Regional Turkish Accents

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The Regional Accents of Turkey

Shall I pahk the cah in the pahking lot...?

We also don't own the market on regional accents... Regional accents in Turkey are alive and well, thank you. Perhaps the best known is the one from the Black Sea region called the Laz language accent -- which is well documented in Turkish books and stories. For example, if you buy any of the Temel humor books, you'll find the stories sprinkled heavily with Temel's own special Black Sea accent. Let's eavesdrop on this exchange between Temel and a male friend -- as they get ready to leave on holiday...

With Black Sea accent and slang...
"Temel tatile çıktığımızda ısığı açık pırakalum."
"Haçan pen te hırsızlar el feneriyle tolaşı sanırtum."

Without Black Sea accent and slang...
"Temel tatile çıktığımızda ısığı açık bırakalım."
"Dostum ben de hırsızlar el feneriyle dolaşır sanırdım."

English Translation...
"Temel, let's leave the lights on while we're on vacation."
"[Good idea] my friend. I too was worried how the burglars could find there way around with only a flashlight."

Our Türkçe Dilbilgisi (Turkish grammar book) lists no less than twenty Turkish dialects spoken worldwide. So we hesitate to think of the many more examples of accents and slang that must exist in each of them... Still, it's said -- that if you stick to standard vocabulary and if you speak clearly, you can be understood in any of the regions where the dialects are spoken. And those regions cover a very large span of territory -- from enclaves in Lithuania, Belarus, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Greece -- to Turkey itself, dipping into Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, Iran, through Azerbaijan, into Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia...all the way to the Western provinces of China and the North Eastern borders of Russia! We've heard that over 200 million people speak Turkish, making it the 7th most spoken language in the World.