Turkish language: The Language of Sultans and Kebabs

The Turkish language, or Türkçe as it’s known locally, is the native tongue of over 80 million people, and it’s hard to imagine what their conversations would sound like if they didn’t have all those rolling r’s and emphatic uh-oh’s.

But the Turkish language is more than just a bunch of sounds strung together - it’s a reflection of the country’s rich cultural heritage. It’s a language that’s seen empires rise and fall, sultans come and go, and kebabs be devoured by tourists in alarming quantities.

Many linguists consider Turkish to be a member of the Turkic language family, which includes languages such as Azerbaijani, Kazakh, and Uzbek. But let’s be real – who cares about those languages? Turkish is where it’s at.

One of the unique features of the Turkish language is that it’s written using the Latin script. That’s right, no fancy schmancy curly letters like Arabic or Cyrillic - just good ol’ A, B, C, and Ş, İ, Ö, Ğ. And let’s not forget the dotless “i” - because when you’re busy napping after a long day of bazaar haggling, who has time for dots?

But it’s not just the writing system that makes Turkish unique. It’s also the vocabulary - or rather, the lack of it. You see, the Turkish language has a tendency to borrow words from other languages and make them their own. So if you ever find yourself in Turkey and hear someone talking about their “komputer” or “television”, don’t be alarmed - they’re just speaking Turkish.

And let’s not forget the grammar. Turkish has a plethora of suffixes that can be added to words to convey all sorts of meanings. For example, if you want to say “I went to the store”, you can just say “mağazaya gittim”. But if you want to say “I went to the store with my friend”, now you have to add a suffix to the word for “friend”, resulting in “arkadaşımla mağazaya gittim”. Good luck trying to keep all those suffixes straight!

But despite its quirks, the Turkish language is a beautiful and vibrant language that’s deeply intertwined with the country’s culture and history. So the next time you’re tucking into a piping hot kebab or exploring the ruins of a 15th-century Ottoman palace, take a moment to appreciate the language that brings it all together - Türkçe.