Turkmen

Turkmen belongs to the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family. It is included in the southern group of the Turkic branch along with Turkish and Azerbaijani.

According to Ethnologue, there are 3.4 million speakers of Turkmen in Turkmenistan, a former constituent republic of the USSR. In addition, there are 0.5 million speakers of Turkmen in Afghanistan and 2 million speakers in Iran. There are also small communities of Turkmen speakers in Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.

Groups of Turkic-speaking people migrated to southwestern areas of Central Asia during the 5th-6th centuries AD. The largest migration occurred in the 10th century when Oghuz tribes migrated from Mongolia to the area between the Ural mountains and the Aral sea. It was then that the term Turkmen was first mentioned. Despite some strong regional divisions, these tribes eventually came to regard themselves as a single people. The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1924. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, it became the newly independent Republic of Turkmenistan in 1990.

Turkmen, along with Russian, became the national language of the newly independent Republic of Turkmenistan in 1990. Over 90% of the population of Turkmenistan claim Turkmen as their mother tongue, while 50% report being bilingual in Turkmen and Russian. Along with Russian and mostly recently with English, it is used today in government administration and in all official situations. It is the medium of instruction in most elementary and secondary schools. There have been attempts to use Turkmen as a medium of instruction in institutions of higher learning as well. Turkmen is also used in radio and television broadcasts, and there are a number of newspapers, magazines, and books in the language. Recently, English has been added to the curriculum, and is now listed as the third state language of Turkmenistan.

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