Knowra Turkic languages Turkic languages A language family spoken across Eurasia, from eastern Europe and Anatolia to Siberia and western China. Its members include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uyghur.
Agglutinative language : A language that forms words by attaching sequences of mostly distinct affixes to roots. Turkic languages commonly build grammatical forms by adding suffixes to stems.
Comparative method : A procedure for reconstructing an ancestral language by comparing systematic similarities among related languages. It underpins reconstructions of Proto-Turkic and tests proposed relationships within the family.
Oghuz languages : A major Turkic branch that includes Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and related languages. Its languages span Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran, and Central Asia.
Orkhon inscriptions : Eighth-century Old Turkic inscriptions in Mongolia, among the earliest substantial written records of a Turkic language. They provide direct evidence for an early Turkic language and political culture.
Mongolic languages : A language family that includes Mongolian and related languages spoken across parts of Asia. Long contact with Turkic languages produced similarities that do not establish common descent.
Vowel harmony : A phonological pattern in which vowels within a word become more alike according to features such as frontness or rounding. Many Turkic suffixes change their vowels to harmonize with the preceding stem.
Proto-Turkic language : The reconstructed common ancestor of the Turkic languages, not directly attested in written records. Comparative evidence is used to infer the ancestor from which Turkic branches developed.
Kipchak languages : A major Turkic branch that includes Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tatar, Bashkir, and several other languages. Kipchak languages illustrate the branch’s reach from the Eurasian steppe to the Volga region.
Old Turkic : The language of early Turkic inscriptions and manuscripts, attested from roughly the eighth through thirteenth centuries. Its texts preserve an early documented stage of the family’s history.
Tungusic languages : A language family spoken in parts of Siberia and northeastern Asia, including Evenki and Manchu. Tungusic has been grouped with Turkic in broader hypotheses whose genetic basis is contested.
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