Which Languages are Spoken in Turkey?

Turkey is a linguistically rich country. While Turkish is the official and dominant language, the country is home to dozens of other languages — including Kurdish, Arabic, Zazaki, Armenian, Greek, and more. Understanding Turkey’s language landscape means looking at its long history, its constitutional framework, and the communities that have shaped it over centuries.

This guide covers everything you need to know about the languages spoken in Turkey — from the official language to minority tongues, regional distributions, and key statistics.

History

Turkey’s land — known historically as Anatolia — has been a crossroads of civilisations for thousands of years. This has left behind a rich, and often complex, linguistic history.

Some of the earliest languages ever recorded were spoken here. Hittite, one of the oldest known Indo-European languages, was spoken in Anatolia from around 1600 BCE to 1100 BCE. Other ancient Anatolian languages — including Luwian, Lycian, Lydian, and Milyan — were also spoken across the region. Most of these languages are believed to have died out by around the 1st century BCE, when Greek spread widely across the region during the process of Hellenisation.

The language of ancient Urartu also existed in eastern Anatolia around Lake Van from roughly the 9th to the 6th century BCE. Meanwhile, Hattian — a language unrelated to any other known tongue — appears in Hittite ritual texts from the 2nd millennium BCE, making it one of the oldest languages in the world with written records.

During the later Ottoman period, French gained significant prestige among educated elites. It functioned almost as a semi-official language of the empire, used widely in diplomacy, literature, and non-Muslim communities. However, after the Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923, French-language publications gradually declined, and Turkish was firmly established as the language of the new state.

The shift toward Turkish as a national language also affected smaller communities. Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), for example, was still the native tongue of approximately 85% of Turkish Jews in 1927. Over the following decades, however, Ladino declined sharply — and by 2017, it was described by some observers as a dying language in Turkey.

Constitutional Rights

Turkey’s approach to language is shaped significantly by its constitution and international treaties. These legal frameworks define which languages are officially protected and how minority languages may be used and taught.

Official Language of Turkey

Article 3 of the Constitution of Turkey officially defines Turkish as the country’s sole official language. This gives Turkish a dominant role in all areas of public life — government, education, the media, and the legal system.

Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. It is spoken as a mother tongue by around 85–90% of Turkey’s population, and is used by approximately 200 million people worldwide when including speakers in diaspora communities. If you are curious about how Turkish compares globally, our guide to the most spoken languages in the world provides a broader picture.

Major Minority Languages

Despite Turkish being the only official language, Turkey is home to a number of significant minority languages, particularly in the east and south-east of the country.

• Kurdish (Kurmanji) is by far the most widely spoken minority language in Turkey. It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and is spoken primarily in the south-eastern and eastern regions. Ethnologue estimates approximately 9 million speakers in Turkey, with around 3 million being monolingual. Kurmanji has five major dialects: north-western Anatolian, southern, Serhed, and south-western Kurmanji.
• Arabic is the second-largest minority language by number of speakers. It is spoken mainly in the border regions near Syria and Iraq, particularly in Hatay, Mardin, Şanlıurfa, and Siirt provinces. The North Levantine Arabic variety has grown considerably in recent years due to the presence of Syrian refugees. According to Ethnologue, North Levantine Arabic has approximately 4.25 million speakers in Turkey as of recent data.
• Zazaki is spoken by the Zaza ethnic community, primarily in central and eastern Anatolia. It is an Iranian language that is closely related to Kurdish, though it is considered a distinct language. Together, its two major varieties — Northern Zazaki and Southern Zazaki — account for over 1.4 million speakers.

Understanding the difference between a language and a dialect is particularly relevant here, as the status of Zazaki and Kurdish dialects has long been debated by linguists and policymakers alike.

Other Minority Languages

Beyond the major minority languages, Turkey is home to a wide range of smaller linguistic communities. Many of these languages are now threatened or shifting, with fewer young speakers learning them at home.

Some of the notable other minority languages in Turkey include:

• Armenian (Western Armenian): Spoken primarily in Istanbul, with approximately 67,300 speakers according to Ethnologue. It is one of four minority languages officially recognised under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
• Greek (Pontic Greek): Also protected under the Treaty of Lausanne. Once spoken widely, the Greek-speaking population has declined significantly following the population exchanges of the early 20th century.
• Hebrew: Recognised under the Treaty of Lausanne as a protected language for the Jewish community in Turkey.
• Bulgarian: Protected under the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty of 1925.
• Georgian and Laz: Kartvelian languages spoken along the Black Sea coast, particularly in Rize and Artvin provinces. Georgian has around 167,000 speakers; Laz has approximately 20,000.
• Circassian languages (Kabardian and Adyghe): Spoken by descendants of Circassian immigrants who settled in Anatolia in the 19th century. Kabardian has approximately 1.17 million speakers.
• Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish): A historical language of the Sephardic Jewish community, now listed as “shifting” by Ethnologue, with only around 8,000 speakers remaining.
• Romani and Domari: Spoken by Roma and Dom communities across Turkey.
• Syriac (Turoyo and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic): Spoken by small Assyrian communities mainly in south-eastern Turkey and Istanbul.

Turkey’s linguistic diversity is as complex as its culture. To explore how language and identity intersect across the world, see our article on the 50 most unique and beautiful cultures around the world.

Languages by Region

Turkey’s linguistic geography broadly follows ethnic and historical settlement patterns. Turkish is the dominant language throughout the country, but certain regions have notable concentrations of minority language speakers.

• South-east and East Anatolia: This is the heartland of Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Zazaki speakers. Provinces such as Diyarbakır, Mardin, Van, Hakkari, Şanlıurfa, Ağrı, and Bingöl have large Kurdish-speaking populations.
• Hatay and the Syrian border region: Arabic is widely spoken here, particularly the Levantine and North Mesopotamian Arabic varieties.
• Black Sea coast (Rize, Artvin, Trabzon): Home to Georgian and Laz speakers.
• Istanbul: The most linguistically diverse city in Turkey, with speakers of Armenian, Greek, Ladino, and various immigrant languages.
• Western and north-western Turkey: Circassian, Albanian, Bosnian, and Pomak Bulgarian communities are found here, largely descendants of 19th-century migrants from the Balkans and Caucasus.

This regional pattern is similar to the kind of linguistic diversity found in other large, historically complex nations. Our guides on languages spoken in China and languages spoken in Brazil explore similar multilingual dynamics in very different parts of the world.

Supplementary Language Education

For many years, Article 42 of the Turkish Constitution prohibited the teaching of any language other than Turkish as a mother tongue in educational institutions. This clause had significant effects on minority communities, particularly Kurdish speakers, and drew criticism from international human rights bodies.

In 2012, the Ministry of Education introduced Kurdish — based on both Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects — as an optional subject in state schools from the fifth year onwards. This was a landmark change in policy.

The following languages were later added to the curriculum as optional courses:

• Abkhaz, Adyghe, Standard Georgian, and Laz — added in 2013
• Albanian and Bosnian — added in February 2017
• Arabic — introduced as an elective second language in 2015, available from second grade onwards

These changes reflect a gradual, if still limited, recognition of Turkey’s linguistic diversity at the policy level. It is also worth noting that Turkey has not signed the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Statistics

Language statistics in Turkey are a sensitive and complex subject. The last national census to include language data was published in 1965. More recent figures come from independent research organisations and academic sources.

1927 Census

The 1927 census was one of the first carried out in the Republic of Turkey. At that time, Turkish was recorded as the mother tongue of 86.42% of the population (approximately 11.78 million speakers). Kurdish was recorded at 8.69% (approximately 1.18 million), followed by Arabic at 0.98% (134,273 speakers), Greek at 0.88% (119,822 speakers), Circassian at 0.70% (95,901 speakers), and Armenian at 0.48% (64,745 speakers).

1935 Census

The 1935 census showed a similar pattern, with Turkish remaining dominant at 86.02% of the population (approximately 13.9 million speakers). Kurdish speakers numbered around 1.48 million (9.16%), while Arabic speakers stood at 153,687 (0.95%). Georgian, Laz, and Greek were also recorded, all showing a slight decline from the 1927 figures.

1965 Census

The 1965 census remains the most detailed publicly available language data for Turkey. Turkish was recorded as the mother tongue of 28.17 million people — approximately 89.76% of the population. Kurdish (Kurmanji) was spoken by 2.21 million people (7.07%), Arabic by 365,340 (1.16%), Zazaki by 150,644 (0.48%), and Circassian by 58,339 (0.19%).

The census also recorded a second-language column. Of note: approximately 1.38 million people spoke Turkish as a second language, indicating that for a significant portion of the population, a minority language was their primary tongue.

KONDA, 2006

The KONDA Research and Consultancy survey of 2006 provided more recent estimates of mother tongue distribution in Turkey. The key findings were:

This survey confirmed that Kurdish remains the most widely spoken minority language by a considerable margin, at nearly 12% of the population.

Ethnologue

Ethnologue’s data on Turkey identifies 19 living indigenous languages and 25 established non-indigenous languages. The major language groups represented are Turkic, Indo-European (including Iranian, Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, and Greek), Afro-Asiatic (Arabic and Semitic languages), Northwest Caucasian (Circassian), Kartvelian (Georgian, Laz), and Sign Languages.

Key figures from Ethnologue’s main dataset include:

• Turkish: 83.44 million total speakers (national language, EGIDS 1)
• Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji): ~9 million speakers (EGIDS 6b — Threatened)
• Kabardian: ~1.17 million speakers (EGIDS 6b — Threatened)
• North Levantine Arabic: ~4.25 million speakers (largely Syrian refugees and migrants)
• South Azerbaijani: ~596,000 speakers (EGIDS 5 — Developing)
• Georgian: ~167,000 speakers (EGIDS 6b — Threatened)
• Turkish Sign Language: ~250,000 speakers (EGIDS 6a — Vigorous)

The EGIDS scale used by Ethnologue rates language vitality from 0 (International) to 10 (Extinct). Many of Turkey’s minority languages fall into the “Threatened” category (6b), meaning they are still spoken by all generations but are losing active users over time.

Ethnologue, 2022

The 25th edition of Ethnologue (2022) listed the following languages with 50,000 or more total speakers in Turkey:

Turkey’s linguistic landscape has parallels with other multilingual nations. For comparison, our guide on French-speaking countries and languages spoken in Pakistan show how other states manage linguistic diversity at both national and regional levels.

Why This Matters for Translation and Business

Turkey’s diverse language environment has real practical implications — whether you are doing business in the country, creating content for Turkish audiences, or communicating with Turkish-speaking communities abroad.

Turkish is the language you need for reaching the broadest national audience. However, if you are targeting specific communities — particularly in the south-east — Kurdish or Arabic may be equally important. This is where professional translation and localisation services become essential.

Understanding the 55 types of translation available can help you choose the right approach for your audience, while our guide on translation vs. localisation explains why adapting content culturally goes far beyond word-for-word translation.

If you need to communicate in Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, or any other language spoken across Asia, Europe, or the Middle East, Elite Asia translates over 30 languages — including those commonly spoken in Turkey.

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