Turkish language

Turkish (Türkçe, Türk dili; also Türkiye Türkçesi 'Turkish of Turkey') is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 90 to 100 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, other parts of Europe, the South Caucasus, and some parts of Central Asia, Iraq, and Syria. Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world.

Quotes

 * The most beautiful Turkish is the Turkish of the 1920s, sir, there is no need to delve deeper... Its simplest form is the Turkish of Ömer Seyfettin's stories. Novelist Hüseyin Rahmi's Turkish, Yakup Kadri's Turkish, Yahya Kemal's Turkish…. Turkish was corrupted in the 1930s, the state tried to reform Turkish by force of bayonets, and this eventually became the title of the book of the Englishman I mentioned earlier: He calls the language revolution "a catastrophic success." Those who translated it into Turkish also translated it as "tragic success". — Mehmed Şevket Eygı. A Portrait of a Muslim Gentleman from Istanbul.
 * En güzel Türkçe 1920’lerin Türkçesidir efendim, derine dalmaya gerek yok... En sade şekli Ömer Seyfettin’in hikâyelerinin Türkçesidir. Romancı Hüseyin Rahmi’nin Türkçesi, Yakup Kadri’nin Türkçesi, Yahya Kemal’in Türkçesi…. Türkçe 30’lu yıllarda bozulmuş, devlet eliyle, süngü zoruyla Türkçe reforme edilmek istenmiş ve bu durum sonunda demin söz ettiğim İngiliz’in kitabına başlık olmuştur: Dil devrimi için “Katastrofik bir başarı” diyor. Türkçeye tercüme edenler de “trajik başarı” diye tercüme etmişler.