Turkish belongs to the Altay branch of the Ural-Altay linguistic family. The Altaic languages are named after the region in which they are thought to have originated, the highlands around the Altay Mountains of Central Asia. More than 90 % of all contemporary speakers of Altaic languages speak Turkish. Within the Altaic family is a group of closely related languages, called the Turkic languages. Turkish is the westernmost of the Turkic languages spoken across Central Asia. Throughout history, Turkish speakers have lived in a wide area spanning from Mongolia to the Black Sea, and in parts of the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Anatolia, and northern Africa. As a result of these large distances, various Turkish dialects and accents have developed.

The Turkish language currently spoken in Turkey today is accepted as the standard, and is the first language of the majority of the Turkish population (90% of 76 million). It is thought to have originated from Ottoman and Old Anatolian Turkish (the later of which was introduced into Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks in the late 11th century AD). The basic distinction between Turkish and other Turkic languages has to do with differences in dialect and accent. Turkish has several dialects that can be divided into two major groups based on geographic distribution, western and eastern. Modern Turkish is based on the Istanbul dialect of Anatolian. In the period of the Ottomans, Turkish adopted many loanwords, especially from Arabic and Persian. In 1928, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President), started a movement to “clean” the language of foreign words, and adopted a Latin-based alphabet in place of the previously used Arabic script.

In the past, many speakers of Turkish led a nomadic life, thereby spreading their language wherever they went. Today Turkish is spoken in many places, from Mongolia and China to present day Turkey. The largest number of native speakers can be found in Turkey, Northern Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Ozbekistan, Turkistan, Kazakistan, Kirgizistan, and Tajikistan. Turkish is also the language of people who live in areas once under Ottoman rule. About 50,000 Turkish speakers live in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan. Over 1.5 million speakers are found in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Greece. In addition, due to immigration, over 2.5 million Turkish speakers live in Germany (and other northern European countries), and approximately 40,000 live in the United States.