The languages of Turkey, apart from the official language Turkish, include the widespread Kurdish, and a number of less common minority languages. Four minority languages are officially recognized in the Republic of Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty () of 18 October 1925: Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Hebrew. In 2013, the Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court ruled that the minority provisions of the Lausanne Treaty should also apply to Assyrians in Turkey and the Syriac language.Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court, 18 June 2013 (E. 2012/1746, K. 2013/952).
History
Turkey has historically been the home to many now extinct languages. These include Hittite, the earliest Indo-European language for which written evidence exists (circa 1600 BCE to 1100 BCE when the Hittite Empire existed). The other Anatolian languages included Luwian and later Lycian, Lydian and Milyan. All these languages are believed to have become extinct at the latest around the 1st century BCE due to the Hellenization of Anatolia which led to Greek in a variety of dialects becoming the common language.
Urartian belonging to the Hurro-Urartian language family existed in eastern Anatolia around Lake Van. It existed as the language of the kingdom of Urartu from about the 9th century BCE until the 6th century. Hattian is attested in Hittite ritual texts but is not related to the Hittite language or to any other known language; it dates from the 2nd millennium BCE.
In the post-Tanzimat period French became a common language among educated people, even though no ethnic group in the empire natively spoke French. (info page on book at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 26 (PDF p. 28): "French had become a sort of semi-official language in the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Tanzimat reforms.[...]It is true that French was not an ethnic language of the Ottoman Empire. But it was the only Western language which would become increasingly widespread among educated persons in all linguistic communities." Johann Strauss, author of "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," wrote that "In a way reminiscent of English in the contemporary world, French was almost omnipresent in the Ottoman lands." (, 9781317118459), p. 122. Strauss also stated that French was "a sort of semi-official language", (, 9781317118442), Google Books PT192. which "to some extent" had "replaced Turkish as an 'official' language for non-Muslims". (, 9781317118442), Google Books PT193. Therefore late empire had multiple French-language publications, and several continued to operate when the Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923. However French-language publications began to close in the 1930s. As the Treaty of Lausanne went into effect and was intended to protect languages of instruction for ethnic minorities, French was not included, and so schools for Jewish children teaching in French converted into being Turkish medium schools. The quantity and quality of French instruction declined in those schools for Jewish children, and so many Jewish students began attending other language-medium private schools.
When French-medium schools operated by Alliance Israélite Universelle opened in the 1860s, the position of Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) began to weaken in the Ottoman Empire areas. In time Judaeo-Spanish became perceived as a low status language. Hebrew was the instructional language of Judaism, and so the Treaty of Lausanne protected instruction in Hebrew, but not in Judaeo-Spanish, a language passed along in families but never used in school instruction. Judaeo-Spanish was still the native language of 85% of Turkish Jews in 1927; there was still relatively low fluency in Turkish in that population, which meant they encountered issues with the Citizen, speak Turkish! campaign. However, as time progressed, Judaeo-Spanish language and culture declined, and in 2017 writer Melis Alphan described Judaeo-Spanish as "dying in Turkey".
Constitutional rights
Official language Article 3 of the Constitution of Turkey defines Turkish as the official language of Turkey.
Minority language rights Article 42 of the Constitution explicitly prohibits educational institutions to teach any language other than Turkish as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens.
Due to Article 42 and its longtime restrictive interpretation, ethnic minorities have been facing severe restrictions in the use of their mother languages.
Concerning the incompatibility of this provision with the International Bill of Human Rights, Turkey signed the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights only with reservations constraining minority rights and the right to education. Furthermore, Turkey has not signed either of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, or the anti-discrimination Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights.This particular constitutional provision has been contested both internationally and within Turkey. The provision has been criticized by minority groups, notably the Kurdish community. In October 2004, the Turkish State's Human Rights Advisory Board called for a constitutional review in order to bring Turkey's policy on minorities in line with international standards, but was effectively muted. It was also criticized by EU member states, the OSCE, and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch who observe that "the Turkish government accepts the language rights of the Jewish, Greek and Armenian minorities as being guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. But the government claims that these are Turkey's only minorities, and that any talk of minority rights beyond this is just separatism". Bulgarian-speakers are also officially recognized by the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty () of 18 October 1925.
Supplementary language education In 2012, the Ministry of Education included Kurdish (based on both Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects) to the academic programme of the basic schools as optional classes from the fifth year on.
Later, the Ministry of Education also included Abkhaz, Adyghe, Standard Georgian, and Laz languages in 2013, and Albanian as well as Bosnian languages in February 2017.
In 2015, the Turkey’s Ministry of Education announced that as of the 2016–17 academic year, Arabic courses (as a second language) will be offered to students in elementary school starting in second grade. The Arabic courses will be offered as an elective language course like German, French and English. According to a prepared curriculum, second and third graders will start learning Arabic by listening-comprehension and speaking, while introduction to writing will join these skills in fourth grade and after fifth grade students will start learning the language in all its four basic skills.Al-Monitor: Turks divided over plans to introduce Arabic-language teaching, 2 November 2015, Retrieved 29 December 2017.Hürriyet Daily News: Arabic to be offered as second language in Turkish elementary schools, 23 October 2015, Retrieved 29 December 2017.
Statistics The last publicly published census for languages was 1965 census. LanguageCensus 1927Census 1935Census 1945Census 1950Census 1955Census 1960Census 1965Number%Number%Number%Number%Number%Number%Number%Turkish11,778,81086.4213,899,07386.0216,598,03788.3418,254,85187.1521,622,29289.8525,172,53590.7028,175,57989.76Kurdish1,184,4468.691,480,2469.161,476,5627.91,680,0438.021,679,2656.981,847,6746.662,219,5997.07Zazaki174,5260.70150,6440.48Arabic134,2730.98153,6870.95247,2941.3269,0381.28300,5831.25347,6901.25365,3401.16Circassian95,9010.7091,9720.5766,6910.475,8370.3677,6110.3263,1370.2358,3390.19Greek119,8220.88108,7250.6788,6800.4789,4720.4379,6910.3365,1390.2348,0960.15Armenian64,7450.4857,5990.3647,7280.352,7760.2556,2350.2352,7560.1933,0940.11Georgian - -57,3250.3540,0760.2172,6040.3551,9830.2232,9440.1234,3300.11Laz - -63,2530.3939,3230.2170,4230.3430,5660.1321,7030.0826,0070.08other251,4911.85227,5441.41185,7830.99207,6180.99166,5370.69151,2420.54280,4030.89Total13,629.48810016,157,45010018,790,17410020,947,18810024,064,76310027,754,82010031,391,421100Sources:
1927 Census Main article: 1927 Turkish Census
1935 Census Main article: 1935 Turkish Census
1965 Census
+ Languages spoken in Turkey, 1965 censusHeinz Kloss & Grant McConnel, Linguistic composition of the nations of the world, vol,5, Europe and USSR, Québec, Presses de l'Université Laval, 1984, LanguageMother tongueOnly language spokenSecond best language spoken Abaza 4,563 280 7,556 Albanian 12,832 1,075 39,613 Arabic 365,340 189,134 167,924 Armenian 33,094 1,022 22,260 Bosnian 17,627 2,345 34,892 Bulgarian 4,088 350 46,742 Pomak 23,138 2,776 34,234 Chechen 7,563 2,500 5,063 Circassian 58,339 6,409 48,621 Croatian 45 1 1,585 Czech 168 25 76 Dutch 366 23 219 English 27,841 21,766 139,867 French 3,302 398 96,879 Georgian 34,330 4,042 44,934 German 4,901 790 35,704 Greek 48,096 3,203 78,941 Italian 2,926 267 3,861 Kurdish (Kurmanji) 2,219,502 1,323,690 429,168 Judæo-Spanish 9,981 283 3,510 Laz 26,007 3,943 55,158 Persian 948 72 2,103 Polish 110 20 377 Portuguese 52 5 3,233 Romanian 406 53 6,909 Russian 1,088 284 4,530 Serbian 6,599 776 58,802 Spanish 2,791 138 4,297 Turkish 28,289,680 26,925,649 1,387,139 Zaza 150,644 92,288 20,413 Total 31,009,934 28,583,607 2,786,610