# Why did the Turkish culture and language not spread? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 2, 2023, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505 "2023-09-02T14:13:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/1 "2023-09-02T14:13:07Z")
Due to the imperialistic powers languages like French, Spanish and English spread. Ottoman also spread Arabic. But why not Turkish? Why is Turkish language and culture so restricted to Turkey? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/2 "2023-09-02T14:22:02Z")
France, Spain & England colonized. That spread their languages throughout the colonies. In the Americas and Australia the English & Spanish speakers soon out numbered the native language speakers. Ottoman Empire conquered existing countries and did not colonize. So a very different dynamic. The actual land mass covered was not really all that great. Additionally, both Persian & Turkish were effectively official languages. * * * * * * French is a terrible example actually. It is spoken by less people than Turkish. It is overwhelmingly spoken in France, Belgium and Switzerland. Overseas the numbers are smallish. Portuguese would by an excellent third colonial language to include. Tiny Portugal manage to export Portuguese so well that there are about 250 million speakers making it the #6 or #7 language in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/3 "2023-09-02T14:26:16Z")
Turkish culture and language did spread. That’s why it’s now in Turkey. It started in Central Asia. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/4 "2023-09-02T14:32:20Z")
As for why the Turkish language did not displace Arabic, there was a religious factor. The Islamic religion is theologically linked with the Arabic language. So suppressing Arabic would have been seen as suppressing Islam. That would have upset Turkish Muslims along with subject Muslims. Instead the Ottoman rulers co-opted Arabic and Islam by identifying themselves as the Caliphs. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/5 "2023-09-02T14:36:13Z")
But of _course_ the culture spread. We’ve got Turkish taffy, ottomans in our living rooms, Young Turks taking over the mob…what more do you need? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/6 "2023-09-02T15:01:56Z")
What language did the Ottomans use for administrative purposes, Greek or Turkish or local languages? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/7 "2023-09-02T15:07:37Z")
Turkish & Persian. Not Greek. ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/8 "2023-09-02T15:09:17Z")
Map showing countries and autonomous subdivisions with an official Turkic language: [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg/2560px-Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg/2560px-Map_of_Turkic_languages.svg.png) Wikipedia on the original homeland of the Turkic peoples and their language: > [@](#): > > The homeland of the Turkic peoples and their language is suggested to be somewhere between the Transcaspian steppe and Northeastern Asia (Manchuria), with genetic evidence pointing to the region near South Siberia and Mongolia as the “Inner Asian Homeland” of the Turkic ethnicity. Similarly several linguists, including Juha Janhunen, Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, suggest that modern-day Mongolia is the homeland of the early Turkic language. Relying on Proto-Turkic lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna, people’s modes of subsistence, Turkologist Peter Benjamin Golden locates the Proto-Turkic Urheimat in the southern, taiga-steppe zone of the Sayan-Altay region. > **[Turkic languages | History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_languages#History)** > > The homeland of the Turkic peoples and their language is suggested to be somewhere between the Transcaspian steppe and Northeastern Asia (Manchuria), with genetic evidence pointing to the region near South Siberia and Mongolia as the "Inner Asian Homeland" of the Turkic ethnicity. Similarly several linguists, including Juha Janhunen, Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, suggest that modern-day Mongolia is the homeland of the early Turkic language. Relying on Proto-Turkic lexical items ab Extensive c... Turkey’s around 2,500 miles/4,000 km from the original homeland of the Turkic people/language. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/9 "2023-09-02T15:19:30Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > What language did the Ottomans use for administrative purposes, Greek or Turkish or local languages? Would it not have been the holy language of Arabic? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/10 "2023-09-02T15:39:43Z")
**What\_Exit** said Turkish (their languauge) and Persian (esteemed local language, for the eastern areas anyway). I wondered if they might have just done what the Romans did and used the existing Greek system, but apparently not. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/11 "2023-09-02T15:45:30Z")
What are you talking bout? French is spoken as one of the top 5 languages while Turkish isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/12 "2023-09-02T15:54:57Z")
Cite please? It is absolutely not a top 5 primary language. I suspect it isn’t even a top second language. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/13 "2023-09-02T15:59:06Z")
This list has it as #5, but only if you count L2 speakers. It drops down to #16 if you sort the list by L1 speakers. Turkish is #11, and #18 if you add in L2 speakers. So, more first language Turkish speakers than French speakers (which I hadn’t known: wow), but way more people who have learned French as a second language, and comparatively few learning Turkish. Edit: as for L2, French seems to be the fourth most-learned second language, after English, Arabic, and Hindi: Turkish is #25. > **[List of languages by total number of speakers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers)** > > This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. > It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect. For example, Chinese and Arabic are sometimes considered single languages, but each includes several mutually unintelligible varieties, and so they are sometimes considered language families instead. Conversely, colloquial registers of Hindi and Urdu are almost completely mutually intelligible, and are sometimes classified as one language, Hindustani. Such ran... ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/14 "2023-09-02T16:07:43Z")
I was going with primary speakers as we were talking about culture. It feels weird to count English 1st and French 5th when speaking of culture. But at least that explains the 5th bit. So the Wiki list is showing Portuguese 5th for First Language. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/15 "2023-09-02T16:29:04Z")
Oh!!! ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/16 "2023-09-02T16:48:21Z")
> **[The 10 Most Spoken Languages in the World in 2023 - Rosetta Stone](https://blog.rosettastone.com/most-spoken-languages-in-the-world-in-2023/)** > > The most spoken language in the world depends on whether you count native or total speakers. But English, Chinese, and Spanish definitely top the list. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/17 "2023-09-02T16:54:01Z")
Edit: Turkish isn’t even on the list ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/18 "2023-09-02T16:57:16Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > **What\_Exit** said Turkish (their languauge) and Persian (esteemed local language, for the eastern areas anyway). I wondered if they might have just done what the Romans did and used the existing Greek system, but apparently not. I don’t feel Greek was still the existing system when the Ottomans rose to power. Greek had been the governing language over Asia Minor when the Byzantines ruled the area. But Byzantine power in the area declined after their defeat in the Battle of Manzikert and Persian power had grown, with the result that the Persian (Farsi) language had been replacing Greek as the governing language. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/19 "2023-09-02T17:02:33Z")
I believe it is also relevant that Turkish as a language is quite Byzantine. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/20 "2023-09-02T17:04:57Z")
What does that mean [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505.md?page=2)