World Language Map

Languages spoken in Turkey

40 living languages are mapped in Turkey. The most widely spoken, by Unicode CLDR’s estimate, is Turkish (93% of the population). They belong to 6 language families, the largest being Indo-European (16 languages).

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Languages of Turkey at a glance

  • 40living languages
  • 6language families
  • 84.1 millionpeople (CLDR estimate)
  • 12with a CLDR share

Tap the map to list every language whose area covers a spot in Turkey. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap, and a language that is mapped here is not necessarily spoken everywhere inside its area.

Languages spoken in Turkey

Languages with a Unicode CLDR share come first, biggest first by estimated speakers; the rest follow A to Z. Estimated speakers are the share applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country.

LanguageFamilyShare of populationEstimated speakersStatus
TurkishTurkic93%78,231,135Not endangered
EnglishIndo-European17%14,300,315Not endangered
Northern KurdishIndo-European5.5%4,626,572Threatened
Levantine ArabicAfro-Asiatic5.2%4,374,214Not endangered
North AzerbaijaniTurkic1.4%1,169,261Not endangered
KabardianAbkhaz-Adyge0.8%647,720Threatened
Standard ArabicAfro-Asiatic0.6%471,069Not endangered
Rumelian TurkishTurkic0.5%386,950Shifting
BulgarianIndo-European0.4%353,302Not endangered
West CircassianAbkhaz-Adyge0.4%328,066Threatened
KirmanjkiIndo-European0.2%159,827Not endangered
Kara-KalpakTurkic0.1%84,120Not endangered
AbazaAbkhaz-AdygeThreatened
AbkhazAbkhaz-AdygeThreatened
Assyrian Neo-AramaicAfro-AsiaticShifting
AvarNakh-DaghestanianThreatened
Balkan RomaniIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
Cappadocian GreekIndo-EuropeanShifting
Central RomaniIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
Chaldean Neo-AramaicAfro-AsiaticShifting
Crimean TatarTurkicThreatened
DimliIndo-EuropeanThreatened
Eastern ArmenianIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
GeorgianKartvelianNot endangered
Gilit Mesopotamian ArabicAfro-AsiaticNot endangered
HertevinAfro-AsiaticMoribund
LadinoIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
LazKartvelianThreatened
Modern GreekIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
Najdi ArabicAfro-AsiaticNot endangered
North Mesopotamian ArabicAfro-AsiaticNot endangered
PonticIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
Sinte-Manus RomaniIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
South AzerbaijaniTurkicNot endangered
Southern UzbekTurkicNot endangered
TurkmenTurkicNot endangered
TuroyoAfro-AsiaticThreatened
Vlax RomaniIndo-EuropeanNot endangered
Western ArmenianIndo-EuropeanThreatened
Western FarsiIndo-EuropeanNot endangered

Read more: where is Turkish spoken?

Language families in Turkey

About these numbers

The list of languages in Turkey comes from the overlap of Glottography and Glottolog language areas and positions with the country outline, together with the languages Glottolog assigns to the country. The shares come from Unicode CLDR release 48 and are estimates. See every source and licence.

Questions about languages in Turkey

How many languages are spoken in Turkey?

40 living languages are mapped in Turkey, from 6 families. The number depends on how a catalogue decides where one language ends and another begins, so other sources give other totals.

What is the most spoken language in Turkey?

By Unicode CLDR's estimate, Turkish is spoken by 93% of the population, about 78,231,135 people, followed by English (17%). Shares are approximate, can add up to more than 100% because many people speak several languages, and only cover languages CLDR has a figure for.

Which language families are found in Turkey?

Indo-European (16 languages), Afro-Asiatic (9 languages), Turkic (8 languages), Abkhaz-Adyge (4 languages) and Kartvelian (2 languages), and 1 more.

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