Balkan Gagauz
Rumelian Turkish
Native toTurkey, Greece, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo
RegionBalkan Peninsula
Native speakers
460,000 (2019)[1]
Turkic
Latin script, Cyrillic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3bgx
Glottologbalk1254
ELPBalkan Gagauz Turkish

Balkan Gagauz, Balkan Turkish or Rumelian (Turkish: Rumeli Türkçesi), is a Turkic language spoken in European Turkey, in Dulovo and the Deliorman area in Bulgaria, the Prizren area in Kosovo, and the Kumanovo and Bitola areas of North Macedonia.[2] Dialects include Gajal, Gerlovo Turk, Karamanli, Kyzylbash, Surguch, Tozluk Turk, Yuruk (Konyar, Yoruk), Prizren Turk, and Macedonian Gagauz.

Although it is mutually intelligible with both Gagauz[2] and Turkish to a considerable degree, it is usually classified as a separate language, due to foreign influences from neighboring languages spoken in the Balkans, were influenced by Bulgarian, Byzantine, and Ottoman rule.

Balkan Gagauz Turkish was given international prominence through the Oscar-nominated 2019 film Honeyland, in which the protagonist is an ethnic Macedonian Turk and mostly speaks in the local dialect throughout the film.

Population

There were around 460,000 speakers of Balkan Gagauz Turkish in Turkey in 2019[1] and an estimated 4,000 in North Macedonia in 2018.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 Balkan Gagauz at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021) Closed access icon
  2. 1 2 Ethnologue entry for Balkan Gagauz Turkish
  3. ↑ "Macédoine (République de)". www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca. Retrieved 2021-10-07.
Balkan Gagauz language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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