ABSTRACT
Turkey is sometimes referred to as the bridge between Europe and Asia, since a small part of it is located in Europe (west of the Bosporus, called Trakya ‘Thrace’) and the larger part in Asia (Anadolu ‘Anatolia’). Turkish is the official language of the Republic of Turkey, and the native language of around 55 million people (90% of the population of 64 million). Worldwide, the number of speakers is 60 million. Outside Turkey, you’ll find speakers of Turkish in, for instance, Germany (1.8 million), Bulgaria (800,000), Cyprus (177,000), The Netherlands (200,000) and the UK (40,000).
