Turkmenistan, a Turkic language spoken primarily in Turkmenistan, shares linguistic roots and similarities with several other languages within the Turkic family. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Turkmen are Turkish, Tatar, Uyghur, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz.
- Turkish (94.0)
Turkish and its dialects including Azeri are very similar to Turkmen. It is another language from the Oghuz branch, so it shares a high degree of lexical and grammatical similarity with Turkmen. Turkish has been influenced by Western languages and modernizations, but it remains very close to Turkmen in structure and core vocabulary. - Tatar (90.0)
Spoken by the Tatar people in Russia, this language belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic language family. It has many elements that overlap with Turkmen vocabulary and structure. Tatar’s grammar and phonetics, shaped by historical Turkic influences and shared regional expressions, make it partially understandable for Turkmen speakers. - Uyghur (89.8)
In the Xinjiang region of China, the Uyghur people speak a language that is a relative of Turkmen. Although Uyghur belongs to the Karluk branch rather than the Oghuz branch. However, in recent years, Uyghur has also adopted Chinese terms, while Turkmen has some Russian and English borrowings. - Uzbek (88.3)
Uzbekistan borders Turkmenistan. Its language Uzbek is also quite similar to Turkmen. While there are notable differences in phonology and vocabulary due to various historical influences, Turkmen shares a considerable amount of linguistic features with Kazakh. Both Turkic languages have also absorbed words from Persian and Arabic. - Kyrgyz (85.6)
Kyrgyz is spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz and Turkmen have shared roots and linguistic features, they are less mutually intelligible than Turkmen and other Oghuz languages like Turkish. Still they share some vocabulary due to their common Turkic origins and shared Persian, Arabic, and Russian loanwords.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)