Turkish is a language that is part of the Turkic family. Its origins trace back to the origins of the Turkic peoples in Central Asia, where nomadic tribes roamed the steppes and interacted with neighboring civilizations. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Turkish are Turkmen, Uyghur, Uzbek, Kazakh, and Tatar. In addition, Azeri is sometimes considered to be its own language, but is close enough to Turkish to be considered to be just a dialect of Turkish, since they are mutually intelligible.
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- Turkmen (94.0)
Spoken primarily in Turkmenistan, Turkmen is one of the closest linguistic relatives of Turkish. Both languages belong to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. Despite its own unique dialects and regional variations, Turkmen retains a strong bond with Turkish through shared vocabulary and grammatical features. - Uyghur (84.6)
Hailing from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, Uyghur is another sibling in the Turkic language family. Uyghur’s script, based on Arabic, distinguishes it visually from Turkish, which uses the Latin alphabet. Nevertheless, both languages exhibit parallelisms in grammar and phonology. - Uzbek (83.4)
At the heart of Central Asia, Uzbekistan’s national language stands as a testament to the intricate linguistic mosaic of the region. Throughout history, interactions between Turkic-speaking peoples have fostered linguistic exchanges, resulting in shared vocabulary and grammatical structures. - Kazakh (83.1)
As one of the largest Turkic languages by the number of speakers, Kazakh is the primary language in Kazakhstan. Positioned within the Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, Kazakh exhibits similarities with Turkish that stem from their shared heritage. However, Kazakh’s phonology and morphology may differ slightly. - Tatar (81.7)
Situated in the Volga-Ural region of Russia, Tatar occupies a unique position as a Turkic language influenced by both European and Central Asian linguistic traditions. Tatar’s use of the Cyrillic script distinguishes it visually from Turkish, but the linguistic kinship between the two languages transcends script differences.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)
