ABSTRACT
A strict terminological distinction should be drawn between Turkic, the name of a language family, and Turkish, the name of a language. Although Turkish is by far the largest language (in terms of number of speakers) in the Turkic family, it accounts for only some 30 per cent of the total number of speakers of Turkic languages. The main geographic locations of Turkic languages are: (1) Turkey (Turkish), (2) the former USSR and Iran: the Caucasus and northwestern Iran (e.g. Azerbaijani), formerly Soviet Central Asia, Kazakhstan and southern Siberia (e.g. Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmenian, Kirghiz) and on the Volga (e.g. Tatar). One Turkic language (Yakut, or Sakha, as it is called by its native speakers) is spoken in northern Siberia. (More than one inhabitant in ten of the formerly Soviet areas is a native speaker of a Turkic language.) In addition, there are substantial Turkic-speaking communities in northwestern China (especially Uyghur, and also Kazakh).
