Türkiye

Kurmanji

The most widely spoken Kurdish variety, used across southeast Turkey, northern Syria, and parts of Iraq and Iran.

Bahdini

also: Behdini, Badini, Behdînî, Bahdînî

A southern Kurmanji subdialect spoken in Duhok province of Iraqi Kurdistan and adjacent areas of southeastern Turkey. Mutually intelligible with northern Kurmanji but with distinct phonology and vocabulary, and traditionally written in Arabic script alongside Sorani rather than the Latin script used for Kurmanji further north.

Zaza

Spoken in eastern Turkey. Closely related to Kurdish varieties, with its own grammar and vocabulary.

Ladino

also: Judeo-Spanish, Judezmo, Djudeo-Espanyol

The Sephardic Jewish Romance language descended from the Spanish varieties carried out of Iberia after the expulsions of the late fifteenth century. Historically spoken across the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, today it survives mainly as an endangered heritage language in Turkey, Israel, the Balkans, and diaspora communities.

Istanbul Turkish

also: Standard Turkish, İstanbul Türkçesi

The Istanbul-area standard of Turkish. The basis of the modern written language and of broadcast Turkish.

Anatolian Turkish

A broad cluster of regional dialects across central and eastern Anatolia. Internally varied; many features sit at the boundary with Azerbaijani and other Oghuz Turkic varieties.

Pontic Greek

also: Romeyka, Pontiaka

The Greek variety historically spoken along the Pontic coast of the Black Sea, brought to mainland Greece by refugees of the 1923 population exchange. Its Anatolian-resident form (Romeyka) survives among Muslim communities near Trabzon.

Ubykh

also: Pekhi

A Northwest Caucasian language of the Black Sea coast around present-day Sochi, carried to Anatolia in the 1864 deportation. Famous for one of the largest consonant inventories ever recorded — around eighty consonants against two phonemic vowels. Died with its last speaker, Tevfik Esenç, in 1992; extensively documented by Georges Dumézil.

Turkish Domari

also: Abdal

Dom communities in Türkiye (also known locally as Dom or Abdal), concentrated in southeastern Anatolia, with significant contact influence from Turkish and Kurdish.