Turkish in Different Languages: 93 names for the Turkish language
Turkish is Türkçe to its speakers, Türkisch in German, турецкий (tureckij) in Russian, التركية (at-turkīyâ) in Arabic and トルコ語 (torukogo) in Japanese. The tables cover 93 languages.
Türkçe and its relatives
Turkish has been written in a Latin alphabet of 29 letters since the reform of 1928; seven of them, such as ç, ğ, ı and ş, were adapted to its sounds.1 The ISO 639 codes are tr and tur.2 The name Türkçe ends in the suffix -çe, and the closest relatives in the tables build their names the same way: Azerbaijani türkcə, Turkmen türkçe, Uzbek turkcha, Kyrgyz türkçö, Tatar törekçä.
Elsewhere the name usually comes from the country. Persian, Dari, Urdu and Tajik all say torki or turkī, Hebrew טורקית (ṭūrqīt), Greek τουρκικά. Chinese adds 語 (yǔ), language, to 土耳其, and Vietnamese writes tiếng Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ. Hungarian török stands apart from all of them.
Several Turkic languages appear in three scripts at once. Kazakh writes түрікше, تۇرىكشە and türikşe; Kyrgyz түркчө, تۉركچۅ and türkçö; Tatar төрекчә, törekçä and تۆرېكچە; Uyghur تۈركچە, türkche and түркчә. The Bantu languages mark the word with a class prefix instead: Swahili kituruki, Xhosa isi-Turkish, Zulu isiThekishi.
Turkish in different languages written in the Latin alphabet
59 rows. Five Romance languages share the spelling turco in one row.
| Language · ISO 639 code | Name of Turkish | Romanisation |
|---|---|---|
| English · eng | Turkish | |
| Galician, Interlingua, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish · glg, ina, ita, por, spa | turco | |
| Afrikaans, Dutch · afr, nld | Turks | |
| Catalan, French · cat, fra | turc | |
| Danish, Norwegian · dan, nor | tyrkisk | |
| Azerbaijani (Latin) · aze | türkcə | |
| Bosnian (Latin) · bos | turski | |
| Breton · bre | turkeg | |
| Czech · ces | turečtina | |
| Welsh · cym | Twrceg | |
| German · deu | Türkisch / Türkiſch | |
| Esperanto · epo | turka | |
| Estonian · est | türgi | |
| Basque · eus | turkiera | |
| Faroese · fao | turkiskt | |
| Finnish · fin | turkki | |
| West Frisian · fry | Turksk | |
| Scottish Gaelic · gla | Turcais | |
| Irish · gle | Tuircis | |
| Guarani · grn | tuykiañe’ẽ | |
| Croatian · hrv | turski | |
| Hungarian · hun | török | |
| Indonesian · ind | bahasa Turki | |
| Icelandic · isl | tyrkneska | |
| Latin · lat | turcice | |
| Latvian · lav | turku | |
| Lithuanian · lit | turkų | |
| Malagasy · mlg | tiorka | |
| Maltese · mlt | Tork | |
| Moldovan (Latin) · mol | turcă | |
| Malay (Latin) · msa | bahasa Turki | |
| Polish · pol | turecki | |
| Romanian · ron | turcă | |
| Slovak · slk | turečtina | |
| Slovio (Latin), constructed · no ISO code | Turcio | |
| Slovene · slv | turščina | |
| Somali · som | turkish | |
| Albanian · sqi | turqishte | |
| Swahili · swa | kituruki | |
| Swedish · swe | turkiska | |
| Tagalog · tgl | Turko | |
| Turkmen (Latin) · tuk | türkçe | |
| Turkish · tur | Türkçe | |
| Uzbek (Latin) · uzb | turkcha | |
| Vietnamese · vie | tiếng Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ | |
| Volapük · vol | Türkänapük | |
| Walloon · wln | trouk | |
| Xhosa · xho | isi-Turkish | |
| Zulu · zul | isiThekishi | |
| Belarusian (Latin) · bel | tureckaja | |
| Kazakh (Latin) · kaz | türikşe | |
| Kyrgyz (Latin) · kir | türkçö | |
| Serbian (Latin) · srp | turski | |
| Tatar (Latin) · tat | törekçä | |
| Tajik (Latin) · tgk | turkī | |
| South Azerbaijani (Latin) · azb | türkcə | |
| Sorani Kurdish (Latin) · ckb | turkî | |
| Persian (Latin) · fas | torki | |
| Uyghur (Latin) · uig | türkche |
Turkish in Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopic and Asian scripts
48 rows with romanisations. Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tatar and Uyghur appear in several scripts.
| Language · ISO 639 code | Name of Turkish | Romanisation |
|---|---|---|
| Azerbaijani (Cyrillic) · aze | түркҹә | |
| Bosnian (Cyrillic) · bos | турски | |
| Moldovan (Cyrillic) · mol | туркэ | |
| Malay (Arabic script) · msa | بهاس توركي | |
| Slovio (Cyrillic), constructed · no ISO code | Турцио | |
| Turkmen (Cyrillic) · tuk | түркче | |
| Uzbek (Cyrillic) · uzb | туркча | |
| Uzbek (Arabic script) · uzb | تۇركچە | |
| Bulgarian, Macedonian · bul, mkd | турски | turski |
| Belarusian (Cyrillic) · bel | турэцкая | |
| Kazakh (Cyrillic) · kaz | түрікше | |
| Kazakh (Arabic script) · kaz | تۇرىكشە | |
| Kyrgyz (Cyrillic) · kir | түркчө | |
| Kyrgyz (Arabic script) · kir | تۉركچۅ | |
| Mongolian · mon | турк | turk |
| Ossetian · oss | туркаг | turkag |
| Russian · rus | турецкий | tureckij |
| Serbian (Cyrillic) · srp | турски | |
| Tatar (Cyrillic) · tat | төрекчә | |
| Tatar (Arabic script) · tat | تۆرېكچە | |
| Tajik (Cyrillic) · tgk | туркӣ | |
| Tajik (Arabic script) · tgk | ترکی | |
| Ukrainian · ukr | турецька | turec'ka |
| Arabic · ara | التركية | at-turkīyâ |
| South Azerbaijani (Arabic script) · azb | تورکجه | |
| Sorani Kurdish (Arabic script) · ckb | تورکی | |
| Persian (Arabic script) · fas | ترکی | |
| Dari · prs | ترکی | torkī |
| Pashto · pus | ترکي | turkī |
| Sindhi · snd | ترڪ | turk |
| Uyghur (Arabic script) · uig | تۈركچە | |
| Uyghur (Cyrillic) · uig | түркчә | |
| Urdu · urd | ترکی | turkī |
| Hebrew · heb | טורקית | ṭūrqīt |
| Yiddish · yid | טערקיש | terkiš |
| Amharic · amh | ቱርክኛ | turkəñña |
| Tigrinya · tir | ቱርከኛ | turkäñña |
| Greek · ell | τουρκικά | toyrkiká |
| Armenian · hye | թուրքերեն | ṭourḳeren |
| Georgian · kat | თურქული | ṭurḳuli |
| Hindi, Nepali · hin, nep | तुर्की | turkī |
| Malayalam · mal | ടര്ക്കിഷ് | ṭarkkiṣ |
| Tamil · tam | துருக்கிய | turukkiya |
| Chinese · zho | 土耳其語/土耳其语, 土耳其文 | tǔ'ěrqíyǔ, tǔ'ěrqíwén |
| Japanese · jpn | トルコ語 | torukogo |
| Korean · kor | 터키어 | teokieo |
| Thai · tha | ภาษาเติร์ก | pʰāsā tə̄[r]k |
| Lao · lao | ພາສາຕວກກີ | pʰāsā tvakkī |
Questions about the name of Turkish
What does Türkçe mean?
The Turkish language. Turkmen türkçe and Azerbaijani türkcə are built with the same suffix.
When did Turkish switch to the Latin alphabet?
In 1928, as part of Atatürk’s reforms. The alphabet has 29 letters.
What is Turkish in Chinese and Japanese?
Chinese 土耳其語/土耳其语 (tǔ’ěrqíyǔ), Japanese トルコ語 (torukogo), Korean 터키어 (teokieo).