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Languages in Turkey

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The official language of Turkey is Turkish, which is a Turkic language and a member of the proposed Altaic language family. Predominantly spoken in Turkey, there are pockets of Turkish-speaking people in Cyprus, Greece and Eastern Europe. Turkey also has a significant Diaspora community in Western Europe.

The roots of the language can be traced to Central Asia, with the first written records dating back nearly 1,200 years. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination.