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Turkish dialects


There is considerable dialectal variation in Turkish.

Turkish is a southern Oghuz dialect of the Turkic languages, is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey, Bulgaria, the island of Cyprus, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Meskhetia, Romania, and other areas of traditional settlement which formerly, in whole or part, belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Turkish is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. It also has official (but not primary) status in the Prizren District of Kosovo and several municipalities of the Republic of Macedonia, depending on the concentration of Turkish-speaking local population. Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul. Nonetheless, dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and the Turkish education system since the 1930s. The terms ağız or şive are often used to refer to the different types of Turkish dialects (such as Cypriot Turkish).

The Turkish language was introduced to the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks during the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Today, Turkish is still spoken by the Turkish minorities who are still living in the region, especially in Bulgaria, Greece (mainly in Western Thrace), Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, and Romania. Balkans Ottoman Turkish dialects were first described at the beginning of the 20th century, and are called Rumelian—a term introduced by Gyula Németh in 1956. Németh also established the basic division between Eastern Rumelian and Western Rumelian group of dialects. The bundle of isoglosses separating the two groups roughly follows the Bulgarian yat border. The eight basic Western Rumelian Turkish features are:


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