:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Map

The map gives the impression that Turkish is spoken all over the United States, Canada, and Russia. I think it would be more useful, if the map indicates the regions where there is a concentration of Turkish speakers (for example take a look at French language and Bengali language. Thank you. Eklipse (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The ultimate absurdity is the implication that there's a Turkish-speaking group in Alaska: see my comment last year. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Maps of this nature--countries where someone speaks X language--will nearly always include the U.S. and therefore be pretty worthless because the scale required to include the U.S. means that the home country becomes infinitessimal. Where is Turkey on this map? I can't hardly see it. Get rid of the U.S. and other countries where Turkish is a marginal language and include only those countries where Turkish is one of the major languages. Maybe then we can see Turkey on the map. (Taivo (talk) 01:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC))

I suspect this may have some bearing on the rather ridiculous discussion on whether Turkish is the most "widely" or "commonly" spoken Turkic language. One editor went so far as to opine that the "widest geographical language appears to be Kypchak-Nogay"—presumably because of its geographical extent (?). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, you should keep diaspora countries (like the US), but indicate precisely in which cities or regions Turkish speakers are concentrated (for examples refer to the two maps that I indicated above) Eklipse (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

spoken by over 50million people...

Is there not 70million people living in Turkey? it does not matter if they are not all turkish but i am sure that (atleast) 95% of the population can speak the language! and if you add those living outside of turkey... there must be at least 75million people who can speak the language. This shoul;d really be changed asap because the first sentence of this article is not even correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.46.182 (talk) 10:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The population of Turkey is irrelevant. The speaker number is ONLY for native speakers and there are millions of citizens of Turkey who do not speak Turkish as their first language (Kurds, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, etc.). The population figures in this article MUST be based on reliable scientific sources, not on "the population of Turkey". Ethnologue is the most widely respected and most reliable source for speaker numbers. At least 90% (and probably much more) of Wikipedia language articles use it as the source. Therefore, Ethnologue is the source referenced here. (Taivo (talk) 10:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC))

I am not saying that the Ethnologue reports are not realiable, however those statistics are from 1987 which ironically was around the population of turkey at that time! secondly it does not matter if it is their first language or second or third, they still speak it and understand it! The first sentence does not say Turkish is the first language to 50mil people world wide i suggest we change this to first language to over 50mil people and spoken by and additonal 20mil as a second language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.99.15 (talk) 13:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

If you look at every other language article in Wikipedia, the speaker numbers are for native speakers. If you have a published source for a more recent number for native speakers of Turkish we can certainly use it. The vast majority of Wikipedia language articles use Ethnologue as a source for native speaker numbers. They have tried hard at Ethnologue to include just that information and not numbers for second-language speakers unless specifically mentioned (as it is for many of the languages of Ethiopia, for example). We don't list second language speakers for English, for example, or else the number of "speakers" of English would exceed every other language in the world. The number is for native speakers only. The assumption in every single article that says "spoken by X people" is that we are dealing with native speakers only. Look at every other article. It's written that way because that is the default assumption. I know a few words of Turkish. Does that make me a "speaker"? No. We ONLY count native speakers unless specifically mentioned. (Taivo (talk) 16:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC))

Well according to the CIA World FactBook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/tu.html) Turkey's population is 71,892,807 (80% of the population is Turkish) thus this equals to 57,514,246 Turkish speaker in Turkey. If we are then to add the ethnic turks from cyprus, bulgaria, greece, iraq, kosovo, macedonia, romania and syria- plus the Turkish diaspora then it is obviously more then 50million people (possibly 70million- see also Turkish people) but as you said i will bring you moe references to view. However, I also want to point out that there is a pie-chart in this very article which also states 70mil turkish speakers:

Number of native speakers in the Turkic language family

Thanks for pointing that pie chart out. It should be in the Turkic languages article, not here, and it is unreferenced. (Taivo (talk) 05:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC))

Vocabulary

The percentages of foreign origin words is mentioned 14% which is dubious. I have requested for verification since couple of months ago. I need another verifying source other than Güncel Türkçe Sözlük (preferably a non-Turkish ref.). I wait another week. If this information is not verifiable, we may need to edit this section. Because the verification tag is on this section since long time ago.--Larno Man (talk) 02:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do you need another reference? Güncel Türkçe Sözlük seems authoritative enough. Wikipedia doesn't require multiple referneces for a fact just because an editor thinks it's "dubious". If you can find authoritative references that give a different percentage, or if you can give a good reason why Güncel Türkçe Sözlük is not a reliable source, then we can look at changing this. Otherwise, it should stay as a verifiable referenced fact. Yes, it would be nice to have an English-language reference, but that's not required. English-language references are preferred if both English-language and foreign-language references are available, but foreign-language references are perfectly acceptable if no English-language references have been found. I think this should never have been tagged with {{verify source}} in the first place, since it was already verified by a cited reference when the tag was placed, Also, I'm curious about what you think is dubious about the percentage. Do you think it's too low or too high? Klausness (talk) 10:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

14% of words from foreign sources is NOTHING compared to many other languages. The percentage of foreign words in English and Russian, to take only two examples, is MUCH higher. 14% is completely believable from a linguistic point-of-view. Indeed, I might have thought that 14% is a bit low considering the religious and scientific vocabulary alone that might have Persian or Arabic origins. You add to that the Western vocabulary that has undoubtedly entered the modern language via economic and technological contacts and the number might very well be higher. I don't know Turkish, so I cannot comment on the reliability of the source, and I have never been to Turkey to see the words in use in marketing and the computer world, but the number is completely believable. (Taivo (talk) 10:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC))

Before the language reform, I'm sure the percentage was much higher than 14%. But the language reform was far from 100% successful in removing words of foreign origin from Turkish, so I also find the 14% perfectly plausible, especially if one considers specialized technical vocabulary (for example, I'm told that a lot of legal vocabulary has Arabic origins, and computer terminology often has English origins). Klausness (talk) 11:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me say up front that I do not speak Turkish, so I wasn't able to check the source provided. What is "dubious" about the 14%? Does it seem too high or too low? Although I cannot check the source myself, I trust that the person who put it in did check it, and I think that it's worth mentioning in the article. I also agree that 14% to me does seem very believable compared to other languages that I have studied. Can someone who does speak Turkish check the source just to be sure? Kman543210 (talk) 11:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The source is the dictionary of the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu), a governmental institution, and it is reliable. There is a slight nationalistic tendency there at the TDK, which could correspondingly lead to a slight inflation of the words of Turkish origin (e.g., via the inclusion of Turkish-rooted words that are very little used in reality). However, as the TDK's dictionary also includes quite a few words of non-Turkish (mainly Arabic and Persian) origin that are now quite obscure and little used, I would say it is for the most part a quite reliable source. —Saposcat (talk) 11:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

14% is too low, e.g, English, French and Russian have MUCH more than 14% foreign words. I have randomly checked some Turkish texts. Although I don't speak Turkish much, I could easily identify much more than 14% non-Turkish words from French, English, Arabic and Persian in all those texts. There is a slight nationalistic tendency there at the Turkish Language Association; and another reference is required to verify the TDK, preferably an English source. --Larno Man (talk) 15:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Larno Man, there is one learned source that says 14%. Wikipedia does NOT require two sources for every statement--just one reliable one. If you have a reliable source that says something besides 14% then you can use it to post a range, "Reliable sources say Turkish has between 14 and X % foreign vocabulary". But it is not the job of the others to find a second source or to even prove the Turkish source unreliable or reliable. It is your job, if you dispute the 14% number, to find a reliable source that does. Your personal opinion doesn't count. I personally think it's probably higher as well, but I don't have a reliable source. (Taivo (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC))

Larro Man, keep in mind that the percentage of words of foreign origin decreased significantly during the language reform, something that has no parallel in English (I don't know about Russian, and while French definitely does have more centralized control over the language than English, it still had nothing as radical as the Turkish language reform). Given the language reform, I think 14% is plausible, though I wouldn't be surprised if the actual figure was higher. I also agree that there might be a nationalistic tendency at the Turkish Language Association (and, for all we know, there might be some supporters of the Sun Language Theory there misclassifying words), but that's the only reliable source that we have at this point, and we have no reliable sources that indicate that their numbers might be wrong. As Taivo says, if you can find reliable sources that give different numbers, please add them. If the Turkish Language Association's numbers are off by a large amount, I'm sure that Turkish language scholars elsewhere have come up with better numbers. But we can't remove reliably sourced material just because of our hunches that it may be incorrect. Klausness (talk) 17:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Stress in proper names

Just a quick question. Could a native speaker please tell me how they stress İncirlik & Ecevit? My guess would be /inˈdʒiɾlic/ & /ˈedʒevit/, but I'm not confident about the first. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Both of them are spellt by that way Wax69 (talk) 13:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Three syllable words special are cases. I do put the stress in the second syllable in both Incirlik and Ecevit. But the stress is more on the vowel in the second syllable than the initial dʒ. "Kelebek" (butterfly) is another example. In "Kelebek" I put the stress in the second syllable also. But maybe a majority of the native speakers stress all syllables equally. Stressing the first syllable in Kelebek sounds weird to me. AverageTurkishJoe (talk) 09:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Nouns

Under this section it gives the example of 'ev' (house) in the second table. Should we not then state the 6 ways of saying these nouns which are:

• Ben (I)
• Sen (You)
• O (Him/Her)
• Biz (Us)
• Siz (Formal You or said to two people)
• Onlar (Them)

So if we use the example 'ev' it would be: (benim) Evim, (senin) Evin, (onun) Evi, (bizim) Evimiz, (sizin) Eviniz, (onlarin) Evi. And this is obviously used for nearly every word in Turkish. Justinz84 (talk) 16:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

First of all,

• Ben-Sen-O-Biz-Siz-Onlar (I-You-He/She/It-We-You-They)
• Beni-Seni-Onu-Bizi-Sizi-Onları (Me-You-Him/Her/It-Us-You-Them) (accusative)
• Bana-Sana-Ona-Bize-Size-Onlara (Me-You-Him/Her/It-Us-You-Them) (dative)

And, yes, I think it must be said all of 6 ways. And maybe with in other cases? Evin (your house), Evini (your house, accusative) Evine (your house, dative), Evinde (at your house), Evinden (from your house) .... Wax69 (talk) 13:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy that you was able to understand what I was saying (I thought I might have been a bit confusing). Could we possibly add this into the article, because it is a great example which underlines how the language works. I believe that the table on its own may seem confusing to those who do not actually know the language, whereas to a native speaker it obviously would not look puzzeling.Justinz84 (talk) 00:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Like this?

ev - evler (singular - plural) [If it's plural, it must be added "-ler" after "ev"]

• house(-s) - my - your - hi/her/its - our - your - their -> Nominative
• accusative
• dative
• locative
• ablative

• ev(-ler) - ev(-ler)im - ev(-ler)in - ev(-ler)i - ev(-ler)imiz - ev(-ler)iniz - evleri (nominative) ("-ler" is for the plural form)
• evi - evimi - evini - evini - evimizi - evinizi - evlerini (accusative)
• eve - evime - evine - evine - evimize - evinize - evlerine (dative)
• evde - evimde - evinde - evinde - evimizde - evinizde - evlerinde (locative)
• evden - evimden - evinden - evinden - evimizden - evinizden - evlerinden (ablative)

• He comes from my house: Evimden geliyor.
• We are at our house: Evimizdeyiz.
• Let's go to their house: Hadi evlerine gidelim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wax69 (talk • contribs) 21:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Northern Cyprus

Why deleting to Northern Cyprus, It's unrecognized states, ok... But its national labguage is Turkish...*** Эɱ®εč¡κ ***^{and his friend} 21:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Because wikipedia must reflect the international consensus. And the international consensus is that the Republic of Cyprus is the sole legitimate government and has sovereignty over the entire island, including northern Cyprus. If we were to make an exception here and include "Northern Cyprus" as a separate, then we would have to do it in other articles, which would clearly be against the international and wikipedia consensus. --Tsourkpk (talk) 22:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Your argument is totally unacceptable and opposite to neutral viewpoint of Wikipedia. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a seperate entity from Republic of Cyprus and governing northern part of the island. Its historical background, political and international status etc. are not related to its existence. Wikipedia is independent from any international and national organizations, so a vote in United Nations or your nationalist thoughts can not deny the existence of TRNC. Wikipedia must reflect the facts, and the official status of Turkish Language in TRNC is the fact. Simple.

See also Armenian Language and Abkhaz Language pages. Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia are listed. TRNC has a recognition from Republic of Turkey, do they have any? No. Kaygtr (talk) 00:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

In addition, Kosovo is also not an internationally-recognised state, where its independence is recognised by 43 countries. Recognition is only about international politics, and is not a reference to existence of self governing areas. Kaygtr (talk) 00:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

It is your arguments that are against NPOV. Wikipedia reflects the international consensus and the international consensus is quite clear. No one outside Turkey recognizes the "TRNC". It has no international standing whatsoever. Only Turkey recognizes it, so including it here is Turkish POV. The international consensus and hence neutral POV is that there is no such thing as the TRNC, and that the Republic of Cyprus has sovereignty over the whole island. This has nothing to do with the UN. Did I mention the UN? And what goes on in other articles is irrelevant to this discussion, so stop trying to confuse the issue. --Tsourkpk (talk) 00:36, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

UN was an example. Republic of Cyprus had sovereignty over the whole island between 1960 - 1974. Today, northern part of the island is governed by a different country, whatever is recognised or not. Removing TRNC and is a nationalist POV. We do not discuss the "legality" of TRNC here, but interestingly, you deny the existence of a country. My friend, then we must delete the whole Northern Cyprus article! It has no international standing :)

You can add your thoughts to discussion in Talk page of Northern Cyprus, but here is not the place to discuss the international politics about TRNC. Really, very simple, TRNC exists and its official language is Turkish. No one can deny it. Kaygtr (talk) 00:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Tsourkpk that we cannot recognize TRNC as if it were an independent nation, as that would be pushing the Turkey POV. It's not just about the UN's point of view, as no one but Turkey recognizes it as a separate nation. Kaygtr, you have violated the 3 revert rule yourself, so please don't threaten people in your edit summaries that they will be considered vandals if they don't agree with you. You're pushing the Turkey POV yourself and not international consensus. Turkish is the official language of Cyprus, which according to all sources but the TRNC/Turkey POV, includes the entire island. Jabez2000 (talk) 02:15, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Jabez2000. The TRNC is not a country, de facto or not. It's just a piece of the Republic of Cyprus that is under illegal occupation by the Turkish Armed Forces. That is why not a single country recognizes it except Turkey. In other words, as far as every government on the planet except Turkey's is concerned, there is no such thing as a "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Now, a "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" has been declared, and Wikipedia has an article to cover that from a neutral point of view, but including its flag here and presenting it as if it were a country is Turkish POV. --Tsourkpk (talk) 03:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I shan't debate the political aspects of the Cyprus/Northern Cyprus situation because is definitely politically charged, and I think we need to be a careful as either way it could be construed as POV. My gut feeling was that no, we should not include it as a separate entity due to the risk of being non-neutral and giving it political legitimacy, but I wanted to recheck my thoughts and see what other language sources do to indicate where Turkish is spoken. Ethnologue simply lists Cyprus but not TRNC; it does indicate that in the northern part of the island that nearly everyone speaks Turkish (no mention of TRNC though). The Dictionary of Languages (Andrew Dalby) and The Languages of the World (Kenneth Katner) are 2 well respected language resources, and neither mentions TRNC; just Cyprus. Due to the non-international recognition and language resources not listing it as separate, I think that if we do, it could be construed as POV of legitimacy to one side. Cyprus is understood by most to include the entire island, so just having Cyprus should suffice that it's spoken there. Kaygtr has a point about Kosovo and the others, but those issues should be left to their respective articles (plus Kosovo is a little different because it does receive some international recognition, and it's declaration is quite new compared). Kman543210 (talk)

Inclusion might be more of a political non-neutral pov statement here than exclusion since the entire island is thought to be Cyprus by most people. It should be left out. 67.150.18.61 (talk) 03:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree with Jabez2000. Wikipedia is not a state, an international governmental organisation, a political party, a multinational association, a Greek or Turkish propaganda site. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and must reflect the facts. I repeat: Your argument refers to "TRNC does not exist" instead of international recognition. TRNC is a country, recognised by Turkey, we do not discuss the legality of TRNC here. The place to discuss this is talk page of Northern Cyprus article. I demand immediately reversion of the deletion of Northern Cyprus from the article. At least, we can add a note for TRNC's recognition status in the article, but removal can never be accepted as a rightful decision. Kaygtr (talk) 11:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, now I add a reference for official status of Turkish in TRNC and a note which links to Cyprus Dispute. Check it out. I await your reply and opinion. I think this can be acceptable. Kaygtr (talk) 12:04, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

No way, that is just a cheap trick that fools no one. There already is a clear consensus (Myself, Kman, Jabez, and 67.150.xx.xx) for only including the flags of REAL countries, none of this "unrecognized country" business. No Turkish-POV please. --Tsourkpk (talk) 12:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

TRNC is a real country already, it is not imaginary. Existence and recognition are seperate concepts, thats the point you confuse or try to make a trick.

The consensus in Wikipedia justifies me. See Ossetic language, Armenian Language, Albanian Language, Arabic Language, Standard Mandarin and Somali Language. Unrecognised or partially recognised countries are listed in these articles.

Since your arguments are totally false and refers to a nationalist POV, your further edits will be unacceptable. Kaygtr (talk) 22:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I will add Northern Cyprus to the article again, including a note about its recognition status. I hope you won't delete it again with same arguments. If you want to do so, first see the pages of other languages (listed above) please. Wikipedia is not the right place for political propaganda. Kaygtr (talk) 16:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not a real country, that's why no one has recognised it. As for what goes on in other articles, that is entirely irrelevant here: Your argument is invalid. There is a clear consensus on this page for NOT including it, and your arguments are just Turkish POV. --Tsourkpk (talk) 11:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

TRNC hasn't got officially recognized government as you can see [[3]]. we don't deny the language is spoken there, it just doesn't have an official status due to TRNC but due to the government of Cyprus.CuteHappyBrute (talk) 11:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

First, TRNC is not an unrecognised country, it is recognised by Republic of Turkey. Know your facts. TRNC is a partially recognised country, such as Palestine, Republic of China (Taiwan), Israel, Republic of Cyprus, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Official language in TRNC is Turkish. It will be listed in this article. I can not see any consensus here, but consensus in Wikipedia justifies me. See other articles listed above. Kaygtr (talk) 14:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

4 non-Greek users in this discussion sided against you, and you are very well aware of this, so stop pretending there is no consensus. The fact that the "TRNC" is recognized only by Turkey is meaningless, because it is just a trick created by the agressor (Turkey) in an attempt to legitimize its conquest. This is why absolutely no one recognizes it. Stop comparing it to Abkhazia, Kosovo, Ossetia, etc, those are entirely different cases. You have no more arguments left and are now just edit-warring. --Tsourkpk (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Defining the independence of TRNC as "conquest of Turkey" is just a Greek-nationalist POV and a funny act. This can never be a reference in Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. Northern Cyprus is recognised as an independent and legimitate country by Republic of Turkey. This makes TRNC a "partially recognised country" like Kosovo, Abkhazia and other states listed above. Since you are not able to give any reasonable answers to my arguments, I'm reverting your edit, sorry. Other users have a clear misunderstanding and lack of information about Northern Cyprus' situation. More users needed for this discussion. As Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh (unrecognised countries) are listed in related language articles, Northern Cyprus must be given here too. Kaygtr (talk) 16:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The only thing that's funny is your insistence that the TRNC is a "normal" country, like say, the Republic of Cyprus. It's simple: TRNC is recognized only by Turkey, so including it as if it were a normal country is pure Turkish POV. And I'm not the only one saying that. Everything else is just rubbish. Oh, and the other thing that's funny is your arrogance in saying other people "have a misunderstanding". They don't. It's called consensus. Deal with it.--Tsourkpk (talk) 18:31, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

We need reasonable, neutral and referenced information instead of personal conflicts. I can not see any of these in your answers. Other users must and will be invited. Kaygtr (talk) 19:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I am a "reasonable, neutral" user. Northern Cyprus is not a country. It is a part of Cyprus that has been illegally occupied by the Turkish Army for several decades. The fact that not a single country in the world besides Turkey recognizes its existence is proof that the international community unanimously condemns Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. The Turkish Army has been sitting in Cyprus for decades and still no one recognizes Northern Cyprus as an independent country. That's proof enough that it is not an international entity. The difference between Northern Cyprus and Kosovo? Within days (hours actually), Kosovo's independence had been recognized by the United States and many countries in Europe. Northern Cyprus has not been recognized by anyone except the Turkish invaders. No one in the international community recognizes the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia except the Russian invaders either, so that is the proper context for discussing Northern Cyprus--a region that has been invaded by a foreign power, whose "independence" is totally dependent on that foreign power, and whose "independence" is totally rejected by the international community. (Taivo (talk) 17:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC))

Not mention that Wikipedia must reflect the international consensus, which is that Northern Cyprus is not a country but a piece of the Republic of Cyprus under occupation. That's what lack of recognition means: It means that as far as every single country and international body in the world is concerned, there is no such thing as a "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Therefore including as a country is POV and against the international consensus. --Tsourkpk (talk) 18:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, lets delete the article of Northern Cyprus, since it does not exist. Flag, parliament, elections, ministries, armed forces and social services of Northern Cyprus are never been existed. All of them are imaginary, because the Independence of Northern Cyprus is not accepted by other countries. Very logical. Kaygtr (talk) 18:29, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

You must distinguish between two different issues here. First, the article on Northern Cyprus is just as appropriate as the article on Biafra or South Yemen or South Ossetia since it is a historical feature. It describes the part of Cyprus that was created by the Turkish invasion and is in rebellion against the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus. However, in articles that are not about a historical event, namely an article on a language, it is not an appropriate geographical unit to use any more than Biafra or South Ossetia are appropriate geographical units to describe the range of relevant languages. Northern Cyprus exists as a historical unit, but it is not a recognized political or geographical unit. (Taivo (talk) 20:25, 25 December 2008 (UTC))

TRNC is a wonderful country and I prefer it for my holidays. As far as I observed, it is even a better operating state than Turkey. They even obey the speed limit both because they think it is right and they know that they can't bribe the police force. TRNC exists in reality; it has citizens, economy, rules and regulations. Opposers of this basic fact should read some Krasner in order to see the difference between the different types of state sovereignty. Go to hell nationalism, viva Cypriots. See you; Deliogul (talk) 11:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

At this point in the discussion it is obvious that the only supporters of Northern Cyprus are Turks. If we are going to get any level of consensus here it's time that the Turks and Greeks back off and let the non-Turks and non-Greeks (like myself) decide the issue. So far I haven't seen a single non-Turk support Northern Cyprus' inclusion in the family of nations. It's sort of like relying on Russians to tell us whether or not borsch is tasty. (Taivo (talk) 12:20, 26 December 2008 (UTC))

Dear Taivo, that means you agree with my arguments. Recognition and existence are seperate issues. TRNC exists as an independent, partially recognised country, it controls the area which it claims, it has its own government, parliament etc. This talk page is not the right place to discuss the independence of TRNC. As TRNC exists as a seperate entity (legal or not! Notice, we do not discuss this!) from Republic of Cyprus; and as Turkish Language is the sole official language of this entity, I see no doubt to list TRNC in official languages section. This is a pure neutral fact. A small note can be added next to Northern Cyprus, describing its recognition status. Kaygtr (talk) 16:53, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

You have misread my comment, then. I don't agree with you. Northern Cyprus should not be used in the Language Inbobox since it is not a recognized country. It is a Turkish political statement to assert its independence and the Language Infobox is not the place for single viewpoint political assertions. As far as the non-Turkish world is concerned, Northern Cyprus does not exist. (Taivo (talk) 18:21, 26 December 2008 (UTC))

As Northern Cyprus "does not exist" by your opinion, then you should delete/open a poll for the deletion of article about Northern Cyprus. If you don't delete it, then you must list it here. Very simple. Choose one. Kaygtr (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Nagorno-Karabakh is listed in Armenian Language (unrecognised country), Abkhazia in Abkhaz Language (partially recognised country, like Northern Cyprus), South Ossetia in Ossetic Language (partially recognised country, like Northern Cyprus), Palestine in Arabic Language (partially recognised country, like Northern Cyprus). As these remain in related articles, removing Northern Cyprus from this article (for the purpose of "unrecognition") is just Greek nationalist POV. Your opinion is totally unacceptable and I call for admins. Kaygtr (talk) 20:18, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

You don't understand anything that I have written, obviously. Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh don't exist for the majority of the people of this planet. Your minority opinion that they do is just that--a POV minority. Palestine is different since the majority of people in the world accept its existence and it has a seat at the United Nations. (Taivo (talk) 23:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC))

Contrary. If these countries do not exist (Interesting. You still say these do not exist, instead of not recognised. They surely exist but are not recognised as legal countries by majority of other states. You still and still confuse on recognition and existence), you must delete all of them from related language articles. If all but Northern Cyprus remain, this will be just cheap vandalism and Greek nationalism. Kaygtr (talk) 12:45, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you should take a look at some of these that you cite (Abkhaz language, Armenian language, etc.). I have been deleting these non-recognized "countries" from those language articles as well. Some of them have very partisan proponents and the change isn't permanent yet, but I am working on it. (Taivo (talk) 15:34, 27 December 2008 (UTC))

Country list information has been reformatted based on a continuing Wikipedia policy discussion being conducted elsewhere. The summary of that discussion is that unrecognized "states" should be listed separately and in italics with a note that they are not recognized internationally. (Taivo (talk) 05:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)) - Discussion Page of Armenian Language. Very well. Nice to see that this discussion came to an end. Northern Cyprus is now re-added with italic text, including its recognition status. Further deletions are subject to vandalism. Have a nice day. Kaygtr (talk) 09:38, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

"Vandalism" is the willful intent to spread mayhem. Making factual changes to an article is not "vandalism". (Taivo (talk) 12:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC))

"TRNC is a wonderful country and I prefer it for my holidays." I have nothing to say against an argument like that. --Tsourkpk (talk) 17:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't answer for the northern part of Cyprus, but the Rocky Mountains are also great country for a vacation. (Taivo (talk) 18:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC))

Man, I said that to lower the tensions in the discussion :) I guess you didn't read the rest. It is written "Krasner" there. Click it! Yeah, now you have access to some academic data. In order to complete your cycle of learning click this Huntington R.I.P.. Wow, now you have a different perspective about our old world's international system and how it lack sufficient operative power because of the "clash of civilizations". I'm just joking, do whatever you want. Deliogul (talk) 18:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Iraq

The Iraqi Turkmen speak a form of South Azerbaijani (see Ethnologue). Therefore I don't think that Iraq should be mentioned in the "Spoken in" section of the infobox. Thoughts? Khoikhoi 00:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Language of Iraqi Turkmen has a different status, Ethnologue reports that they speak "a form of Southern Azerbaijani", but they use standard Turkish in written language. I think we need more references. But as a Turkish Citizen, I can say that their language is much more close to Turkish compared to Azerbaijani. Kaygtr (talk) 00:31, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I happen to agree with KhoiKhoi. Turkish and Azerbaijani are very similar, but they are separate languages according to linguists. If according to Ethnologue, the language of the Iraqi Turkmen is closer to Azerbaijani, then they need to be removed from this article. Otherwise, we would have to include all the Azerbaijani speakers, which would be pan-Turkist POV. Wikipedia relies on sources, not personal viewpoints ("But as Turkish citizen..."). --Tsourkpk (talk) 03:15, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

My friend, I did not add anything into article, which rely on my personal viewpoint. Contrary, I said we need more reliable sources. It was just an explanation to KhoiKhoi. Stop insulting people. Kaygtr (talk) 11:54, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Ethnologue is a perfectly reliable source. --Tsourkpk (talk) 17:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Page protected

Having seen an edit war over the last few days, I have protected the page for one week. If you feel I have protected the 'wrong version', I'm affraid that I just protected the most recent version. Minor changes and agreed changes can be made by an admin, but non-admins may not edit the article until 2 August. I suggest that judicious use of the talk page produce a consensus in the time being. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 12:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Add tl interwiki link

Admins, can you please add a Tagalog Wikipedia interwiki link in this article? Here's the link: [[tl:Wikang Turko]]. Thanks in advance. --Jojit (talk) 00:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Khoikhoi 01:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

how come there is no article dedicated to dialects of Turkish?

personally i'd be fascinated to see such an article. i mean in a language as widely spoken and varied etc. etc. as Turkish there must be a lot to say about dialects and regional differences and such.

till now however i was unable to find such article on the English wiki.

( i know for one of at least notable variety - the Lazi dialect...)

anyhow, i call upon all Turkish buffs to launch the writing of a Turkish Dialects article right away !

(i would have done so myself except i'm really a beginning learner of Turkish, so i can't, k?)

Monkey dog2088 (talk) 21:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

An article on Turkish dialects would certainly be interesting, and I encourge you and others to write it, based on WP:Reliable Sources. However, the Laz language is not a dialect of Turkish, but a South Caucasian language. --macrakis (talk) 01:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Article on Turkish Wikipedia

Hi there, I was wondering if anybody could translate tr:6-(3,4-ksilil)-1-hegzen for me. I'm sure that isn't a real chemical structure, but I don't know if the article is a hoax or not. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

How it can be 65 million

Hi there... Only Turkey's population is over 75 million and %99 can speak Turkish. How it can be described with 65 million, although the other countries are on the list with Turkey? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.178.198.213 (talk) 13:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Where did you get that 99% of Turkey speaks Turkish as a native language? The source in the article states about 90%. Ethnologue gives only 50 million Turkish speakers, but an additional reliable source has been found giving the over 63 million worldwide. Kman543210 (talk) 13:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia lists native speakers in the language templates, not every speaker. 99% of the population of Turkey does not speak Turkish as a native language. I know a few words of Turkish...do you want to count me, too? (Taivo (talk) 19:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC))

I have found a source stating that there is 70million TURKISH speakers (as their native language): http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/european_languages/languages/turkish.shtml this I believe is a realible figure since the turks number just over 70million (see Turkish people or Turkish population) we should change therefore change this ASAP.Justinz84 (talk) 22:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The BBC is a news organization, it does not specialize in linguistic data as does Katzner's Languages of the World. Find a reliable LINGUISTIC source and we can talk. A news organization is not a reliable linguistic source. If you can find the source for their linguistic assertion that would be better. (Taivo (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC))

Attributive verbs?

User:Kwamikagami has changed the time-honoured term participle to Attributive verb. I'm happy to leave this if other editors accept that it is the correct term. My confidence was a little shaken by one of the Turkish examples in Attributive verb (*okan şiir), which was plain wrong (I've since corrected it). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 15:12, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the heading to include the term "participle", which is far more widely used when discussing Turkish than "attributive verb". --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

History of Turkish Language

Language reform and modern Turkish section covers all the developments in the language after Republic of Turkey. However, there is no reference to Sun Language Theory. This theory was one of the factors influencing the renewal of language. The theory in forgotten now and also it is very debatable whether it provided any solid contribution to the development of the language. It might still be nice to refer it shortly. Deniz Feneri (talk) 21:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Trouble printing article

Why will not print pages 4, 5 and 12? The pages are showing consistently as blank after being printed - no text except the title and page number at the top of the paper, and the website at the bottom. I tried printing this article from 2 different computers, both with the same results. Is this a technical glitch? Clowdi (talk) 19:49, 11 December 2008 (UTC)clowdi

Factual mistake

The article contains a factual mistake. It says: "The earliest known Turkic inscriptions reside in modern Mongolia. The Bugut inscriptions written in the Sogdian alphabet during the First Göktürk Khanate are dated to the second half of the 6th century."

However, the Bugut inscriptions are not written in any Turkic language, but in the Sogdian language. See Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples, p. 121-122:

• "... The Bugut inscription, the earliest official inscription of the Türk Qağanate, with clear pictorial references to the Türk ethnogenetic myth, is, it should be noted, in the Soġdian language ..." Tājik (talk) 05:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the sentence because it is misleading. Even one of the sources attached to it says: These studies prove that it belongs to the First Köktürk Kaganate period, and on three sides of it there are Sogdian texts in Sogdian letters and on the forth side there is a Sanskrit text in Brahmi letters.

I have also removed the unsourced (!) and selective (!) comparison of Old Turkic and Modern Turkish. Sourced material would be much more informative. Tājik (talk) 02:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Turkish Official Language

Hello vikipedians read that carefully:

• Turkish is official language in Iraq (Kirkuk city as "Turcoman dialect" with Syriac, Kurdish, Arabic | Turcoman dialect of Turkish became official language in Kirkuk with Syriac and here | guardian news

• Turkish one of regionla languuage sof Romania with Serbian, Hungarian, Greek, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian language... | recognized languages in Romania-Europe

• Turkish is also officially recognized as a regional language in the Prizren District of Kosovo.

Turkish is official language in Iraq, Macedonia, Kososvo, Northern Cyprus, Cyprus, Romania and Turkey

There are more countries turkish is official

Kosova Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani Turkish) Turkmenistan (Turkmen Turkish) Kazhakistan (Kazakh Turkish) Kyrgizistan (Kyrgiz Turkish) Uzbekistan (Uzbek Turkish) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.105.11.172 (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrghyz and Uzbek Languages are seperate languages of Turkic language family. They have great similarities with Turkish, but are not equal at all. Turkish is a regional language in Kosovo, so Kosovo can not be listed in here. Kaygtr (talk) 21:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Turkish language reform was a hoax!!!???

First of all forgive me dear wikiuser brothers for my bad English

I dont understand anything

The language reform was made to make our language more Turkish

But according to these genetic maps

File:Haplotype middle east.jpg

File:Genetic Race by Haplotypes.jpg

Turkey population is consisting of about 30%of persons with Arabic Haplotype "J" and about 25%of persons with Aryanid Persian Haplotype "R" and very few persons(not even 1%)with Turk Haplotype "C"

Also we are culturally and racially more closer to Persians and Greeks than central asian Turks

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC) Humanbyrace (talk) 10:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Humanbyrace (talk) 10:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Another go-around on number of speakers

I just reverted a bad reference to an internet site that lists a bogus number for Turkish speakers. Its source is "Ethnologue" (which lists 56 million worldwide) and Wikipedia. The number on the web site actually said 60 million native and 15 million second language speakers for 75 million. Ethnologue doesn't mention second language speakers so that 15 million came from Wikipedia. But from where? This article says 10 million second language speakers! Any reference to Wikipedia as a source, however, is, by definition, unreliable, so the comment is therefore unsourced. I reverted back to the last good, reliable number--from Katzner--63 million. (Taivo (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC))

Alphabet section

... deleted because redundant. The topic is already covered in the section on the writing system, and in greater detail in the article on the Turkish alphabet. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

rewording the first sentence

Turkish is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages.

Shouldn’t it be something like:

Turkish is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide- as a first language or mother tongue making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages.

Basically it just seems as though we are saying that there is only 63 million people who understand the language... the fact that there is over 70 million people in Turkey and 10 million Turks abroad means that there is probably at least 80 million who can speak the language... I understand that this 63 million is about people who speak it as a first language… but a person reading this article might not realise that this is only a figure for the native tongue so that sentence needs to be reworded. Turco85 (talk) 17:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hold on. If the population of Turkey is 70 million, then you can say 70 million people speak Turkish. That is not the same as saying they are Turkish. Unless you are saying that in Turkey there are 7 million people that can't speak Turkish? But that can't be right. 71,517,100 people in Turkey means 71,517,100 speakers of Turkish. Then you can add 10 million Turkish speakers abroad. That makes 81 million people that speak Turkish at a native level. WillMall (talk) 18:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I know. I have tried to express this before... but people keep objecting to it. Therefore, I at least want that sentence changed because it is very misleading... Turco85 (talk) 18:49, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No,, WillMall, you are wrong. The entire population of Turkey does not speak Turkish "at a native level". There are several million speakers of Arabic, Armenian, Kurdish, Aramaic, etc. who are not native speakers of Turkish. The 63 million native speakers is referenced by reliable sources. You cannot use the population of Turkey as a measure of how many speakers of Turkish there are. When articles say "X speakers of Y language" it is assumed by most readers that the number only refers to native speakers. If you want to specify native speakers, that's OK, but the assumption here in Wikipedia is that numbers of speakers are for native speakers only (unless otherwise specified). (Taivo (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, this article is about the Turkish language, not about Turkish ethnicity. Are you seriously suggesting that that there are 8 million people in Turkey that do not speak Turkish? Prove it. Where do you get your figures? Cite your sources. I am not asking to prove the number of ethnic minorities in Turkey; I am asking you to prove the number of people that do not talk Turkish in Turkey. WillMall (talk) 22:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I never said a single word about ethnicity, I was talking about native languages spoken within the borders of Turkey besides Turkish. These speakers are not native speakers of Turkish, they are native speakers of Arabic, Kurdish, Aramaic, etc., not of Turkish. They speak Turkish as a second language only. You have mistaken citizenship for native language. Just look at this for a list of all the numbers of people who do not speak Turkish as their native language. (Taivo (talk) 00:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

Your all missing my point entirely! I just want that sentence re-worded so it doesnt seem as though ONLY 63 million people speak the language... Is my point not reasonable? Turco85 (talk) 16:05, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point at all, turco85, and it was reasonable even though all speaker numbers in Wikipedia are assumed to be native speakers only. I added the adverb "natively" into the first sentence. That should clarify it. (Taivo (talk) 18:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

How about this: Turkish is spoken as a first language by 63 million people worldwide, and as a second language by a further X million people, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. (You would need a citation for the X(10? 20?) million, but there must be at least another 5/6/7/8 million in Turkey that speak it fluently as a second lang.) WillMall (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Taivo, you should read this page First_language. It suggests a bias involved in the term 'First Language' (Mother Tongue, Native Tongue) when it comes to bilingual speakers. Here is the text : One can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed multilingual. The order in which these languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency. For instance, a French-speaking couple might have a daughter who learned French first, then English; but if she were to grow up in an English speaking country, she would likely be proficient in English. The Brazilian linguist Cleo Altenhofen considers the denomination "mother tongue" in its general usage to be imprecise and subject to various interpretations that are biased linguistically ... especially with respect to bilingual children from ethnic minority groups. He cites his own experience as a bilingual ... In his case, like that of many children whose home language differs from the language of the environment ... it is debatable which language is his 'mother tongue' (i.e. first language). The best way around this controversy is to state : Turkish is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, and fluently as a second language by a further X million people, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. WillMall (talk) 16:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that wording other than the word "fluently" in defining second language use. It is impossible to define "fluently" with any measure of accuracy. I was a "fluent" speaker of Hungarian according to the U.S. Army in 1985, but I assure you that I would not have passed as "fluent" on the streets of Budapest. Take out the word "fluently" and provide a reference for the number of second language speakers. (Taivo (talk) 00:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC))

I agree, ‘Fluent’ is a vague word. But can you tell me what the purpose or use is of the distinction between ‘first and second language’? WillMall (talk) 20:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The purpose is a clear measure of competency. Native speakers (first language) are completely fluent and competent in all matters of language usage. Non-native speakers are not so clearly qualified and competent. Indeed, there are many second language speakers who are near-native in their fluency, but the majority of second language users are not near-native. The second problem with ennumerating second language speakers (or including their number in a "number of speakers" measurement) is what degree of fluency is required before someone is counted as a second language speaker? There is no objective measurement of that level. The Army said I was fluent in Hungarian, but I would not have been "fluent" on the streets of Budapest in 1985. So the lack of any objective standard on level of fluency for counting precludes any real value in counting second language speakers other than as a relative measurement of how useful a language is outside the native community. I know a few words of Turkish and a bit of grammar. Does that make me a second language speaker of Turkish? How many words and structures must I know before you count me? How about the owner of the Chinese laundary I used to use in Berkeley? Is he a second language speaker of English? I couldn't understand a word he said to me. I just handed him my uniforms and assumed he'd do the right thing. But he's probably counted somewhere as a second language speaker of English because he lives in the U.S. (Taivo (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, you are mixing up and confusing a lot of terms. Firstly, you said that 'It is impossible to define fluently' but then you said 'Native speakers (first language) are completely fluent and competent...'. So it looks like you just defined the word fluent. So let’s take fluent to mean: completely competent in a language. You then say the ’’majority of second language users are not near-native’’. Well, it depends what you mean by such terms. If by 'second language' you mean ‘a language in which one is not completely fluent’, then it is hardly a point worth making. You are basically saying that non-fluent people are not fluent. On the other hand, if ‘second language’ means ‘any language that one did not learn from birth’, then your point is debatable. The language you learnt from birth (first language) is not necessarily the language that you are completely fluent in; and the language you did Not learn from birth (your second language) may be the language you are completely fluent in.

Take for example the children of Bengali immigrants in England. The children are born in England, they first learn Bengali at home and then from the age of 5, they go on to learn English at school. The fact is that the language they become completely fluent in is English, which by definition is also their second language, i.e., the language they did not learn from birth. In such cases, their First Language (the language learnt from birth) is not their main language and it is not the language that they are completely fluent in. This is the point that Cleo Altenhofen was trying to make. There are many thousands, perhaps millions of people that are completely fluent and competent in a second language (the language not learnt from birth). You may choose to call such people bi-lingual. But they are normally much more competent and fluent in the second language (the language not learnt from birth). It is the language they use at school, at work, the language that comes naturally to them and it is by definition their second language.

On the hand, if you define ‘second language’ as any language that you are not completely fluent in, then you would have to define ‘First Language’ as any language that you are completely fluent in. In which case many ethnic minority groups would have to be counted as First language speakers of a language they did Not learn from birth, because they are completely fluent and competent in the language. Bengali children raised in England are perfectly fluent in English, but the language they learn First is Bengali. Also If you are going to define the terms in this way , then they become redundant because you might as well just use the word fluent (which as you point out, is taken to mean ‘completely fluent and competent’); and as I said earlier it just results in logically equivalent phrases such as ‘non-fluent speakers are not fluent’ and ‘fluent speakers are fluent’, which are pointless tautologies. WillMall (talk) 13:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You, yourself, have just illustrated beautifully why counting second language speakers is meaningless in a language context because you have shown that there is no way to measure fluency in a second language. Most Benagli speakers in England, if given a survey that says, "What is your first language" might very well put English if they consider that to be their most fluent language. So be it. But you are trying to include in Turkish the entire non-Turkish population of Turkey just because they live in Turkey and have had to learn "marketplace Turkish" in order to function in the Turkish economy. You're not talking about immigrants in Turkey, but people who are Kurds or Arabs or Neo-Aramaic or Armenians whose first language is not Turkish and who use their native language at home and only use Turkish in the marketplace. Their competence in Turkish is generally not on the level of second-generation Bengalis speaking English in London. You're mixing apples and oranges in order to prove that the bananas are oranges and therefore you have the most oranges in town. The only measure of speakers that linguists find reliable is first language numbers for the very reason that you've proven--you can't measure fluency in a second language by survey. (Taivo (talk) 15:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

Well…if we are to be specific. I have actually been to south-eastern Turkey. I met many Kurdish people in the towns and cities and their Turkish is perfectly fluent. I also went up into the mountains and there you do find villages where only Kurdish is spoken. Anyway, its all academic. Wikipedia policy states that if one can find reliable sources showing that the number of Turkish speakers is higher, then one may use those sources. WillMall (talk) 17:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, WP:RS prevails, but it also means that if the source separates first and second language speakers, then they are separated here as well, or if the source combines them and says it combines them, then we go with the most recent source that separates them. This isn't a game of number-crunching to get the highest number. It's accuracy, and a speaker figure that combines first and second language speakers is inaccurate because it is impossible to measure fluency in second language speakers. (Taivo (talk) 18:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC))

No, Taivo, you are wrong. Ethnologue lists English and says ‘ 508,000,000 including second-language speakers ’ , see here: [4]. WillMall (talk) 10:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not wrong, WillMall. Look at English language and you will see exactly what I have described--first language speakers separated from second language speakers based on reliable sources. Just because one of Wikipedia's sources has a combined figure doesn't mean that all of Wikipedia's sources have combined figures. The editor of English language has wisely found a source that separates first and second language speakers just as I have described. Ethnologue is not Wikipedia. I'm not talking about Ethnologue, but Wikipedia. This isn't a game to find ways to drive the speaker number up so that Turkish can "win" some prize. I don't doubt that there are Kurds who can speak Turkish very fluently as a second language, just as my Ukrainian daughter speaks English very fluently. But just because English is a required subject in school in Ukraine, doesn't mean I want to count the entire school-age population of Ukraine as even second language speakers of English. The problem, as you, yourself, illustrated, is that there are no objective standards on measuring fluency in a second language, so any enumeration of second language speakers is subject to inaccuracy. First language numbers and second language numbers should not be combined in Wikipedia just for the purposes of driving a single speaker number artificially higher and gaining some illusory "bragging rights". (Taivo (talk) 12:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, please do not accuse me of trying to play some stupid bragging game. I’ve already said that without published peer reviewed reliable sources this is a futile debate. What I am objecting to is as follow: you seem to be saying that if highly respectable sources go against your point of view, then you will not allow them. You said, ‘’if the source combines them and says it combines them, then we go with the most recent source that separates them’’. How on earth can you dictate such terms? WillMall (talk) 13:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Because accuracy is the most important criterion. 99% of all reliable sources for such numbers don't combine first and second language speakers, so it's not like there is a dearth of information on the topic. It's actually rare for even Ethnologue to give a combined number. The English entry itself separates them since right after the combined number, it gives the native speaker only number as "population total all countries..." (Ethnologue's phraseology is a bit ideosyncratic so it's not always obvious what they mean except to experienced users.) The point is moot almost all the time since these speaker numbers are nearly always only native speakers. There are unreliable sources that are sometimes used for linguistic "facts", however, such as the CIA's factbooks. These are notoriously considered to be accurate as far as linguistic information goes by some inexperienced editors and POV-pushing editors, but one must always consider the source of the information. The CIA doesn't hire linguists to do detailed language analysis of a country since it is of just minor importance for CIA's purposes. These numbers are culled from official country documents often without analysis or verification of what the numbers mean. There are enough other, more reliable linguistic sources, that these unreliable sources need not be used. But a source that says, "Turkey has X million people and they all speak Turkish" is unreliable from the beginning. (Taivo (talk) 16:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC))

Your basic premise, as you noted earlier, is that only First language speakers can be counted as being completely competent in any language because fluency cannot be accurately measured in second language users. That is completely wrong. If fluency cannot be accurately measured in second language users, then why should it be measurable in First language users? The point is that any criteria used in measuring language competency may be applied to both First and Second language users. On the other hand, if there are no valid criteria for measuring competency and fluency, then you original premise does not stand. In other words, if we can’t measure fluency and competency, then we can’t do it in either first or second language users.

As I’ve already said, I know Bengali people in the UK, and Kurdish people in Turkey, that are totally fluent in English and Turkish respectively. I have met these people and their second language is indistinguishable from native speakers. English is MY second Language. Are you saying that I should NOT be counted as a speaker of English? Are you really saying that?

You also say that any source combining first and second language figures is, by that very fact, unreliable. That’s dogmatic, just like the authorities that took a dogmatic stance against Copernicus and his view that the Earth moved around the sun. If reliable sources combine figures then, in line with Wikipedia policy, we can reflect that here. WillMall (talk) 10:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You just don't seem to understand the problem. First language competency is, by linguistic definition, complete fluency. If you are born of Bengali parents in London, you learn a few words of Bengali at your mother's breast, then start playing with English kids in the playground and learn English perfectly fluently, your first language is not Bengali, but English and you would most likely list that on any survey. My best friend in high school was in a similar situation vis a vis Dutch and English. He always said that English is his first language because he was never fluent in Dutch and never used it outside with his mother and father. If there were a Dutch-speaking community here, he might have considered Dutch his first language because he would have had playmates speaking Dutch, but that is not the case. So the linguistic definition of first language is complete fluency. So your issue of "measuring" first language competency is moot. Second, yes, there are perfectly fluent second language speakers, I never denied that. What is impossible to measure in any kind of general, "survey-based" method is the level of fluency in a population. In any population of second-language speakers you will have those (a minority) who are nearly perfectly fluent in the second language, those who know a few words of the second language, and everyone in between. I have met taxi drivers in Kyiv and Budapest who have "English as a second language" and are perfectly fluent in English as long as you are talking about getting from point A to point B, the weather, the local hotels, the sights along the route, etc., but could not talk about very much else at all. In a survey situation you must also deal with a) people who are quite fluent in a second language but are too modest to admit it, and b) people who know the language minimally, but nevertheless claim fluency. That's why sources that combine first and second language speakers are of less reliability than sources that separate them. I've said this several times now in several different ways, but you don't seem to grasp the linguistic issues involved. You keep going back to your personal examples of meeting fluent speakers of Turkish in southeastern Turkey. I seriously doubt that the majority of Kurds or Arabs in Turkey speak Turkish with a native level of fluency. But I don't doubt your personal experience at all. It's just that your personal experience is not a WP:RS unless you published a scientific survey of the sociolinguistic situation in southeastern Turkey. Comparing this to Copernicus is ridiculous. Professional linguists understand the problem very well and very precisely. That's the issue here--linguistic precision versus imprecision. I'm not going to go over this again with you. The default position in linguistics is that in publications speaker numbers are for first language speakers and that use of second language speaker numbers must be carefully delineated. You're trying to make the opposite claim and that is not the position of professional linguists. (Taivo (talk) 16:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

Taivo, you should take a look at the First_language page. It needs correcting. It says "A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth. A person's first language is a basis for sociolinguistic identity". But you clearly don't agree with that. WillMall (talk) 21:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That is, indeed, the definition of "first language", but there is also what the individual thinks of as his/her first language. If you asked my friend what his first language was, he would invariably say "English" even though his first words were literally Dutch. For 99% of the world's population, the "first words", the "first language", the "parent's language" is all one and the same so the definition you cite is absolutely correct. It is only for a very small proportion of the world's population that there is a little individual variation and it all depends on how the individual interprets his first language (and not his or her first words). (Taivo (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

This whole discussion still leaves me with the impression that you are trying to "game" the speaker numbers for Turkish in order to place it higher on some list or other. You're not giving me the impression of being interested in accuracy, but only in increasing the number of speakers for Turkish. I'm done playing the game now. You have all the relevant linguistic discussion and reasoning, you're just trying to argue for the sake of arguing now. (Taivo (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC))

You are contradicting yourself and then accusing me of playing the system. I have already said that we must rely on reliable sources, so how on earth can I be playing the system? Stick to the evidence and do not make personal attacks (WP:NPA). You said " the linguistic definition of first language is complete fluency " and now you say "A first language is the language a human being learns from birth " You can't have it both ways. We have already agreed that your fluent language is not necessarily the language you learn from birth. So go to the First_language page and make the changes otherwise concede that you are wrong. Furthermore, if you are going to reply to this, then I suggest you do so on the First language discussion page, because that is where this discussion belongs, and that is where I have made an additional entry. WillMall (talk) 23:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Turkish / Azerbaycan - misnomers

I see alot of confusions, misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding the topic of the language spoken in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Officially they may have different names, (Turkish/Azerbaijani) however, in reality they are as different as the English spoken in Texas to the English spoken in Australlia. They are actually the same language and starting from Central Anatolia shifting towards Eastern Anatolia there is a dialect continum, ethnalogue says the same http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=azb . There is no definable place were the dialect changes, its a regional shift, there is almost no difference between the Turkish spoken in Kars or Igdir to that spoken in Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan).

Its very misleading for people with no knowledge of Turkish to think that these are two seperate languages. People in Azerbaijan watch Turkish tv and films but have never studied Turkish, people from Turkey go to work in Azerbaijan without ever going to study Azerbaijani. The same for Azerbaijani spoken in Iran, which ironically is locally called "Turki" / "Torki".

--Torke (talk) 16:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. I would personally compare it to Italian and Ligurian. Yes, Turkish and Azeri are VERY similar indeed, but even I don't understand Azeri 100%. I think Azeri is different enough to be considered a separate language, and it is recognised as such almost universally by professional linguists and institutions. The mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Turkic languages is already mentioned in the article, so I don't think there is anything misleading about the article at all. Runningfridgesrule (talk) 22:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Example phrase

Could some native speaker break down this example phrase "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız" into morphemes with their individual meanings? I can tell most of them, but I'm confused by the "-laştır-" segment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.42.124.135 (talk) 05:30, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

"-laştır-" roughly means "-ify-": Türkleştir means Turkify. Yaklaştır means bring closer (closeify). Büyükleştir means make bigger (bigify). Düzleştir means straighten (straightify). 94.193.167.69 (talk) 22:04, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually "Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız" is a question and in Turkish, question suffixes aren't written that way. At the end, I mean the part "mışsınız", is the question segment. It means "weren't you?" and officially written after a blank. And this shit isn't the longest word (actually 2 words) in Turkish. No doubt! :) If you're interested, it means "Weren't you one of them whom we czechoslovakianified?" It's funny to play with suffixes in Turkish ;) --PHYSICIAN (talk) 15:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

German-Turkish

I am thinking of creating a new article about the Turkish dialect in Germany; inspired by the Turkish artile: tr:Almanya Türkçesi. This would be like the Cypriot Turkish artile. Would anyone else be intrested in helping me? Thetruthonly (talk) 12:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I have been deleted The site of education turkish language site.please remove!--78.183.232.3 (talk) 18:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

1924 literacy map

I've made a new,better-looking version of the "literacy rates in 1924" map, it's in File:1924okuryazar.png --Kuzux (talk) 21:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)