Turkmen language
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Turkmen (Latin script: Türkmen, Cyrillic: Түркмен, ISO 639-1: tk, ISO 639-2: tuk) is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,430,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by an additional approximately 3,000,000 people in other countries, including Iran (2,000,000), Afghanistan (500,000), and Turkey (1,000). Up to 50% of speakers in Turkmenistan also claim a good knowledge of Russian.
Classification and related languages
Turkmen is in the Turkic family; sometimes grouped in the larger, but disputed Altaic language family. It is a southern Turkic language, in the Turkmenian group, closely related to Crimean Tatar and Salar, and less closely related to Turkish and Azerbaijani.Alphabet
Officially, Turkmen currently is rendered in the Latin alphabet, but the old "Soviet" Cyrillic alphabet is still in wide use. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets for Turkmen that is as follows:
| Latin letter | Cyrillic equivalent | Phonetic value |
|---|---|---|
| A a | А а | [a] |
| B b | Б б | [b] |
| Ç ç | Ч ч | [ʧ] |
| D d | Д д | [d] |
| E e | Е е | [je], [e] |
| Ä ä | Ә ә | [æ] |
| F f | Ф ф | [ɸ] |
| G g | Г г | [g~ʁ] |
| H h | Х х | [h~x] |
| I i | И и | [i] |
| J j | Ж ж | [ʒ] |
| Ž ž | Җ җ | [ʤ] |
| K k | К к | [k~q] |
| L l | Л л | [l] |
| M m | М м | [m] |
| N n | Н н | [n] |
| Ň ň | Ң ң | [ŋ] |
| O o | О о | [o] |
| Ö ö | Ө ө | [ø] |
| P p | П п | [p] |
| R r | Р р | [r] |
| S s | С с | [θ] |
| Ş ş | Ш ш | [ʃ] |
| T t | Т т | [t] |
| U u | У у | [u] |
| Ü ü | Ү ү | [y] |
| W w | В в | [β] |
| Y y | Ы ы | [ɯ] |
| Ý ý | Й й | [j] |
| Z z | З з | [ð] |
Before 1929, Turkmen was written in a modified Arabic alphabet. In 1929–1938 a Latin alphabet replaced it and then the Cyrillic alphabet was used from 1938 to 1991. In 1991, the current Latin alphabet was re-introduced, although the transition to it has been rather slow. When it was first reintroduced it was supposed to contain some rather unusual letters, such as the pound, dollar, yen, and cent signs, but these were later replaced by more orthodox letter symbols. In 2002, the days of the week and the months were also renamed, according to the ideology of Ruhnama.
External links
- [Turkmen - English Dictionary]
- [Ruhnama Turkmen Dictionary]
- [Turkmen - English Dictionary]
- [Turkmen] entry in the Ethnologue
- [Learn turkmen language on Tmchat Forums]
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