Turkic Profile (Collaborative writing) Language Learning Forum

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Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing

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Chung
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

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05 December 2011 at 5:29am | IP Logged

INTRODUCTION
The Turkic languages are spoken natively throughout Eurasia stretching from Eastern Europe through Central Asia to northeastern Russia. In turn the Turkic languages are sometimes classified as belonging to the Altaic language family. Approximately 150 million people are native speakers of a Turkic language with roughly 30 million more being speakers of a Turkic language as a second language.

The primary attraction of the Turkic languages for many potential learners is their relatively low profile and “exoticism” for speakers of languages from the Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan or Austronesian families among others. Studying a Turkic language can represent a credible but rewarding challenge for people considering learning a “different” language. Six of the Turkic languages, Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkish, Turkmen and Uzbek are national languages with Turkish being the most likely choice for study by a foreigner because of Turkey’s relative openness for foreign travel and abundance of learning material for foreigners.

As with any other language, the associated culture of the respective Turkic speech communities can be sufficient encouragement for someone to study a Turkic language. The culture of each of the Turkic-speaking peoples is informed to a certain degree by different forms of spirituality (e.g. Islam for the Azeris, Bashkirs and Turks, Judaism for the Karaims/Qarays, Orthodox Christianity for the Chuvash and some Tatars, Tibetan Buddhism and Tenegriism for the Tuvans) but in less urban environments, the culture is tied more closely to the harsh environment/climate faced by the people as well traditions which predate the spread of organized monotheism to these people (e.g. Shamanism among some Dolgans and Yakuts).

TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES
Turkic languages are most likely to be encountered natively when travelling to Turkey, the former USSR or northwestern China. They are also used in certain parts of Eastern Europe in the form of Gagauz in Moldova and Romania or Karaim in Lithuania. The Turkic languages in Russia are found throughout the country, some of which are concentrated in certain republics where they have co-official status (e.g. Khakas in the Republic of Khakassia, Kumyk in the Republic of Dagestan). However, bilingualism with the higher-profile Russian is the norm regardless of whether the language has official status or not.

COUNTRIES
Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kosovo/Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan. The diaspora of Turkic native speakers comprises mainly speakers of Turkish who have settled in some cities in Australia, the rest of Europe and North America.

SPEAKERS
Approximately 150 million native speakers.

CHARACTERISTICS/FEATURES OF INTEREST TO THE POTENTIAL LEARNER IN SELECTED TURKIC LANGUAGES

a) AZERI
- Main stress usually falls on last syllable
- Vowel harmony
- Vowels in often short but those in loanwords are sometimes pronounced long by some speakers.
- Heavily agglutinative typology
- Tendency toward SOV in declarative sentences.
- 6 moods: indicative, conditional, imperative, inferential (renarrative), necessitative, optative).
- At least 6 tenses: present, past simple, imperfect, narrative perfect, pluperfect, future (there is also a tense sometimes called “reported past” that accounts for a past action for which the speaker has some doubt of its veracity. In keeping with descriptions used in Turkology, “aorist” is often classified as a tense, although it pertains more to the duration of an action rather than the time of the action’s occurrence).
- At least 6 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative (some descriptions also add the “equitative” and “terminal” which are distinguishable in some dialects and the “instrumental”).
- Definiteness expressed by context, certain demonstrative pronouns, word order or certain suffixes (i.e. “(definite) accusative” versus “(indefinite) accusative”/nominative and “definite” versus “general” possession).
- T-V distinction is two-tiered.
- Bicentric: Northern Azeri used mainly in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia; Southern Azeri used mainly in Iran. The variants are distinct but of high mutual intelligibility at least in speech. The lack of a common written standard for the two variants makes them mutually unintelligible visually without training in use of the appropriate writing systems.
- Modified Latinic alphabet for North Azeri (but the previously official modified Cyrillic alphabet is still used), modified Perso-Arabic script for South Azeri.
- Substantial mutual intelligibility with Turkish, somewhat less with Gagauz and Turkmen, even less with the other Turkic languages.
- Both variants of Azeri have a large stock of loanwords from Farsi (especially noticeable in South Azeri) and Russian. When combined with Turkish’s purism (i.e. the replacement of many Arabic and Iranian loanwords with Öztürkçe or “pure Turkish”), these differences in the development of the lexicons reduce mutual intelligibility with Turkish.
- Moderately supported by learning materials published for speakers of English.

b) KAZAKH
- Main stress usually falls on last syllable
- Vowel harmony
- Vowels are short
- Heavily agglutinative typology
- Tendency toward SOV in declarative sentences.
- 4 moods: indicative, conditional, imperative, optative
- At least 3 tenses: present, past, future (the number of tenses can be expanded by accounting for the verb’s aspect or mood and an expanded accounting of the tenses could include 8 of them: present simple, present continuous, recent past, distant past/perfect, transitory/habitual past, future transitory, future intentional, future suppositional).
- 7 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative, instrumental
- Definiteness expressed by context, certain demonstrative pronouns, word order or certain suffixes (i.e. “(definite) accusative” versus “(indefinite) accusative”/nominative and “definite” versus “general” possession).
- T-V distinction is two-tiered.
- Not pluricentric
- Modified Cyrillic alphabet used in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, modified Arabic script used in China, modified Latinic alphabet used unofficially by Kazakh diaspora elsewhere.
- Substantial mutual intelligibility with Karakalpak and Kyrgyz, somewhat less with Nogay and Uzbek, even less with the other Turkic languages.
- Noticeable stocks of loanwords from Arabic, Iranic, Mongolic and Russian languages.
- Moderately supported by learning materials published for speakers of English.

c) TURKISH
- Main stress usually falls on last syllable
- Vowel harmony
- Vowels are often short but the presence of “yumuşak g” (ğ) lengthens the preceding vowel (if present).
- Heavily agglutinative typology
- Tendency toward SOV in declarative sentences but word order can diverge from SOV to reflect emphasis.
- 6 moods: indicative, conditional, imperative, inferential (renarrative), necessitative, optative
- At least 3 tenses: present, past, future. The number of tenses can be expanded when accounting for habituality (“aorist”) (e.g. present simple versus present continuous/habitual).
- 6 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative
- Definiteness expressed by context, certain demonstrative pronouns, word order or certain suffixes (i.e. “(definite) accusative” versus “(indefinite) accusative”/nominative and “definite” versus “general” possession).
- For practical purposes, T-V distinction is two-tiered but very formal forms exist thus allowing for postulation of a three-tiered distinction comprising informal, formal and very formal.
- Modified Latinic alphabet.
- Not pluricentric.
- Substantial mutual intelligibility with Azeri and Gagauz, somewhat less with Turkmen, even less with the other Turkic languages
- Per the Turkish Language Association, 86% of the nearly 105,000 entries in its Güncel Türkçe Sözlük (“Current Turkish Dictionary”) are of Turkish (or Turkic) origin. The remaining 14% are of non-Turkic origin coming from Arabic, English, Farsi, French, Greek and Italian among other languages.
- Well supported by learning materials published for speakers of English.

d) UYGHUR
- Main stress usually falls on last syllable
- Vowel harmony
- Orthography indicates that vowels are always short but distinction between long and short vowels can be heard in some speakers.
- Heavily agglutinative typology
- Tendency toward SOV in declarative sentences but word order can diverge from SOV to reflect emphasis.
- 8 moods: indicative, conditional, obligative, intentive, suppositional, imperative, optative, invocatory.
- At least 8 tenses: present-future definite, present-future indefinite, present progressive, past-present, past indirect/past subjective, past interlocking, past imperfect, past progressive imperfect (there is also an accounting for 9 tenses: present future, present progressive, past simple, past indefinite, pluperfect, past perfect, past indirect, past habitual, past progressive).
- At least 6 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative (there is also an accounting for 10 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, locative attributive, ablative, comparative, equitative, limitative).
- Definiteness expressed by context, certain demonstrative pronouns, word order or certain suffixes (e.g. “(definite) accusative” versus “(indefinite) accusative”/nominative).
- T-V distinction is two-tiered.
- Modified Arabic script used most frequently with modified Cyrillic, modified Latinic and Pinyin-influenced Latinic ones used less frequently.
- Fairly clearly bicentric with Chinese and Kazakh (formerly Soviet) variants. A somewhat distinct variant is used in Uzbekistan but is difficult to define. Differences between Chinese and Kazakh variants pertain primarily to orthography/writing system and lexicon. Noticeable dialectal distinctions not aligning neatly to national borders can be superimposed on Uyghur’s pluricentrism.
- Substantial mutual intelligibility with Uzbek, less with the other Turkic languages.
- Substantial stock of loanwords from Arabic either by Iranic or Uzbek intermediation or directly from Islamic texts.
- Moderately supported by learning materials published for speakers of English.

e) UZBEK
- Main stress usually falls on last syllable
- Limited vowel harmony
- Heavily agglutinative typology
- Tendency toward SOV in declarative sentences but word order can diverge from SOV to reflect emphasis.
- 9 moods: indicative, conditional, imperative-subjunctive, optative, obligative, possibilitative, intentive, narrative, potential.
- 10 tenses: present simple, present progressive I, present progressive II, present momentary, past simple (perfective), past post-terminal, pluperfect, past indirective, past imperfective, future (the number of tenses varies on source because of one’s determination of categories that overlap time, aspect and/or mood).
- 6 (7) cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, ablative, (equitative).
- Definiteness expressed by context, certain demonstrative pronouns, word order or certain suffixes (e.g. “(definite) accusative” versus “(indefinite) accusative”/nominative).
- T-V distinction is two-tiered.
- Modified Latinic alphabet used officially (but the previously official modified Cyrillic alphabet is still used).
- Not pluricentric but noticeable dialectal distinctions exist. Standard Uzbek is based mainly on the language used in central Uzbekistan (Samarkand Province).
- Substantial mutual intelligibility with Uyghur, somewhat less with Kazakh, even less with the other Turkic languages.
- Large stock of Iranic loanwords with influence extending to affixes in nominal morphology.
- Moderately supported by learning materials published for speakers of English.

BOOKS OF INTEREST ON TURKIC LANGUAGES IN GENERAL
- Grønbech, Kaare. The Structure of the Turkic Languages. London, New York, Routledge: 1997 (Somewhat technical and dated but focused on comparing the grammars of several Turkic languages)
- Johanson, Lars and Csátó, Éva Á. (eds.). The Turkic Languages. London, New York, Routledge: 1998 (Somewhat technical and not focused on comparison but it's the current standard descriptive manual of the Turkic languages)
- Johanson, Lars. Structural Factors in Turkic Language Contacts. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002. (not focused on comparison within Turkic but shows how grammatical characteristics in Turkic languages likely affected the grammar of non-Turkic languages)
- Menges, Karl H. The Turkic Languages and Peoples. An Introduction to Turkic Studies. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1968. (A dated overview on Turkic with some discussion on comparative Turkic linguistics)
- Öztopçu, Kurtuluş. Dictionary of the Turkic Languages: English, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Uighur, Uzbek. London: Routledge, 1996 (Somewhat like an oversized Swadesh list with 2000 words in English shown with their counterparts in 8 Turkic languages. Not as useful as the title suggests since the Turkic words are listed without any indications of usage or example sentences)
- Starostin, Sergei A., Dybo, Anna V. & Mudrak, Oleg A. Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages (3 vols.). (Large etymological dictionary of proposed Altaic family with plenty of data from Turkic languages thus showing comparison within the group regardless of the user’s sentiment or conclusion about the validity of the larger Altaic family as postulated using the comparison of data already extracted independently for Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean and Japanese. Very expensive and not essential unless the learner were an etymological fiend; much of the information is available online as part of the "The Tower of Babel" project by the authors and their linguist-colleagues)

LINKS
Altaic language bonus?
Azerbaijani material?
Etymological database of Turkic languages
Started learning Kazakh
Turkic Languages
Turkic languages – order of learning
Turkish Profile
Turkish family of languages
Useful Languages in Central Asia
Your thoughts on Turkish

Audio samples of Turkic languages at youtube.com.
Afshar
Azeri
Bashkir
Chulym
Chuvash
Crimean Tatar
Gagauz
Karachay-Balkar
Karaim
Karakalpak
Kazakh
Khakas (brief lesson in Khakas with Russian as the intermediary language)
Khorasani Turkic
Kumyk
Kyrgyz
Nogay
Qashqai
Sakha
Sarig Uyghur
Tatar
Tofa
Turkish
Turkmen
Tuvan
Uyghur
Uzbek

COMMENTS FROM THOSE WHO HAVE “BEEN THERE” WITH AT LEAST TWO TURKIC LANGUAGES

BartoG wrote:

If you're interested in the Turkic languages, Turkish is probably the place to start simply because there are so few resources for the other Turkic languages.

Turkish and Azeri are supposed to be pretty close together. And Uzbek and Uyghur are definitely close together. But there's a fair bit of distance between Uzbek and Turkish.

If you're curious about the mutual intelligibility, a good place to start is to get the Lonely Planet Central Asia Phrasebook and a Turkish phrasebook. This will introduce basic phrases from all the major Turkic languages except Azeri.

Here's one example for you:
English: Do you understand? No, I don't understand.
Uzbek: Tushunyapsizmi? Yoq, tushunmayapman.
Uyghur: Chüshendingizmi? Yaq, chüshemayman.
Kazakh: Tüshindingizbe? Joq, tüsinbeymin.
Kyrgyz: Tüshündüngüzbü? Joq, tüshünbödüm.
Turkmen: Düshünyasinizmi? Yok, düshünemok.
(from LP Central Asia)
Turkish: Anliyor musunuz? Hayir, anlamiyorum.

You'll note that for most of the languages, the root for "understand" is something like "tushun-". Turkish uses "-yor-" and Uzbek uses "-yap-" for present continuous (the examples here are literally "Are you understanding?" - "No, I'm not understanding." Uzbek, Uyghur, Turkmen and Turkish use "-mi" or a variation to mark questions, while Kazakh and Kyrgyz use "b" instead of "m". Note that Turkish puts the "sunuz" after the "mu" while most of the other languages put the "you" verb marker before. "M"+vowel is also used as a negative marker, but before the endings. Again, Kazakh and Kyrgyz have a "b". I already mentioned the present continuous. I'd also note that some of these - the one where the answer is like "man" are present. On the other hand, the Kyrgyz -düm ending is past (I didn't understand). You could also say, for example, "tushunmidim," (I didn't understand) in Uzbek.

This is hardly a treatise on Turkic grammar. If it were, it would be a very confusing one. Still, this should be enough to show that on the one hand, the Turkic languages are hardly mutually intelligible from Instanbul to Kashgar, but on the other hand, there are common elements among the languages if you know what to look for.

If your goal is to learn one language, then pick up another, Turkish then Azeri or Uzbek, then Uyghur, is the easiest way to go from what I know. But I'm a dabbler in the family; my specialization is French. Still, as I said before, if you just want to learn a Turkic language, Turkish is the place to start simply because so little material is available for the others. (Ed.: BartoG's comments are from his post in the thread "Turkic Languages")

daristani wrote:

Chung had asked me to comment on his above guide, particularly from the standpoint of someone who first learned Turkish and then expanded into other Turkic languages. I agree with the above comments that starting with Turkish probably makes a great deal of sense, given the much greater availability of resources and opportunities for use. If you have a particular affinity to or connection with one of the other Turkic languages, then by all means start with whichever language most attracts you, but be aware that the resources for the other Turkic languages are much more limited, and unless you live in the countries where those other languages are spoken, you're much less likely to have access to native speakers, books and newspapers, electronic books media, restaurants, tourism opportunities, etc., than with Turkish.

As for learning Turkish, here are a couple of paragraphs I wrote on the forum quite a while ago:
------------------------------------------
Turkish is my major foreign language, and I've been using it off and on for many years now, including a number of years living in Turkey. I think of it as "an easy language that's hard to learn", in other words, there are many things that make it MUCH easier than many other languages people study: no sounds that are difficult to pronounce, a simple and very phonetic Latin-based alphabet, no gender differences for nouns (except for a masculine/feminine distinction in a few words borrowed from languages like Arabic) or even pronouns, essentially no irregular verbs, etc. (This extreme regularity of Turkish, once you become accustomed to it, can even spoil you a bit in terms of other languages, which then seem very "quirky" with all their genders, irregular forms, declined adjectives, etc.)

On the other hand, very little of the vocabulary of Turkish is cognate with words from Western languages, and the morphology and syntax, especially as one gets into the longer sentences that mark most formal writing, are an entire other dimension. I think of Turkish sentence structure as a sort of mental gymnastics, which is fun to play with but takes most speakers of Indo-European languages quite a long time to become halfway familiar with, let alone to master. Even people who've studied the language for quite some time can get irretrievably lost in some long sentences. Simply put, "the way Turkish works", while quite regular and in fact logical, is totally alien to the way we think and speak in languages like English, and getting used to this difference is a big job that takes a lot of time and effort. As in so much in language-learning, strong and consistent motivation is essential, and you need to put in effort over time to achieve mastery.
---------------------------------------

Once you've mastered the morphological and syntactic structures of Turkish, moving on to the other Turkic languages is not too difficult, depending on which other language you pick: Azerbaijani is very close, while the differences become greater as you move farther into Central Asia.

Unfortunately, there are very few useful materials in Turkish for learning other Turkic languages. I've never seen a proper "textbook" in Turkish for learning another Turkic language, let alone instructional materials with accompanying audio or video; there are a few phrasebooks, and some dictionaries and reference grammars, but for the most part, you'll have to rely on materials written in languages other than Turkish. Traditionally, German and Russian have been the main languages used in Turkological studies, although in recent years more materials in English and also French have become available. Here are some of the major resources for learning some of the various Turkic languages, although since I don't know Russian, I haven't included any materials in Russian.

Azerbaijani: This forum entry lists a number of useful instructional materials. For people who are already familiar with Turkish and interested in making the transition to Azerbaijani, there's one very useful on-line resource: It's a colorful, 242-page PDF file with an explanation of the most salient phonological and grammatical differences between the two languages, followed by a collection of reading selections with vocabulary lists for each. It's entitled "Korpu - Kopru: Turkish Bridge to Azerbaijani" and is quite well done. The file is here.

Bashkir: Materials for this little-studied language are quite limited; the Uralic and Altaic series of books by Indiana University published a "Bashkir Manual" (explanatory grammar, reading selections, and glossary) by Nicholas Poppe in 1964, but if you know German, you can now find a new textbook with audio by Margarete Ersen-Rasch: "Baschkirisch: Lehrbuch fuer Anfaenger und Fortgeschrittene". A preview is here.

Karakalpak: Materials for this, essentially a dialect of Kazakh spoken in northwestern Uzbekistan, are almost totally lacking, but there is a small book in French, "Parlons Karakalpak" by Saodat Doniyorova, which provides a brief description of the language that should enable people to get a feel for it.

Kazakh: The place to look for instructional materials is Dunwoody Press. Some materials have been produced in Kazakhstan itself, both in Soviet times and more recently. One textbook in English is "Manual of the Kazakh Language", 381 pages, by A. Sh. Bekturova and Sh. K. Bekturov, published in Almaty in 1996, although digging up a copy these days might be difficult. (I've noticed one major error in it; it confuses the English present-perfect and past-perfect tenses when explaining the Kazakh past tense.) Another book published in Kazakhstan is in both English and Russian, with the English title being "Kazakh Language Made Easy", by Kubaeva Iraida, 455 pages, published in Almaty in 2003; this one had some audio to accompany it. (One might seek this one at a certain site in "Uzbekistan"...) There's a book in French that I haven't seen that may be useful: "Initiation au Kazak" by Sabire Koksal, available from Amazon France. The University of Arizona Critical Languages Series offers three levels of Kazakh in a multi-media format; I haven't seen these materials, but they may be of interest to potential learners. Also, Routledge is reportedly bringing out a "Colloquial Kazakh" book in 2012. (I haven't dealt much with Kazakh, and so am less familiar with Kazakh materials.)
ADDENDUM: I've just found a Peace Corps manual for Kazakh that may be of interest to learners; unfortunately, no audio, but the manual itself can be downloaded here.
UPDATE: Routledge's "Colloquial Kazakh" book, by Zaure Batayeva, has now been published, following some delays. You can look at the first couple pages of each chapter here. Additionally, a small grammatical sketch, entitled "Kasachisch: Kurzgrammatik", by Angelika Landmann, was published in German at the very end of 2012.

Kumuk: Materials for this language, spoken by a small population in the Caucasus, are almost totally lacking, but "Parlons Koumyk", by Saodat Doniyorova, provides a brief sketch of the language and the people who speak it.

Kyrgyz: Materials are limited and hard to come by. The Uralic and Altaic Series cited above included a thin "Kirghiz Manual" by Raymond Hebert that contains the basic grammar and some reading selections, but there are lots of misprints, and the translations of a lot of the example sentences were "off", having been done from a Turkish translation of a Kyrgyz-Russian dictionary that the compiler of the book didn't understand, and so this book would produce quite a bit of confusion for an independent learner. A textbook in English, "Learn the Kyrgyz Language", by Bakytbek Tobubek uulu, 333 pages, was published in Bishkek in 2009, and a German translation of this was also published. Obtaining either of these will not be easy, though, given the difficulties of getting the book out of Kyrgyzstan. Following an e-mail exchange with the author that went on for several months, I got a copy of the English version, and it's indeed very good. A description of the English version at the author's website is here. Another truly excellent source in German is the small reference grammar "Kirgisisch: Kurzgrammatik" by Angelika Landmann, published in Wiesbaden in 2011. There's a book "Parlons Kirghiz" by Remy Dor, 615 pages, published in Paris in 2004. I haven't seen this, but Dor is a real expert on Kirghiz, and so the book is likely quite good.

Tatar: Tatar is not studied all that much, probably since it's not the language of an independent country, but it has been an important language culturally and historically, particularly in the modern period. The Indiana Uralic and Altaic series included a "Tatar Manual" by Nicholas Poppe, published in 1963. More recently, an excellent textbook in German has become available, "Tatarisch" by Margarete Ersen-Rasch.

Turkish: This earlier thread contains some recommendations and comments by myself and others regarding materials for study.

Turkmen: Turkmen has been somewhat of a step-child (steppe-child?) within the family, with relatively few resources for foreign learners having been produced. Dunwoody Press, however, does have various materials available. A grammar book was published in French a few years ago entitled "Grammaire de turkmene à l'usage des francophones", by the late Philippe-Schmerka Blacher; published in Turkey, it may be difficult to obtain. The same author published a "Parlons Turkmene" in the "Parlons" series of books by L'Harmattan. More attractive but substantially less rigorous in terms of grammar, this can be found "in Uzbekistan"... A number of years ago, Indiana University got a grant from the US Government to create a comprehensive Turkmen course, and the eventual course was reputedly excellent, amounting to several thousand pages of written text, dozens of audio tapes, video tapes, etc., and almost certainly was the most extensive set of materials available for any Turkic language. But it was never made available beyond a small circle of people, and subsequent personal and institutional squabbles among those involved in the project had the result that, apparently, it's now not available to anyone. (I think that the instructional materials that Dunwoody sells may derive in part from this course. One result of the effort that IS available, although quite expensive, is the "Turkmen Reference Grammar" by Larry Clark, published by Harrassowitz in Germany. Google preview is here. The Peace Corps also has some material. See here

Uyghur: You can download a free textbook, with audio, from this page. Some other resources are cited in this earlier thread.
ADDENDUM: Dunwoody Press has recently published a large Uyghur-English Dictionary. They also publish a reader with audio.

Uzbek: See this earlier thread for various materials.

Reinhold (Ron) F. Hahn (May 30, 1995) wrote:

Regina Berry (May 29, 1995) wrote:

> I'm thinking about studying Uzbek or Kazakh this summer and am curious.
> Are Turkic languages difficult to learn compared to , say, Slavic languages?
> I read somewhere that the Turkic languages are almost mutually
> intelligible. Is this true? If I learn Uzbek, will I be able to
> understand Kazakh, Turkish, etc?
> Anyone out there familiar with these languages, I'd love to hear from you...
> Thanks!
> cic...@u.washington.edu

Yes, it is relatively easy to learn another Turkic language once you have learned one or two. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility, and the degree varies by geographic distance and by historical development. There is a marked division between the languages of Islamicized Turkic peoples and those that are Buddhist, Shamanist or Christian, since Arabic and Iranian lexical influences tend to be strong among the former. It is rather easy two switch for example between Turkish and Azeri, between Tatar and Bashkir, between Kazakh and Kyrghyz, and between Uzbek and Uyghur.

Learning both Uzbek and Kazakh is a wonderful start. With some practice and a dictionary or two and perhaps a grammar sketch you'll soon be able to read texts in other Turkic languages.

As for "how easy," that's relative, of course. I'd say you won't find that learning Turkic languages is harder than learning Slavic languages. There are far fewer grammatical forms to be learned. However, you'll have to acquaint yourself with a different type of morphological and syntactic structure. Like the structure of other Altaic languages, Turkic structure may be generally explained as agglutinative: suffixes and enclitics are attached to stems. A "word" thus derived tends to be the equivalent of a phrase or even of a sentence in Indo-European languages. The basic sentence structure is SOV, e.g., Uyghur ...

      Ata+m+ning kitab+I ana+ng+GA ba"r+d+m
      FATHER+1sg+gen BOOK+acc MOTHER+dat GIVE+past+1sg

      Atamning kitabi ananggha ba"rdim.
      I gave my father's book to your mother.

Good luck and lots of fun!

Ron Hahn (Ed.: Ron Hahn's response is quoted from a discussion on sci.lang about Turkic languages)

solka wrote:

As a native of Kazakhstan and a learner of Turkish, I think I can add something to this discussion.

I have heard/read Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tatar (a language of Tatarstan in Russia), Turkish and Azerbaijani. I guess Kazakh/Kyrgyz and Turkish are on the opposite sides of the Turkic languages range. As I started learning Turkish, I can understand about 50-70 % of Tatar on TV (if I listen very attentively), and it seams like a mix between Kazakh and Turkish. The grammar of all the languages are similar, but the vocabulary differs quite a lot. Also, I have noticed that many words that are the same in Kazakh and Turkish, are actually of Persian or Arabic origin.

As for false friends among the names of family members: in different parts of Kazakhstan, some family terms are different and even opposite ('tate' can mean an uncle or an aunt, apa can mean anything from grandmother to 'aunt' to even mom).

24karrot wrote:
I wouldn't have recognized any of those words as Turkish but that's very useful. Interesting the appearance of ط in otaq (اطاق) then, I thought it would be mostly reserved for Arabic. There's also a lot of qaf (ق)... is Turkish really so full of q/gh?

I have heard that Turkish had the sounds of q and gh quite recently, before the alphabet reform, but they disappeared after being replaced by the same letters as k and g. And still in the dialects of Eastern Turkey use them quite a lot. And they have never disappeared from Kazakh language.

By the way, !LH@N, Zhiguli was correct about the song of Ulytau. The song is called after the names of 2 friends, one - Jumyr or Zhumyr (the first sound is not like Turkish 'y') and Kylysh. we are still used to transliterate according to the rules of Russian-English transliteration, but there are talks about changing the script to Latin. (Ed.: solka's response is taken from this post in "Turkish family of languages")

ADDENDUM: LINKS TO LEARNING MATERIAL FOR SELECTED TURKIC LANGUAGES

GENERAL LINGUISTIC SURVEY
- The Turkic Languages (Ed. Lars Johanson and Éva Á. Csató) [English] COMMERCIAL

MULTILINUGAL
- Short cartoon of the prologue of Alexander Pushkin's “Ruslan and Ludmila” in Russian and translations to Bashkir, Chuvash, English, Khakas, Sakha (Yakut) and Tatar

OGHUR

Chuvash

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Lessons of Chuvash Language [Russian]
- Playlist of short video courses for Chuvash [Russian]

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Chuvash Manual (John Kruger) [English]
- Chuvash-English Glossary to “Chuvash Manual”
- Chuvash-Russian Electronic Dictionary
- Chuvash-Russian phrasebook
- Short descriptive sketch (Ekrem Čaušević) [German]
- Archive of blog posts about Chuvash by Christopher Culver [English]

Media / Culture
- Чăваш Ен (broadcasting company of Chuvashia) [Chuvash, Russian]
- Playlist on Youtube of movies in Chuvash
- List of newspapers and journals [Chuvash]
- Википеди (Chuvash Wikipedia)

SOUTHWESTERN (OGHUZ)

Azeri

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Brief Introduction to the Azerbaijani Language (with audio) (Peace Corps) [English]
- Essentials of Azerbaijani: An Introductory Course (Andrew H. Siegel) [English]
- Learn Azerbaijani, the easiest-to-learn Turkic dialect! (Neise.0rq.in) [English]
- Körpü - Köprü: Reading in Azerbaijani Using Turkish as a Bridge (Suzan Özel) [English]
- GLOSS Modules (80 lessons) (DLIFLC) [English}
- Language Survival Kit (DLIFLC) [English]
- Lessons of Azeri [Russian]
- 21 Online Lessons of Azeri [Russian]
- Playlist of 35 lessons of Azeri [Russian]
- DLIFLC - Legends and Folktales [English - scroll down to Azerbaijan to hear “The Dove and Peace” in either English or Azeri accompanied by subtitles]
- 22 Azerbaijani Tales for Children [Azeri, English]
- Scientific Tales for Children (Farid Alakbarov) [Azeri, English]
- Electronic Library of Azeri literature (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Azerbaijan) [Azeri]
- National Virtual Library (National Cultural Project) [Azeri]
- Speak Azerbaijani (blog about studying Azeri) (Colleen MacDonell) [English]
- Learn Azeri (blog about studying Azeri) (Azad Tərcümeçi) [English]
- Elementary Azerbaijani (Kurtuluş Öztopçu) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Teach Yourself Azeri (Telman Khudazarov) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Azerbaijani-English Dictionary (Patrick A. O'Sullivan, Mario Severino, Valeriy Volozov) COMMERCIAL
- Azerbaijani Texts with Parallel English Translations (Valeriy Volozov) COMMERCIAL
- Azerbaijani Newspaper Reader (John D. Murphy) COMMERCIAL
- Aserbaidschanisch Lehrbuch (Nemat Rahmati, Korkut Bugday) [German] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Azərbaycan Türkçəsinin Nəhvi (Grammar of (South) Azeri in modified Perso-Arabic script) (Mohammed-Taqi Zahtabi) [(South) Azeri]
- Azeri - English / English - Azeri Online Dictionary (azerdict)
- Azeri - Turkish / Turkish - Azeri Online Dictionary
- Azerbaijani - English / English - Azerbaijani Dictionary and Phrasebook (Nicholas Awde, Famil Ismailov) COMMERCIAL
- English - Azerbaijani / Azerbaijani - English Concise Dictionary (Seville Mamedov) COMMERCIAL
- Azerbaijani Vocabulary for English Speakers (Andrey Taranov) COMMERCIAL
- Aserbaidschanisch Kurzgrammatik (Angelika Landmann) [German] COMMERCIAL

Media / Culture
- Azerbaijan Television [Azeri, English, Russian]
- İdman Azerbaijan TV [Azeri]
- Public Television and Radio [Azeri]
- Azerbaijan News Service [Azeri]
- Space TV [Azeri]
- Lider TV [Azeri]
- ANS Radio [Azeri]
- TRT Azərbaycan (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation in Azeri) [Azeri]
- BBC Azərbaycanca (BBC in Azeri) [Azeri]
- Voice of America Azerbaijan (radio) [Azeri, English]
- Azadlıq Radiosu (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Azerbaijan) [Azeri, English, Russian]
- Tribute to composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov including some audio, and dual-language lyrics and libretti (Azerbaijan International) [Azeri, English]
- Danışan kitablar (BBC - Podcast Series) [Azeri]
- Azadlıq (newspaper) [Azeri]
- Azərbaycan (newspaper) [Azeri]
- Şərq Qapısı (newspaper [Azeri]
- LangMedia CultureTalk Azerbaijan (Five Colleges) [Azeri, English, Russian]
- Vikipediya (Azeri Wikipedia)

Turkish

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- FSI Turkish Basic Course (Lloyd B. Swift & Selman Ağralı) [English]
- FSI Turkish Basic Course - Graded Reader (Selman Ağralı et al.) [English]
- GLOSS Modules (13 lessons) (DLIFLC) [English]
- Language Survival Kit (DLIFLC) [English]
- Headstart2 Turkish (DLIFLC - free registration required) [English]
- DLIFLC - Legends and Folktales [English - scroll down to Turkey to hear “The Legend of Troy” in either English or Turkish accompanied by subtitles]
- I'm learning Turkish [English, Turkish]
- Nasrettin Hoca Stories (texts with audio) [English]
- Elementary Turkish (Kurtuluş Öztopçu) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Get Started in Turkish (formerly “Teach Yourself Beginner's Turkish”) (Asuman Çelen Pollard) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Complete Turkish (formerly “Teach Yourself Turkish”) (Asuman Çelen Pollard) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Beginning Turkish (Critical Language Series) (András J. E. Bodrogligeti) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Intermediate Turkish (Critical Language Series) (Jessica Tiregol) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Advanced Turkish (Critical Language Series) (Jessica Tiregol) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Assimil Le Turc (Dominique Halbout) [French] COMMERCIAL
- Türkisch: Lehrbuch für Anfänger und Fortgescrhittene (4. überarbeitete Auflage) (Margarete I. Ersen-Rasch) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Türkisch: Übungsgrammatik A1-C1 (2. überarbeitete Auflage) (Margarete I. Ersen-Rasch) [German] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Manisa Turkish (John Guise) [English]
- Sesli sözlük [English, Turkish]
- Milet Comprehensive Dictionary (Birsen Çankaya and Gordon Jones) [English] COMMERCIAL
- The Larger Redhouse Portable Dictionary (Serap Bezmez and Richard Blakney) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Langenscheidt Standard Dictionary Turkish (Resuhi Akdikmen) [English, Turkish] COMMERCIAL
- Turkısh: An Essential Grammar (Aslı Göksel and Celia Kerslake) [English] COMMERCIAL

Media / Culture
- TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation) [English, Turkish]
- Samanyolu TV [Turkish]
- TV2 [Turkish]
- TV8 [Turkish]
- Açık Radyo (radio) [Turkish]
- Metro FM (radio) [Turkish]
- Posta (newspaper) [Turkish]
- Güneş (newspaper) [Turkish]
- Hürriyet (newspaper) [Turkish]
- Radikal (newspaper) [Turkish]
- Sabah (newspaper) [Turkish]
- Zaman (newspaper) [Turkish]
- LangMedia Turkish in Turkey (Five Colleges) [English, Turkish">
- LangMedia CultureTalk Turkey (Five Colleges) [English, Turkish]
- Cultural Interviews with Turkish-Speaking Professionals (Orlando R. Kelm) [English, Turkish]
- Vikipedi (Turkish Wikipedia)

Turkmen

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Introduction to the Turkmen Language (Zöhre Öwezliýewa) [English]
- Playlist on Youtube of video lessons in basic vocabulary [English]
- Turkmen Language Manual (David Tyson, Larry Clark) [English]
- Turkmen Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Turkmenistan (David Tyson, Larry Clark) [English]
- Colloquial Turkmen (Peace Corps) [English]
- Headstart2 Turkmen (DLIFLC) [English]
- GLOSS Turkmen (31 lessons) (DLIFLC) [English]
- DLIFLC - Turkmen Language Survival Kit [English]
- DLIFLC - Legends and Folktales [English - scroll down to Turkmenistan to hear “Sultan Sanjar and the Fairy” in either English or Turkmen accompanied by subtitles]
- Online library of texts from enedilim.com [Turkmen]
- Basic Turkmen: Textbook and Transcripts, Structures, Glossary (Susan Oezel and Ejegyz Saparova) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Turkmen Reader (Allen Frank) [English, Turkmen] COMMERCIAL
- Turkmen Newspaper Reader (Allen J. Frank) [English] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Turkmen Language Grammar Guide (Peace Corps) [English]
- 501 Turkmen Verbs (Peace Corps) [English]
- Turkmen-English / English-Turkmen Dictionary (Peace Corps)
- Turkmen Dictionary with Grammar and Turkmen - English / English - Turkmen Glossary (Greg Lastowka)
- Turkmen - English / English - Turkmen Online Dictionary
- Turkmen - English / English - Turkmen Online Dictionary
- Turkmen - English Online Dictionary
- Online descriptive dictionary [Turkmen]
- Descriptive grammar [Turkmen]
- Turkmen Dictionary and Phrasebook (Nicholas Awde, William Dirks, Amandurdy Amandurdyev) COMMERCIAL
- Turkmen - English Dictionary (Allen J. Frank, Jeren Touch-Werner) COMMERCIAL
- Turkmenisch Kurzgrammatik (Angelika Landmann) [German] COMMERCIAL

Media / Culture
- Online televised news (Turkmen State News Agency) [English, Russian, Turkmen]
- Turkmen Owazy on YouTube (television - music channel) [Turkmen]
- TRT Türkmençe (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation in Turkmen) [English, Turkmen]
- Azatlyk Radiosy (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty) [English, Turkmen]
- Iran Turkmen Radio (radio) [Turkmen]
- Tmhits Hit Aýdymlar (radio - music station) [Turkmen]
- Altyn Asyr (newspaper) [English, Russian, Turkmen]
- LangMedia CultureTalk Turkmenistan (Five Colleges) [English, Russian, Turkmen]
- Wikipediýa (Turkmen Wikipedia)

NORTHWESTERN (KIPCHAK)

Bashkir

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Online course for beginners with audio (25 lessons) (F. G. Khisamitdinova) [Russian] (.pdf of text)
- Self-teaching guide of Bashkir (R. K. Vakhitova et al.) [Russian]
- Bashkir Manual (Nicholas Poppe) [English] COMMERICAL
- Baschkirisch: Lehrbuch für Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene [German] (Margarethe I. Ersen-Rasch) COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Short descriptive sketch (Ekrem Čaušević) [German]
- Short reference manual of grammar (M. G. Usmanova) [Russian]
- Alphabet with audio samples of characters not used in Russian Cyrillic [Russian]
- Practice sheets for handwriting of Bashkir Cyrillic
- Russian - Bashkir / Bashkir - Russian Online Dictionary

Media / Culture
- Bashkortostan (newspaper)
- Streamed programs and news broadcasts by Bashkir Satellite Television
- Википедия (Bashkir Wikipedia)

Crimean Tatar

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Guide to Learning Crimean Tatar in the Revised (i.e. Latinic) Alphabet) [Russian]
- Seyran ocanıñ dersleri [Russian]
- Lessons of Crimean Tatar - MILLET! VETAN! QIRIM! [Russian]
- Learn Crimean Tatar (V. A. Mireyev, V. Y. Sakhajiyev, and S. M. Useinov) [Russian] COMMERCIAL
- Crimean Tatar Riddles (Shevket Asanov and Ablaziz Veliev - edited further for «Qypchaq» site by Julia Kaidalova and Alexander Garkavets) [Crimean Tatar, Russian]

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Russian-Crimean Tatar Electronic Phrasebook (Ablyaziz Veliev)
- Crimean Tatar-Russian / Russian-Crimean Tatar Online Dictionary
- Crimean Tatar-Russian / Russian-Crimean Tatar Online Dictionary
- Short descriptive sketch (Wolfgang Schulze) [German]
- Grammatical sketch of Crimean Tatar in Russian and Ukrainian (.doc files and may require use of fonts) (A. N. Garkavets) [Russian, Ukrainian]
- Grammatical sketch (E. V. Sevortyan) [Turkish]
- Descriptive Grammar (Darya Kavitskaya) [English] COMMERCIAL

Media / Culture
- Assorted links (including to media outlets, folklore and diaspora groups)
- Radio Azaq
- Qırım.Aqiqat (radio)
- Avdet (newspaper) [Crimean Tatar, Russian]
- ATR Live (television)
- Vikipediya (Crimean Tatar Wikipedia)

Kazakh

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Kazakh Language Course for Peace Corps Volunteers in Kazakhstan [English]
- Video tutorials of Kazakh (Maksat Imangazi) [English]
- DLIFLC - Kazakh Language Survival Kit [English]
- DLIFLC - Legends and Folktales [English - scroll down to Kazakhstan to hear “Legend of the Dombra” in either English or Kazakh accompanied by subtitles]
- Online graded series of transcripts of short dialogues with audio (Indiana University) [Kazakh, Russian]
- Online course of Kazakh for beginners (A1 and A2) [Russian - free registration required]
- Online phrasebook of Kazakh for beginners [Russian with some English translations - audio works only for indivdual phrases or sentences instead of entire dialogues]
- Online course of Kazakh for beginning students [Russian with some English translations of dialogues]
- Online course of Kazakh for intermediate students [Russian]
- Online course of Kazakh for advanced students [Russian]
- Lessons of Kazakh [Russian]
- Lessons of Spoken Kazakh with Ease (Yelena Romanenko) [Russian - free registration required]
- Texts for supplementary reading (dual Kazakh-Russian) (Yelena Romanenko) [Russian - free registration required]
- Jokes in Kazakh with exercises (dual Kazakh-Russian) (Yelena Romanenko) [Russian - free registration required]
- Colloquial Kazakh - textbook and CDs (Zaure Batayeva) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Beginning Kazakh (Critical Language Series) (Ablahat Ibrahim) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Intermediate Kazakh (Critical Language Series) (Akmaral Mukanova) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Advanced Kazakh (Critical Language Series) (Akmaral Mukanova) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Kazakh Textbook: Beginning and Intermediate and audio (?) (T. T. K. Arapova) [English] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Audio phrasebook and Online dictionary (Lena Leneshmidt) [English, Kazakh, Russian]
- Large online dictionary [English, Kazakh, Russian]
- Kazakh Grammatical Sketch with Affix List (Karl Krippes) [English]
- Kazakh - Russian / Russian / Kazakh Dictionary (Kaldybay Bektayev)
- Online Russian - Kazakh / Kazakh - Russian Dictionary
- Online French - Kazakh / Kazakh - French Dictionary
- Online descriptive grammar with exercises and answers (Tat’yana Valyayeva) [Russian]
- Lessons in Kazakh Grammar (Yelena Romanenko) [Russian - free registration required]
- Kasachisch: Kurzgrammatik (Angelika Landmann) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Kasachisch Wort für Wort (Thomas Höhmann) [German] COMMERCIAL

Media / Culture
- Radio Azattyq
- Kazakh Radio and Television Corporation
- Kazakh TV
- Kazakh Radio
- Yegemen Kazakhstan (newspaper)
- Zhas Alash (newspaper)
- CultureTalk Kazakhstan
- Уикипедия (Kazakh Wikipedia)

Kyrgyz

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Basic Interactive Kyrgyz Language Lessons (Peace Corps) [English]
- DLIFLC - Legends and Folktales [English - select the tale under Kyrgyzstan to hear “The Seven Bulls” in either English or Kyrgyz accompanied by subtitles]
- Kyrgyz Language Manual (Peace Corps) (Mairam Abylkasymova, Gulaim Jumabaeva) [English]
- Kirghiz Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Kirghizstan (Ilsa D. Cirtautas) [English]
- Online course in Kyrgyz for beginners [Russian - free registration required]
- Course of Kyrgyz language with descriptive grammar (Aleksey Lugovskiy) [Russian]
- New Literature of Kyrgyzstan [Kyrgyz, Russian]
- National Epic “Manas” [Kyrgyz]
- Translation of “Manas” in English (partial) and Turkish (scroll down to “Manas Destanı”)
- Learn the Kyrgyz Language. Connecting with People and Culture (Bakytbek Tokubek uluu) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Kyrgyz Language Manual for English Speakers (Chynarkul Ryskulova) [English] COMMERCIAL
- A Kirghiz Reader (Chen-Hua Hu, Guy Imart, Zhen-Hua Hu) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Parlons Kirghiz (Remy Dor) [French] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Kyrgyz phrasebook with audio (Michael Denner, Mirajidin Arynov) [English]
- Online English - Kyrgyz - Russian Dictionary
- Online Kyrgyz - Russian / Russian - Kyrgyz Dictionary
- Online Russian - Kyrgyz Dictionary
- Online Kyrgyz - Russian Dictionary
- French-Kyrgyz Dictionary in .pdf (scroll to the bottom of the page) (Maria Akchekeeva, Nuraly Turganbaev)
- Kyrgyz-English/English-Kyrgyz Concise Dictionary (Karl Krippes) COMMERCIAL
- Kirgisisch. Kurzgrammatik (Angelika Landmann) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Descriptive Grammar of Kyrgyz (Wikipedia) [Kyrgyz]

Media / Culture
- Public Broadcasting Company of Kyrgyzstan (radio and TV) [Kyrgyz, Russian]
- Radio Free Europe - Kyrgyzstan (radio) [English, Kyrgyz, Russian]
- Kyrgyz Tuusu (newspaper) [Kyrgyz]
- Уикипедия (Kyrgyz Wikipedia)

Tatar

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Tutorial and description of Tatar phonology (R.A. Sabirov (?)) [Russian]
- Playlist of 200 short lessons - Set 1 (TNV-Planeta) [Russian with English translations of Tatar words/phrases]
- Playlist of 131 short lessons (and counting) - Set 2 (TNV Planeta) [Russian with English translations of Tatar words/phrases]
- Online self-instructional course for beginners with audio and short descriptive grammar (R. A. Sabirov) [Russian]
- Online textbook of Tatar (R. A. Sabirov) [Russian]
- Electronic library of Tatar literature [Russian, Tatar]
- Parallel text of Ğabdulla Tuqay’s narrative poem “Shurale” with translations to English and German [Russian, Tatar]
- Tatar folk tales [Tatar]
- Tatar poetry [Tatar]
- Tatar jokes [Tatar]
- Tatar Manual (Nicholas Poppe) COMMERCIAL
- Tatar - English / English - Tatar Dictionary (Sergey Shakhmayev) COMMERCIAL
- Tatarisch: Lehrbuch für Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene mit einer CD im MP3-format (Margarethe I. Ersen-Rasch) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Tatarisch - Wort für Wort (M. Korotkow) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Tatarische Kurzgrammatik (Angelika Landmann) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Tatar - German Dictionary (Tamurbek Dawletschin, Irma Dawletschin, Semih Tezcan) COMMERCIAL
- Tatar Language - Intensive Course (F. S. Safiullina, K.S. Fatkhullova) [Russian] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Russian-Tatar Online Phrasebook (R. A. Sabirov)
- Learner’s Russian-Tatar Online Dictionary (R. A. Sabirov)
- Learner’s Tatar-Russian Online Dictionary (R. A. Sabirov)
- Russian-Tatar Online Dictionary
- Tatar-Russian Online Dictionary
- Polish-Tatar Online Dictionary
- Short descriptive sketch (Ekrem Čaušević) [German]

Media / Culture
- Radio Free Europe Tatar-Bashkir [English, Russian, Tatar]
- Bolgar Radiosy (radio) [Russian, Tatar]
- Tatar Music TV (TV) [Russian, Tatar]
- Tatar Radiosy (radio) [Russian, Tatar]
- “Новый Век” broadcasting company (radio, TV) [Russian, Tatar]
- Kyzyl Tang (newspaper) [English, Russian, Tatar]
- Vatanym Tatarstan (newspaper) [Russian, Tatar]
- Cartoons in Tatar (Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan)
- Interactive multimedia library [Russian, Tatar]
- Википедия (Tatar Wikipedia)

SOUTHEASTERN (KARLUK)

Uzbek

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Special Forces’ 200-Hour Uzbek Familiarization Course (DLI) [English]
- Uzbek: Language Competencies for Peace Corps Volunteers in Uzbekistan (Larry Clark, Khayrulla Ismatulla) [English]
- Uzbek Conversational Dialogues (Indiana University) [English]
- Uzbek Reading and Listening Modules (Indiana University) [English - Free registration required]
- Uzbek Video and Audio Modules (Indiana University) [English - Free registration required]
- O‘zbek Sadosi (stories with transcripts, listening activities and translations) (University of Washington) [English, Uzbek]
- GLOSS Modules for Uzbek (132 lessons) (DLI) [English]
- DLIFLC - Legends and Folktales [English - select the tale under Uzbekistan to hear “How Samarkand Got its Name” in either English or Uzbek accompanied by subtitles]
- Tutorial for Uzbek sounds unfamiliar to English speakers (DLIFLC) [English]
- Uzbek Headstart2 (DLIFLC) [English]
- Uzbek Audio Lessons (Mylanguages.org) [English]
- Online audio course - Uzbek for Beginners (Ayfer Durdu et al.) [German]
- Uzbek Crash Course (Ingeborg Baldauf) [German]
- We are learning Uzbek (16 lessons) [Russian]
- Uzbek: An Elementary Textbook (Nigora Azimova) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Colloquial Uzbek (Kurtuluş Öztopçu) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Modern Literary Uzbek I (a.k.a. Uzbek Textbook Vol. 1) with audio and book of answer keys (Khayrulla Ismatulla) [English] COMMERCIAL (books only)
- Uzbek Textbook Vol. 2 (Khayrulla Ismatulla) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Modern Literary Uzbek, Vol. I. (András Bodrogligeti) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Modern Literary Uzbek, Vol. II. (András Bodrogligeti) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Marhamat - Uzbek Coursebook for Beginners (Hanneke Ykema, Nigora Sharipova) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Self-instructional textbook of Uzbek (Aleksei A. Arzamazov) [Russian] COMMEMRCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Uzbek Brian (blog about studying Uzbek) (Brian Greco) [English]
- Uzbek - Language Survival Kit (DLI) [English]
- Uzbek - English / English - Uzbek Online Dictionary (William Dirks, Jonathan Washington)
- Uzbek - English / English - Uzbek Online Dictionary (Ismanov)
- Uzbek - English Online Dictionary (Indiana University)
- Uzbek thematic vocabulary lists (Hervé Guérin) [English]
- Russian - Uzbek / Uzbek - Russian Online Dictionary and Phrasebook
- Uzbek Vocabulary for English Speakers - 9000 words (Andrey Taranov) COMMERCIAL
- Uzbek-English / English-Uzbek Dictionary and Phrasebook (Nicholas Awde) COMMERCIAL
- Uzbek-English Dictionary (Natalie Waterson) COMMERCIAL
- Comprehensive Uzbek-English Dictionary (Jahangir Mamutov et al.) COMMERCIAL
- Uzbek-English Dictionary (Karl Krippes) COMEMRCIAL
- An Academic Reference Grammar of Modern Literary Uzbek Vol. I. (András Bodrogligeti) [English] COMMERCIAL
- An Academic Reference Grammar of Modern Literary Uzbek Vol. II. (András Bodrogligeti) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Usbekisch: Kurzgrammatik (Angelika Landmann) [German] COMMERCIAL
- Usbekisch Wort für Wort (M. Korotkow) [German] COMEMRCIAL

Media / Culture
- National Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan (radio and TV) [English, Russian, Uzbek]
- O‘zbegim Taronasi (radio) [Russian, Uzbek]
- BBC O‘zbek (radio) [Uzbek]
- Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Uzbekistan (radio) [English, Russian, Uzbek]
- Uznews.net (newspaper) [English, Russian, Uzbek]
- Xalq sozi (newspaper) [Uzbek]
- LangMedia CultureTalk Uzbekistan (short video interviews about Uzbek culture) (Five Colleges) [English, Russian, Uzbek]
- Electronic library of educational textbooks for schoolchildren in .djvu format (Ministry of Public Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan) [Russian, Uzbek]
- Vikipediya (Uzbek Wikipedia)

NORTHEASTERN (SIBERIAN)

Tuvan

Courses / Supplementary learning material (including literature)
- Let's Learn the Tuvan Language (K. A. Bicheldey) [Russian]
- Tyva Wiki (includes a small set of lessons and texts) [English]
- 129 video lessons of Tuvan on Vkontakte [Russian]
- Let's Learn Tuvan! (K. A. Bicheldey) [English] COMMERCIAL

Dictionaries / Reference Material / Phrasebooks / Word-lists
- Tuvan - English / English - Tuvan Talking Dictionary (Gregory Anderson, K. David Harrison)
- Tuvan Manual (John Krueger) [English] COMMERCIAL
- Tyvan (Gregory D. S. Anderson, K. David Harrison) [English] COMMERCIAL
- A Grammar of Tuvan (Gregory D. S. Anderson, K. David Harrison) [English] COMMERCIAL

Media / Culture
- Shyn (newspaper) [Tuvan]
- The First Tuvan Online Radio [Russian, Tuvan]
- Википедия (Tuvan Wikipedia)

Edited by Chung on 12 December 2014 at 6:42pm
9 persons have voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7157 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 2 of 14

05 December 2011 at 6:49am | IP Logged

This type of profile is designed for people who are interested in learning their first Turkic language but are unsure of which one to pick. I hope that this brief profile will help potential learners focus their choice. In addition I encourage others who have studied at least two Turkic languages as foreign languages to post comments and will incorporate their comments into the main profile as time allows. I admit that my only exposure of note to Turkic languages (apart from reading books and doing some research for the preceding post) consists of hearing snippets of Turkish from a couple of former co-workers and running into some Karaim while visiting Lithuania (watching the brief clip of Karaim from Youtube that I've listed above makes me smile with recognition at the shots of Trakai, Lithuania and those meat pastries (kybynlar) that I enjoyed for lunch during my visit).

Turkic languages in general treat verbs quite differently from most European languages and viewing Turkic conjugation using the latter languages as points of reference may not be very helpful. This partially explains why I was less than decisive in listing the number of tenses in each language because Turkic languages have tended to mark distinctions of aspect, duration, point of temporal reference and mood (including intention, participation and/or veracity) with suffixes whereas many European languages often do so rather with adverbs, prefixes, "modal verbs" or adpositions.

Comments and/or suggestions are always welcome. I would be happy to expand the list to other languages (Bashkir, Chuvash, Kyrgyz and Tatar in particular) but so far have restricted the coverage to 5 languages which have at least a useful base of learning material published in languages which enjoy greater "reach". Many prospective learners would find it prohibitively costly or impractical to get at least a useable grounding in the other Turkic languages in question as much of what is available (if at all) seems to have been published in Farsi, Russian or Turkish.
3 persons have voted this message useful

daristani
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7145 days ago
752 posts - 1661 votes

Studies: Uzbek

Message 3 of 14

30 December 2011 at 6:00pm | IP Logged

Chung had asked me to comment on his above guide, particularly from the standpoint of someone who first learned Turkish and then expanded into other Turkic languages. I agree with the above comments that starting with Turkish probably makes a great deal of sense, given the much greater availability of resources and opportunities for use. If you have a particular affinity to or connection with one of the other Turkic languages, then by all means start with whichever language most attracts you, but be aware that the resources for the other Turkic languages are much more limited, and unless you live in the countries where those other languages are spoken, you're much less likely to have access to native speakers, books and newspapers, electronic books media, restaurants, tourism opportunities, etc., than with Turkish.

As for learning Turkish, here are a couple of paragraphs I wrote on the forum quite a while ago:
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Turkish is my major foreign language, and I've been using it off and on for many years now, including a number of years living in Turkey. I think of it as "an easy language that's hard to learn", in other words, there are many things that make it MUCH easier than many other languages people study: no sounds that are difficult to pronounce, a simple and very phonetic Latin-based alphabet, no gender differences for nouns (except for a masculine/feminine distinction in a few words borrowed from languages like Arabic) or even pronouns, essentially no irregular verbs, etc. (This extreme regularity of Turkish, once you become accustomed to it, can even spoil you a bit in terms of other languages, which then seem very "quirky" with all their genders, irregular forms, declined adjectives, etc.)

On the other hand, very little of the vocabulary of Turkish is cognate with words from Western languages, and the morphology and syntax, especially as one gets into the longer sentences that mark most formal writing, are an entire other dimension. I think of Turkish sentence structure as a sort of mental gymnastics, which is fun to play with but takes most speakers of Indo-European languages quite a long time to become halfway familiar with, let alone to master. Even people who've studied the language for quite some time can get irretrievably lost in some long sentences. Simply put, "the way Turkish works", while quite regular and in fact logical, is totally alien to the way we think and speak in languages like English, and getting used to this difference is a big job that takes a lot of time and effort. As in so much in language-learning, strong and consistent motivation is essential, and you need to put in effort over time to achieve mastery.
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Once you've mastered the morphological and syntactic structures of Turkish, moving on to the other Turkic languages is not too difficult, depending on which other language you pick: Azerbaijani is very close, while the differences become greater as you move farther into Central Asia.

Unfortunately, there are very few useful materials in Turkish for learning other Turkic languages. I've never seen a proper "textbook" in Turkish for learning another Turkic language, let alone instructional materials with accompanying audio or video; there are a few phrasebooks, and some dictionaries and reference grammars, but for the most part, you'll have to rely on materials written in languages other than Turkish. Traditionally, German and Russian have been the main languages used in Turkological studies, although in recent years more materials in English and also French have become available.   Here are some of the major resources for learning some of the various Turkic languages, although since I don't know Russian, I haven't included any materials in Russian.

Azerbaijani: This forum entry lists a number of useful instructional materials:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=12327&PN=54 For people who are already familiar with Turkish and interested in making the transition to Azerbaijani, there's one very useful on-line resource: It's a colorful, 242-page PDF file with an explanation of the most salient phonological and grammatical differences between the two languages, followed by a collection of reading selections with vocabulary lists for each. It's entitled "Korpu - Kopru: Turkish Bridge to Azerbaijani" and is quite well done. You can download it here: http://www.indiana.edu/~iaunrc/sites/default/files/bridge/br idge.pdf

Bashkir: Materials for this little-studied language are quite limited; the Uralic and Altaic series of books by Indiana University published a "Bashkir Manual" (explanatory grammar, reading selections, and glossary) by Nicholas Poppe in 1964, but if you know German, you can now find a new textbook with audio by Margarete Ersen-Rasch: "Baschkirisch: Lehrbuch fuer Anfaenger und Fortgeschrittene". A preview is here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=wdS5vx0lNoIC&printsec=front cover&dq=baschkirisch&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YuT9Tuu4F4zrgQfQnbiLAg&v ed=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Karakalpak: Materials for this, essentially a dialect of Kazakh spoken in northwestern Uzbekistan, are almost totally lacking, but there is a small book in French, "Parlons Karakalpak" by Saodat Doniyorova, which provides a brief description of the language that should enable people to get a feel for it.

Kazakh: The place to look for instructional materials is Dunwoody Press:    http://www.dunwoodypress.com/search.php?tpl=17&catid=7&searc hname=kazakh&submit.x=13&submit.y=6 Some materials have been produced in Kazakhstan itself, both in Soviet times and more recently. One textbook in English is "Manual of the Kazakh Language", 381 pages, by A. Sh. Bekturova and Sh. K. Bekturov, published in Almaty in 1996, although digging up a copy these days might be difficult. (I've noticed one major error in it; it confuses the English present-perfect and past-perfect tenses when explaining the Kazakh past tense.) Another book published in Kazakhstan is in both English and Russian, with the English title being "Kazakh Language Made Easy", by Kubaeva Iraida, 455 pages, published in Almaty in 2003; this one had some audio to accompany it. (One might seek this one at a certain site in "Uzbekistan"...) There's a book in French that I haven't seen that may be useful: "Initiation au Kazak" by Sabire Koksal, available from Amazon.fr: http://www.amazon.fr/Initiation-au-Kazak-Koksal/dp/235815014 2/ref=sr_1_1?%3Cbr%20target=   The University of Arizona Critical Languages Series offers three levels of Kazakh in a multi-media format; I haven't seen these materials, but they may be of interest to potential learners: http://cls.arizona.edu/kaz.htm Also, Routledge is reportedly bringing out a "Colloquial Kazakh" book in 2012. (I haven't dealt much with Kazakh, and so am less familiar with Kazakh materials.) ADDENDUM: I've just found a Peace Corps manual for Kazakh that may be of interest to learners; unfortunately, no audio, but the manual itself can be downloaded here: http://mypage.iu.edu/~miflhanc/writing/kazakhmanual.pdf UPDATE: Routledge's "Colloquial Kazakh" book, by Zaure Batayeva, has now been published, following some delays. You can look at the first couple pages of each chapter here:    http://site.ebrary.com/lib/alltitles/docDetail.action?docID= 10641708 Additionally, a small grammatical sketch, entitled "Kasachisch: Kurzgrammatik", by Angelika Landmann, was published in German at the very end of 2012. Georgetown University Press has recently published a book of Kazakh idioms that looks to be very useful; you can find some sample pages on the Georgetown page for the book: http://press.georgetown.edu/book/languages/learners-dictiona ry-kazakh-idioms#body

Kumuk: Materials for this language, spoken by a small population in the Caucasus, are almost totally lacking, but "Parlons Koumyk", by Saodat Doniyorova, provides a brief sketch of the language and the people who speak it.

Kyrgyz: Materials are limited and hard to come by. The Uralic and Altaic Series cited above included a thin "Kirghiz Manual" by Raymond Hebert that contains the basic grammar and some reading selections, but there are lots of misprints, and the translations of a lot of the example sentences were "off", having been done from a Turkish translation of a Kyrgyz-Russian dictionary that the compiler of the book didn't understand, and so this book would produce quite a bit of confusion for an independent learner. A textbook in English, "Learn the Kyrgyz Language", by Bakytbek Tobubek uulu, 333 pages, was published in Bishkek in 2009, and a German translation of this was also published. Obtaining either of these will not be easy, though, given the difficulties of getting the book out of Kyrgyzstan. Following an e-mail exchange with the author that went on for several months, I got a copy of the English version, and it's indeed very good. A description of the English version at the author's website is here: http://tokubekuulu.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/kyrgyz-language- for-learners/ Another truly excellent source in German is the small reference grammar "Kirgisisch: Kurzgrammatik" by Angelika Landmann, published in Wiesbaden in 2011. There's a book "Parlons Kirghiz" by Remy Dor, 615 pages, published in Paris in 2004. I haven't seen this, but Dor is a real expert on Kirghiz, and so the book is likely quite good.

Tatar: Tatar is not studied all that much, probably since it's not the language of an independent country, but it has been an important language culturally and historically, particularly in the modern period. The Indiana Uralic and Altaic series included a "Tatar Manual" by Nicholas Poppe, published in 1963. More recently, an excellent textbook in German has become available, "Tatarisch", by Margarete Ersen-Rasch: http://books.google.com/books?id=n57awi5QrfMC&printsec=front cover&dq=tatarisch&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Cwv-ToW-F8jVgQf9r5ifAg&ved= 0CEgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=tatarisch&f=false

Turkish: This earlier thread contains some recommendations and comments by myself and others regarding materials for study: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=3169&PN=10&TPN=1

Turkmen: Turkmen has been somewhat of a step-child (steppe-child?) within the family, with relatively few resources for foreign learners having been produced. Dunwoody Press, however, does have various materials available: http://www.dunwoodypress.com/search.php?tpl=17&catid=7&searc hname=turkmen&submit.x=6&submit.y=17 [/URL] A grammar book was published in French a few years ago entitled "Grammaire de turkmene à l'usage des francophones", by the late Philippe-Schmerka Blacher; published in Turkey, it may be difficult to obtain. The same author published a "Parlons Turkmene" in the "Parlons" series of books by L'Harmattan. More attractive but substantially less rigorous in terms of grammar, this can be found "in Uzbekistan"... A number of years ago, Indiana University got a grant from the US Government to create a comprehensive Turkmen course, and the eventual course was reputedly excellent, amounting to several thousand pages of written text, dozens of audio tapes, video tapes, etc., and almost certainly was the most extensive set of materials available for any Turkic language. But it was never made available beyond a small circle of people, and subsequent personal and institutional squabbles among those involved in the project had the result that, apparently, it's now not available to anyone. (I think that the instructional materials that Dunwoody sells may derive in part from this course. One result of the effort that IS available, although quite expensive, is the "Turkmen Reference Grammar" by Larry Clark, published by Harrassowitz in Germany. Google preview is here: http://books.google.com/books?id=RMe7KpwS3KsC&pg=PR20&lpg=PR 20&dq=clark+manual+of+turkmen&source=bl&ots=nflrKaCU3X&sig=X NDK0-oxeRjINKEvIIwL31Mo7VE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DYkAT9DzGpTnggfO6e2 nAg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=clark%20manual%20of%20turkme n&f=false The Peace Corps has also produced some Turkmen materials; check this thread:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=36782&PN=1&TPN=1

Uyghur: You can download a free textbook, with audio, from this page: http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/5624 Some other resources are cited in this earlier thread: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=4939&PN=6&TPN=1 ADDENDUM: Dunwoody Press has recently published a large Uyghur-English Dictionary. They also publish a reader with audio.

Uzbek: See this earlier thread for various materials: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=21012&PN=1

TO BE CONTINUED: I'll add more languages and try to supplement the above with some additional suggested resources in the next few days.

Edited by daristani on 02 September 2013 at 3:27pm
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Fasulye
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Message 4 of 14

31 December 2011 at 8:16pm | IP Logged

This is very valuable work here, Chung and daristani, on the Turkic (EDIT) language group. Kudos to both of you!!!

Fasulye

Edited by Fasulye on 01 January 2012 at 2:03am
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Chung
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Message 5 of 14

01 January 2012 at 1:47am | IP Logged

Fasulye wrote:

This is very valuable work here, Chung and daristani, on the Altaic language group. Kudos to both of you!!!

Fasulye

Teşekkürler. Although to be picky, we're talking only about Turkic. I know next to nothing about Mongolic languages let alone Tungusic (e.g. Manchu).
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Fasulye
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Message 6 of 14

01 January 2012 at 2:05am | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

Although to be picky, we're talking only about Turkic.

Yes, the Altaic language group is a bit larger, so I edited my post into "Turkic".

Fasulye
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Chung
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Message 7 of 14

01 January 2012 at 4:08pm | IP Logged

Daristani, çok teşekkür ederim! / çox təşəkkür edirəm! / katta rahmat! Feel free to add any more information or impressions as they come along.

daristani wrote:

A number of years ago, Indiana University got a grant from the US Government to create a comprehensive Turkmen course, and the eventual course was reputedly excellent, amounting to several thousand pages of written text, dozens of audio tapes, video tapes, etc., and almost certainly was the most extensive set of materials available for any Turkic language. But it was never made available beyond a small circle of people, and subsequent personal and institutional squabbles among those involved in the project had the result that, apparently, it's now not available to anyone. (I think that the instructional materials that Dunwoody sells may derive in part from this course.)

Man, that sucks, not to mention the waste of taxpayers' money because some academics and specialists lost sight of the big picture and let their grudges take precedence. :-(
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Henkkles
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Message 8 of 14

15 July 2014 at 11:34am | IP Logged

I would love to learn both Turkish and Chuvash, but I haven't thus far found much at all for learning Chuvash. Are there materials for Turkish speakers for learning other Turkic languages, or are Russian and German my best bets for base languages with Chuvash?

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