Influence of Turkish language in Central Asia and other Turkic-speaking areas to increase with TRT's launch of new channel

Friday, March 20, 2009


Source: dunyabulteni.net (Turkish)

Another new channel is about to begin broadcasting in Turkic language-speaking regions throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus, which shows the overwhelming cultural influence Turkish has compared to the languages in other Turkic-speaking countries, considering that:

- a lot of them have switched to the Latin alphabet fairly recently (Azeri, Turkmen), want to and can't (Tatar), or are considering it (Kazakh and Kyrgyz)
- a lot of them are still much less influential than Russian even in their own countries (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, etc.)
- a lot of them don't even have their own countries (Tatar, Gagauz, Uyghur, etc.)

Azeri/Azerbaijani would be the one exception to this, except for the fact that it is so similar to standard Turkish that many just consider them to be two standards of the same language anyway.

Now to the article:

TRT, Nevruz Günü olan 21 Mart'ta, Türk dünyası'na hitap edecek yeni çok dilli TV kanalını yayına alacak.
On the 21st of March (Nevruz or Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Persian being an Indo-European language the word now (نو ) is cognate with the English new), TRT will begin broadcasting of a new multilingual tv channel to address the Turkish world.

TRT, yeni kanalında Azerbaycan Türkçesi, Kazakça, Kırgızca, Özbekçe ve Türkmence programları ile 27 ülkede ve 13 özerk bölgede 250 milyon kişiye ulaşmayı planlıyor.
TRT plans to reach 250 million people in 27 countries and 13 autonomous regions with programs in Azerbaijan Turkish (Azeri), Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Turkmen.
Yeni kanal şu ülkelerde izlenebilecek:
Azerbaycan, Kazakistan, Türkmenistan, Özbekistan, Kırgızistan, Afganistan, Rusya Federasyonu, Ukrayna, Moldova, Gürcistan, Suriye, Irak, İran, Bulgaristan, Yunanistan, Balkan ülkeleri, Doğu Avrupa ülkeleri ve Çin Sincan Uygur Özerk Bölgesi
The new channel can be seen in these countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Bulgaria, Greece, the Balkans, countries in Eastern Europe, and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China.

In other words, the new channel plans to broadcast in just about every area in Europe and Asia where there are Turkish- or Turkic-speaking people.

Plus:
TRT yeni kanalında, Azerbaycan Türkçesi, Kazakça, Kırgızca, Özbekçe ve Türkmence programlara yer verecek ve Türkçe alt yazı kullanılacak...Yeni kanalda; kültür, sanat, belgesel ve müzik programlarının yanı sıra, Türkçe de öğretilecek.
TRT's new channel will have programs in Azerbaijan Turkish, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Turmen, with subtitles in Turkish...in the new channel will be programs on culture, health, documentaries and music, and teaching Turkish.

So once again we have standard Turkish being used as a kind of lingua franca for this channel.

TRT makes some pretty good material for learning Turkish like one podcast they used to have called Türkçe Öğreniyorum ("I'm learning Turkish") that was created for those working on their Turkish, specifically for Turks or Turkic-speaking peoples abroad. I've transcribed a few of these, like this one for example:



TRT also has an article and video on the new channel here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always been fascinated by languages in Central Asia. I taught quite a lot of students from Kazakhstan when I worked for EF in London, and they seemed to often switch to Turkish or Russian, as far as I could work out to express things that they couldn't say any other way

Alex Case said...

I've always been fascinated by languages in Central Asia. I taught quite a lot of students from Kazakhstan when I worked for EF in London, and they seemed to often switch to Turkish or Russian, as far as I could work out to express things that they couldn't say any other way

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