Turkmen (Türkmençe, türkmen dili; تۆرکمن دﻴﻠی, تۆرکمنچه [tʏɾkmɛntʃɛ, tʏɾkmɛn dɪlɪ]) is the official language of Turkmenistan and the Turkmen peoples of Central Asia. This is the Turkic language spoken by 3.5 million people in Turkmenistan, or 72% of the population, as well as about 719,000 people in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million in northwestern Afghanistan. Not all “Turkmens” in northeastern Iran are native speakers; many of them speak Turkic Khorasani.
general information
The language of Turkmenistan is a member of the southwestern or Oguz branch of the Turkic dialects. His literary tradition dates back to the 14th century AD. e. Later, Turkmen writers began to use the Chagatai literary language of the southeastern (Chagatai) language branch. In the 18th and 19th centuries, exclusively Turkmen literary literature began to appear. A new round of development began after the Russian revolution of 1917 with the introduction of a literary language based on colloquial Turkmen.
The language was written in the Arabic alphabet until 1927, later the Latin alphabet was used with some modifications. In the Soviet Union, the Latin alphabet was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1940. It was adopted as the official language of Turkmenistan in 1991 with a new constitution during independence. Today it is compulsory in public institutions and schools. Most official documents are published in Turkmen.
Language features
Like all Turkic languages, Turkmen is agglutinative, that is, grammatical relations are indicated by the addition of suffixes to the basics. There are no prefixes, so the suffixes are behind each other, which sometimes leads to long words. There are various rules for their order. Turkmens use postpositions rather than prepositions to indicate specific grammatical relationships. In the modern version of the language, emphasis often falls on the last syllable.
Turkmen nouns have the following features:
- There is no grammatical gender.
- There are two numbers: singular and plural.
- 6 cases. They are marked by inflectional suffixes and are governed by verbs and postpositions.
- No articles.
The second most common language
Russian is the second most popular language in Turkmenistan, especially in cities and towns. Over 250,000 ethnic Russians live in the country, most of which are concentrated in the northern part. About 12% of the population speak Russian. Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, has the largest number of Russian speakers. The popularity of the second most widely spoken language has been falling over the years. The decrease is due to the efforts of the authorities to exclude the Russian language from public use. Russian-language schools are closed. However, despite the efforts of the authorities, the Russian language remains an alternative or second language for most Turkmen.
Other languages in Turkmenistan make up about 7% of the total population and include Kazakh, Tatar, Ukrainian and Azerbaijani. They are used by minorities, mainly as a second language, while indigenous people try to learn Turkmen. Most speakers of these minority languages are immigrants from neighboring countries.
Turkmen language in literature
Reconstructing the literary history of Turkmens is extremely difficult. They did not have their own educational institutions. At different times, they lived under the rule of Khiva, Bukhara and Persians, none of whom made significant efforts to preserve the works of Turkmen writers. Biographical information about early Turkmen authors is mostly legendary and transmitted orally. Much of what is known comes from the literature itself, found in later and often fragmentary manuscripts or in the oral tradition of bakhshi (bards).
Later, after the resettlement of the Turkmen in Khorezm (in modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), classical Turkmen literature arose. The Uzbek khan Shir Ghazi patronized the Turkmen poet Andalib, who used the local form of the Chagatai language. The influence of classical Azerbaijani poetic forms is also worth noting in his poems.
In Soviet times and after the independence of Turkmenistan, the works of Makhtumkuli were considered very popular. One of the most prominent Turkmen writers of the 20th century was Birdie Kerbabaev. He became famous for the novel Aigitli Adim ("The Decisive Step").