Turkmen (Türkmençe, türkmen dili; تۆرکمن دﻴﻠی, تۆرکمنچه [tʏɾkmɛntʃɛ, tʏɾkmɛn dɪlɪ]) is the official language of Turkmenistan and the Turkmen peoples of Central Asia. It is a 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 "Turkmen" 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. Its 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, an exclusively Turkmen literary language began to appear. New round of developmentbegan 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 changes. In the Soviet Union, the Latin alphabet was replaced by Cyrillic in 1940. It was adopted as the official language of Turkmenistan in 1991 with a new constitution at the time of independence. Today it is mandatory in public institutions and schools. Most official documents are published in Turkmen.
Language Features
Like all Turkic languages, Turkmen is agglutinative, that is, grammatical relationships are indicated by adding suffixes to stems. There are no prefixes, so the suffixes follow each other, sometimes resulting in long words. There are different rules for their order. Turkmens use postpositions rather than prepositions to denote certain grammatical relationships. In the modern version of the language, the stress often falls on the last syllable.
Turkmen nouns have the following features:
- No grammatical gender.
- There are two numbers: singular and plural.
- 6 cases. They are marked with inflectional suffixes and regulated by verbs and postpositions.
- No articles.
Second most spoken language
Russian is the second most popular language in Turkmenistan, especially in cities and towns. ATThe country is home to more than 250,000 ethnic Russians, most of whom are concentrated in the northern part. Russian is spoken by about 12% of the population. Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, has the largest number of Russian speakers. The popularity of the second most widely spoken language has been declining over the years. The decline is explained by 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, Russian remains an alternative or second language for most Turkmens.
Other languages in Turkmenistan make up about 7% of the total population and include Kazakh, Tatar, Ukrainian and Azeri. They are used by minorities, mainly as a second language, while the natives try to learn Turkmen. Most speakers of these minority languages are immigrants from neighboring countries.
Turkmen language in literature
It is extremely difficult to reconstruct the literary history of the Turkmens. They did not have their own educational institutions. At various times they lived under the rule of the Khivans, Bukharans and Persians, none of which made significant efforts to preserve the works of Turkmen writers. Biographical information about the early Turkmen authors is mostly of a legendary nature and is 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 the bakhshi (bards).
Later, after the resettlement of the Turkmens in Khorezm (in modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), classical Turkmen literature arose. The Uzbek Khan Shir Gazi 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 Berdi Kerbabaev. He became famous for the novel Aigitli Adim (The Decisive Step).
