A Sociolinguistic profile of Turkish
The Turkish language is a Turkic language that belongs to the Altaic family. It is spoken throughout Turkey and Northern Cyprus as a first or second language by an estimated population of over 50 million people. It is also spoken in various dialects by millions of people in over 30 countries in Europe (e.g., Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Sweden, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc.), Asia (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia), the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Israel, United Arab Emirates), and the Americas (Canada, El Salvador, Honduras, U.S.A). It has been said that one can travel from Europe to the borders of China finding all the way interlocutors speaking varieties of Turkish.
As the country for which it serves as an emblem, Turkish is a bridge between east and west. Linguistically, it is a fascinating case that stands out in the Eurasian oecumene with its agglutinative structure, a feature it shares with languages such as Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese. The Islamic heritage is also represented in the many vocabulary items borrowed from Persian and Arabic, as is its Mediterranean location with many borrowings from Spanish, Italian, and more recently from French.
Why should you study Turkish?
The answers are simple. First, Turkish is the language of the Ottoman Empire that was a super power in the world between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, and ruled over much of Eastern Europe, the Near East, and the Mediterranean rim. Second, Turkey is a geographical bridge between the continents of Asia and Europe, linked by the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul. At the same time, Turkey not only has relationships with the European Union and is involved in international organizations such as NATO, but it also maintains friendly ties with neighboring eastern countries, and is often sought to mediate between conflicting forces in the region. Turkey is a modern state with a rich cultural heritage, consisting of a secular state with a parliamentary democracy, a mostly Muslim population and Middle Eastern traditions.
Third, today Turkish is one of the most important investment languages to learn for people interested in EU, Middle Eastern studies, world history, international relations, politics, economics, music, archeology, architecture, and tourism. It is a language that is gaining popularity as a foreign language in the United States and in other parts of the world, because of the growing geo-political role that Turkey now plays in global relations. Many current government and educational jobs concerning Europe, the Middle East and Asia favor those with proficiency in Turkish. Turkish certainly represents a major access language to numerous opportunities in the regions where it is spoken.