Balkan Gagauz language

Not to be confused with Gagauz language.

Balkan Gagauz
Rumelian Turkish
Native to	Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo
Region	Balkan Peninsula
Native speakers	460,000 (2019)[1]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Oghuz Western Oghuz Balkan Gagauz
Writing system	Latin script,^[citation needed] Cyrillic alphabet^[citation needed]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bgx
Glottolog	balk1254
ELP	Balkan 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.^{[citation needed]}

Although it is mutually intelligible with both Gagauz^[2] and Turkish to a considerable degree, it is usually classified as a separate language,^{[citation needed]} due to foreign influences from neighboring languages spoken in the Balkans.

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. Balkan Gagauz at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
2. Ethnologue entry for Balkan Gagauz Turkish
3. "Macédoine (République de)". www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca. Retrieved 2021-10-07.