Turkic languages

The Turkic languages are a language family of at least 35documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Western Asia, North Asia(particularly in Siberia), and East Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning Western China to Mongolia, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken,from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.

Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by some 170 million people, and the total number of Turkic speakers, including second language speakers, is over 200 million. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans; its native speakers account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.

Characteristic features such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are almost universal within the Turkic family. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility among the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish and Oghuz-influenced Crimean Tatar. Although methods of classification vary, the Turkic languages are usually considered to be divided equally into two branches: Oghur, the only surviving member of which is Chuvash, and Common Turkic, which includes all other Turkic languages including the Oghuz sub-branch.

Languages belonging to the Kipchak subbranch also share a high degree of mutual intelligibility among themselves. Kazakh and Kyrgyz may be better seen as mutually intelligible dialects of a single tongue that are regarded as separate languages for sociopolitical reasons. They differ mainly phonetically while the lexicon and grammar are much the same, although both have standardized written forms that may differ in some ways. Until the 20th century, both languages used a common written form of Chaghatay Turki.

Turkic languages show many similarities with the Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages. These similarities led some linguists to propose an Altaic language family, though this proposal is widely rejected by Western historical linguists.Similarities with the Uralic languages even caused these families to be regarded as one for a long time under the Ural-Altaic hypothesis. However, there has not been sufficient evidence to conclude the existence of either of these macrofamilies, the shared characteristics between the languages being attributed presently to extensive prehistoric language contact.

Characteristics

Turkic languages are null-subject languages, have vowel harmony (with the notable exception of Uzbek), extensive agglutination by means of suffixes and postpositions, and lack of grammatical articles, noun classes, and grammatical gender. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family. The root of a word is usually only a few consonants.

History

Pre-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.

Extensive contact took place between Proto-Turks and Proto-Mongols approximately during the first millennium BC; the shared cultural tradition between the two Eurasian nomadic groups is called the “Turco-Mongol” tradition. The two groups shared a similar religion system, Tengrism, and there exists a multitude of evident loanwords between Turkic languages and Mongolic languages. Although the loans were bidirectional, today Turkic loanwords constitute the largest foreign component in Mongolian vocabulary.

Some lexical and extensive typological similarities between Turkic and the nearby Tungusic and Mongolic families, as well as the Korean and Japonic families (all formerly widely considered to be part of the so-called Altaic language family) has in more recent years been instead attributed to prehistoric contact amongst the group, sometimes referred to as the Northeast Asian sprachbund. A more recent (circa first millennium BC) contact between “core Altaic” (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic) is distinguished from this, due to the existence of definitive common words that appear to have been mostly borrowed from Turkic into Mongolic, and later from Mongolic into Tungusic, as Turkic borrowings into Mongolic significantly outnumber Mongolic borrowings into Turkic, and Turkic and Tungusic do not share any words that do not also exist in Mongolic.

Turkic languages also show some Chineseloanwords that point to early contact during the time of proto-Turkic.

Robbeets (et al. 2015 and et al. 2017) suggest that the homeland of the Turkic languages was somewhere in Manchuria, close to the Mongolic, Tungusic and Koreanic homeland (including the ancestor of Japonic), and that these languages share a common “Transeurasian” origin. More evidence for the proposed ancestral “Transeurasian” origin was presented by Nelson et al. 2020 and Li et al. 2020.

Early written records

The first established records of the Turkic languages are the eighth century AD Orkhon inscriptions by the Göktürks, recording the Old Turkic language, which were discovered in 1889 in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia. The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Divânü Lügati’t-Türk), written during the 11th century AD by Kaşgarlı Mahmud of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, constitutes an early linguistic treatment of the family. The Compendium is the first comprehensive dictionary of the Turkic languages and also includes the first known map of the Turkic speakers’ geographical distribution. It mainly pertains to the Southwestern branch of the family.

The Codex Cumanicus (12th–13th centuries AD) concerning the Northwestern branchis another early linguistic manual, between the Kipchak language and Latin, used by the Catholic missionaries sent to the Western Cumans inhabiting a region corresponding to present-day Hungary and Romania. The earliest records of the language spoken by Volga Bulgars, the parent to today’s Chuvash language, are dated to the 13th–14th centuries AD.

Geographical expansion and development

With the Turkic expansion during the Early Middle Ages (c. 6th–11th centuries AD), Turkic languages, in the course of just a few centuries, spread across Central Asia, from Siberia to the Mediterranean. Various terminologies from the Turkic languages have passed into Persian, Hindustani, Russian, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Arabic.

The geographical distribution of Turkic-speaking peoples across Eurasia since the Ottoman era ranges from the North-East of Siberia to Turkey in the West. (See picture in the box on the right above.)

For centuries, the Turkic-speaking peoples have migrated extensively and intermingled continuously, and their languages have been influenced mutually and through contactwith the surrounding languages, especially the Iranian, Slavic, and Mongolic languages.

This has obscured the historical developments within each language and/or language group, and as a result, there exist several systems to classify the Turkic languages. The modern genetic classification schemes for Turkic are still largely indebted to Samoilovich (1922).

The Turkic languages may be divided into six branches:

• Common Turkic
  • Southwestern (Oghuz Turkic)
  • Southeastern (Karluk Turkic)
  • Northwestern (Kipchak Turkic)
  • Northeastern (Siberian Turkic)
  • Arghu Turkic
• Oghur Turkic

In this classification, Oghur Turkic is also referred to as Lir-Turkic, and the other branches are subsumed under the title of Shaz-Turkic or Common Turkic. It is not clear when these two major types of Turkic can be assumed to have diverged.

With less certainty, the Southwestern, Northwestern, Southeastern and Oghur groups may further be summarized as West Turkic, the Northeastern, Kyrgyz-Kipchak, and Arghu (Khalaj) groups as East Turkic.

Geographically and linguistically, the languages of the Northwestern and Southeastern subgroups belong to the central Turkic languages, while the Northeastern and Khalaj languages are the so-called peripheral languages.

Hruschka, et al. (2014) use computational phylogenetic methods to calculate a tree of Turkic based on phonological sound changes.

Schema

The following isoglosses are traditionally used in the classification of the Turkic languages:

• Rhotacism (or in some views, zetacism), e.g. in the last consonant of the word for “nine” *tokkuz. This separates the Oghur branch, which exhibits /r/, from the rest of Turkic, which exhibits /z/. In this case, rhotacism refers to the development of *-/r/, *-/z/, and *-/d/ to /r/,*-/k/,*-/kh/ in this branch. See Antonov and Jacques (2012) on the debate concerning rhotacism and lambdacism in Turkic.
• Intervocalic *d, e.g. the second consonant in the word for “foot” *hadaq
• Suffix-final -G, e.g. in the suffix *lIG, in e.g. *tāglïg

Additional isoglosses include:

• Preservation of word initial *h, e.g. in the word for “foot” *hadaq. This separates Khalaj as a peripheral language.
• Denasalisation of palatal *ń, e.g. in the word for “moon”, *āń

*In the standard Istanbul dialect of Turkish, the ğ in dağ and dağlı is not realized as a consonant, but as a slight lengthening of the preceding vowel.

Members

The following table is based upon the classification scheme presented by Lars Johanson (1998)

Vocabulary comparison

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The following is a brief comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across the Turkic language family (about 60 words).

Empty cells do not necessarily imply that a particular language is lacking a word to describe the concept, but rather that the word for the concept in that language may be formed from another stem and is not cognate with the other words in the row or that a loanword is used in its place.

Also, there may be shifts in the meaning from one language to another, and so the “Common meaning” given is only approximate. In some cases, the form given is found only in some dialects of the language, or a loanword is much more common (e.g. in Turkish, the preferred word for “fire” is the Persian-derived ateş, whereas the native odis dead). Forms are given in native Latin orthographies unless otherwise noted.

	Common meaning	Proto-Turkic	Old Turkic	Turkish	Azerbaijani	Karakhanid	Qashqai	Turkmen	Tatar	Karaim	Bashkir	Kazakh	Kyrgyz	Uzbek	Uyghur	Sakha/Yakut	Chuvash
Relationship	father, ancestor	*ata, *kaŋ	ata, apa, qaŋ	baba, ata	baba, ata	apa, ata	bowa/ata	ata	ata, atay	ata	ata, atay	ata	ata	ota	ata	ağa	atte, aśu, aşşe
	mother	*ana, *ög	ana, ög	ana, anne	ana	ana, ene	ana/nänä	ene	ana, äni	ana	ana, inä(y)/asay	ana	ene	ona	ana	iye	anne, annü, amăşĕ
	son	*ogul	oɣul	oğul	oğul	oɣul, ohul	oğul	ogul	ul	uvul	ul	ul	uul	oʻgʻil	oghul	uol	ıvăl, ul
	man	*ēr, *érkek	er	erkek	ər/erkək	erkek	kiši	erkek	ir	ėr	ir, irkäk	er, erkek	erkek	erkak	er	er	ar/arśın
	girl	*kï̄ŕ	qïz	kız	qız	qɨz	qïz/qez	gyz	qız	qɨz	qıð	qyz	kız	qiz	qiz	kııs	hĕr
	person	*kiĺi, *yạlaŋuk	kiši, yalaŋuq	kişi	kişi	kiši		kişi	keşe	kiši	keşe	kisi	kişi	kishi	kishi	kihi	śın
	bride	*gélin	kelin	gelin	gəlin	qalɨŋ	gälin	gelin	kilen	kelin	kilen	kelin	kelin	kelin	kelin	kiyiit	kin
	mother-in-law			kaynana	qaynana		qäynänä	gaýyn ene	qayın ana		qäynä	qaıyn ene	kaynene	qaynona	qeyinana		huńama
Body parts	heart	*yürek	yürek	yürek	ürək	jürek	iräg/üräg	ýürek	yöräk	üriak, jürek	yöräk	júrek	jürök	yurak	yürek	sürex	çĕre
	blood	*kiān	qan	kan	qan	qan	qan	gan	qan	qan	qan	qan	kan	qon	qan	xaan	yun
	head	*baĺč	baš	baş	baş	baš	baš	baş	baş	baš	baş	bas	baş	bosh	bash	bas	puś/poś
	hair	*s(i)ač, *kïl	sač, qïl	saç, kıl	saç, qıl	sač, qɨl	tik/qel	saç, gyl	çäç, qıl	čač, sač, qɨl	säs, qıl	shash, qyl	çaç, kıl	soch, qil	sach, qil	battax, kıl	śüś, hul
	eye	*göŕ	köz	göz	göz	köz	gez/göz	göz	küz	kioź, goz	küð	kóz	köz	koʻz	köz	xarax, kös	kuś/koś
	eyelash	*kirpik	kirpik	kirpik	kirpik	kirpik	kirpig	kirpik	kerfek	kirpik	kerpek	kirpik	kirpik	kiprik	kirpik	kılaman, kirbii	hărpăk
	ear	*kulkak	qulqaq	kulak	qulaq	qulaq, qulqaq, qulxaq, qulɣaq	qulaq	gulak	qolaq	qulax	qolaq	qulaq	kulak	quloq	qulaq	kulgaax	hălha
	nose	*burun	burun	burun	burun	burun	burn	burun	borın	burun	moron	muryn	murun	burun	burun	murun, munnu	murun
	arm	*kol	qol	kol	qol	qol	qol	gol	qul	kol	qul	qol	kol	qoʻl	qol	хol	hul
	hand	*el-ig	elig	el	əl	elig	äl	el				alaqan	alakan		ilik	ilii	ală
	finger	*erŋek, *biarŋak	erŋek	parmak	barmaq	barmaq	burmaq	barmaq	barmaq	barmax	barmaq	barmaq	barmak	barmoq	barmaq	tarbaq	pürne/porńa
	fingernail	*dïrŋak	tïrŋaq	tırnak	dırnaq	tɨrŋaq	dïrnaq	dyrnak	tırnaq	tɨrnax	tırnaq	tyrnaq	tırmak	tirnoq	tirnaq	tıngıraq	çĕrne
	knee	*dīŕ, *dǖŕ	tiz	diz	diz	tizle-(to press with one’s knees)	diz	dyz	tez	tɨz	teð	tize	tize	tizza	tiz	tobuk	çĕrśi, çerkuśśi
	calf	*baltïr	baltïr	baldır	baldır	baldɨr	ballïr	baldyr	baltır	baldɨr	baltır	baltyr	baltır	boldir	baldir	ballır	pıl
	foot	*(h)adak	adaq	ayak	ayaq	aδaq	ayaq	aýak	ayaq	ajax	ayaq	aıaq	ayak	oyoq	ayaq	ataq	ura
	belly	*kạrïn	qarïn	karın	qarın	qarɨn	qarn	garyn	qarın	qarɨn	qarın	qaryn	karın	qorin	qerin	xarın	hırăm
Animals	horse	*(h)at	at	at	at	at	at	at	at	at	at	at	at	ot	at	at	ut/ot
	cattle	*dabar	ingek, tabar	inek, davar, sığır	inək, sığır	ingek, ingen; tavar	seğer	sygyr	sıyır	sɨjɨr	hıyır	sıyr	sıyır	sigir	siyir	ınax	ĕne
	dog	*ït, *köpek	ït	it, köpek	it	ɨt	kepäg	it	et	it´	et	ıt	it	it	it	ıt	yıtă
	fish	*bālïk	balïq	balık	balıq	balɨq	balïq	balyk	balıq	balɨx	balıq	balyq	balık	baliq	beliq	balık	pulă
	louse	*bït	bit	bit	bit	bit	bit	bit	bet	bit	bet	bıt	bit	bit	bit	bıt	pıytă/puťă
Other nouns	house	*eb, *bark	eb, barq	ev, bark	ev	ev	äv	öý	öy	üy, üv	öy	úı	üy	uy	öy		śurt
	tent	*otag, *gerekü	otaɣ, kerekü	çadır, otağ	çadır; otaq	otaɣ, kerekü	čador	çadyr; otag	çatır	oda	satır	shatyr; otaý	çatır	chodir; oʻtoq	chadir; otaq	otuu	çatăr
	way	*yōl	yol	yol	yol	jol	yol	ýol	yul	jol	yul	jol	jol	yoʻl	yol	suol	śul
	bridge	*köprüg	köprüg	köprü	körpü	köprüg		köpri	küper	kiopriu	küper	kópir	köpürö	koʻprik	kövrük	kürpe	kĕper
	arrow	*ok	oq	ok	ox	oq	ox/tir	ok	uq	oq	uq	oq	ok	oʻq	oq	ox	uhă
	fire	*ōt	ōt	od, ateş (Pers.)	od	ot	ot	ot	ut	ot	ut	ot	ot	oʻt	ot	uot	vut/vot
	ash	*kül	kül	kül	kül	kül	kil/kül	kül	köl	kul	köl	kúl	kül	kul	kül	kül	kĕl
	water	*sub, *sïb	sub	su	su	suv	su	suw	su	su	hıw	sý	suu	suv	su	uu	şıv/şu
	ship, boat	*gḗmi	kemi	gemi	gəmi	kemi		gämi	köymä	gemi	kämä	keme	keme	kema	keme		kimĕ
	lake	*kȫl	köl	göl	göl	köl	göl/gel	köl	kül	giol´	kül	kól	köl	koʻl	köl	küöl	külĕ
	sun/day	*güneĺ, *gün	kün	güneş, gün	günəş, gün	kün, qujaš	gin/gün	gün	qoyaş, kön	kujaš	qoyaş, kön	kún	kün	quyosh, kun	quyash, kün	kün	hĕvel, kun
	cloud	*bulït	bulut	bulut	bulud	bulut	bulut	bulut	bolıt	bulut	bolot	bult	bulut	bulut	bulut	bılıt	pĕlĕt
	star	*yultuŕ	yultuz	yıldız	ulduz	julduz	ulluz	ýyldyz	yoldız	julduz	yondoð	juldyz	jıldız	yulduz	yultuz	sulus	śăltăr
	ground, earth	*toprak	topraq	toprak	torpaq	topraq	torpaq	toprak	tufraq	topraq, toprax	tupraq	topyraq	topurak	tuproq	tupraq	toburax	tăpra
	hilltop	*tepö, *töpö	töpü	tepe	təpə	tepe		depe	tübä	tebe	tübä	tóbe	töbö	tepa	töpe	töbö	tüpĕ
	tree/wood	*ïgač	ïɣač	ağaç	ağac	jɨɣač	ağaĵ	agaç	ağaç	ahač	ağas	aǵash	jygaç	yogʻoch	yahach	mas	yıvăś
	god (Tengri)	*teŋri, *taŋrï	teŋri, burqan	tanrı	tanrı	teŋri	tarï/Allah/Xoda	taňry	täñre	Tieńri	täñre	táńiri	teñir	tangri	tengri	tangara	tură/toră
	sky	*teŋri, *kȫk	kök, teŋri	gök	göy	kök	gey/göy	gök	kük	kök	kük	kók	kök	koʻk	kök	küöx	kăvak/koak
Adjectives	long	*uŕïn	uzun	uzun	uzun	uzun	uzun	uzyn	ozın	uzun	oðon	uzyn	uzun	uzun	uzun	uhun	vărăm
	new	*yaŋï, *yeŋi	yaŋï	yeni	yeni	jaŋɨ	yeŋi	ýaňy	yaña	jɨŋgɨ	yañı	jańa	jañı	yangi	yengi	saña	śĕnĕ
	fat	*semiŕ	semiz	semiz, şişman	səmiz	semiz		semiz	simez	semiz	himeð	semiz	semiz	semiz	semiz	emis	samăr
	full	*dōlï	tolu	dolu	dolu	tolu	dolu	doly	tulı	tolɨ	tulı	toly	tolo	toʻla	toluq	toloru	tulli
	white	*āk, *ürüŋ	āq, ürüŋ	ak, beyaz (Ar.)	ağ	aq	aq	ak	aq	aq	aq	aq	ak	oq	aq		şură
	black	*kara	qara	kara, siyah (Pers.)	qara	qara	qärä	gara	qara	qara	qara	qara	kara	qora	qara	xara	hura, hora
	red	*kïŕïl	qïzïl	kızıl, kırmızı (Ar.)	qızıl	qɨzɨl	qïzïl	gyzyl	qızıl	qɨzɨl	qıðıl	qyzyl	kızıl	qizil	qizil	kıhıl	hĕrlĕ
Numbers	1	*bīr	bir	bir	bir	bir	bir	bir	ber	bir, bɨr	ber	bir	bir	bir	bir	biir	pĕrre
	2	*éki	eki	iki	iki	ẹki	ikki	iki	ike	eky	ike	eki	eki	ikki	ikki	ikki	ikkĕ
	3	*üč	üč	üç	üç	üč	uǰ, u̇č	üç	öč	üć	ös	üš	üč	uch/u̇č	üch/üç	üs	viśśĕ, viśĕ, viś
	4	*dȫrt	tört	dört	dörd	tört	derd/dörd	dört	dürt	dört	dürt	tórt	tört	toʻrt	tört	tüört	tăvattă
	5	*bēĺ(k)	béš	beş	beş	béš		bäş	beş	beš	biš	bes	beş	besh/beş	besh/beş	bies	pillĕk
	6	*altï	altï	altı	altı	altï	altï	alty (altï)	altï	altï	altï	altï	altï	olti (ålti)	altä	alta	ult, ultă, ulttă
	7	*yéti	yeti	yedi	yeddi	jeti	yeddi	ýedi	cide	jedi	yete	žeti	jeti	yetti	yetti	sette	śiççe
	8	*sekiŕ	säkiz	sekiz	səkkiz	sek(k)iz, sik(k)iz	sӓkkiz	sekiz	sigez	sekiz	higeð	segiz	segiz	säkkiz	säkkiz	aɣïs	sakkăr, sakăr
	9	*tokuŕ	toquz	dokuz	doqquz	toquz	doġġuz	dokuz	tugïz	toɣuz	tuɣïð	toɣïz	toguz	to’qqiz	toqquz	toɣus	tăxxăr, tăxăr
	10	*ōn	on	on	on	on	on	on	un	on	un	on	on	oʻn	on	uon	vunnă, vună, vun
	20	*yẹgirmi	yigirmi/yégirmi	yirmi	iyirmi	yigirmi, yigirme	igirmi, iyirmi	yigrimi	yegerme	yigirmi	yegerme	žïyïrma	ǰïyïrma	yigirmä	yigirmä	süürbe	śirĕm
	30	*otuŕ	otuz	otuz	otuz	otuz	ottiz	otuz (otuð)	otuz	otuz	utïð	otïz	otuz	o’ttiz	ottuz	otut	vătăr
	40	*kïrk	qïrq	kırk	qırx	qïrq	ġèrḫ (ɢərx)	kyrk (kïrk)	qırq (qïrq)	kïrx	qïrq	qïrïq	kïrk	qirq	qirq	tüört uon	xĕrĕx
	50	*ellig	älig	elli	ǝlli (älli)	el(l)ig	älli, ẹlli	elli	ille
	60	*altmïĺ	altmïš	altmış	altmış (altmïš)	altmïš	altmïš	altmyş (altmïš)	altmïš	altïmïš	altïmïš	alpïs	altïmïš	oltmish (åltmiš)	altmiš	alta uon	ultmăl
	70	*yẹtmiĺ	yētmiš/s	yetmiş	yetmiş	yetmiš	yetmiš	ýetmiş (yetmiš)	ǰitmeš	yetmiš/s	yetmeš	žetpis	ǰetimiš	yetmiš	yätmiš	sette uon	śitmĕl
	80	*sekiŕ ōn	säkiz on	seksen	sǝksǝn (säksän)	seksün	sӓɣsen	segsen	seksen	seksen, seksan	hikhen	seksen	seksen	sakson (säksån)	säksän	aɣïs uon	sakăr vun(ă)
	90	*dokuŕ ōn	toquz on	doksan	doxsan	toqsan		togsan	tuksan	toksan, toxsan	tukhan	toqsan	tokson	to’qson (tȯksån)	toqsan	toɣus uon	tăxăr vun(ă), tăxăr vunnă
	100	*yǖŕ	yüz	yüz	yüz	jüz	iz/yüz	ýüz	yöz	jiz, juz, jüz	yöð	júz	jüz	yuz	yüz	süüs	śĕr
	1000	*bïŋ	bïŋ	bin	min	miŋ, men	min	müň (müŋ)	meŋ	min, bin	meŋ	mïŋ	mïŋ	ming (miŋ)	miŋ	tïhïïnča	pin
	Common meaning	Proto-Turkic	Old Turkic	Turkish	Azerbaijani	Karakhanid	Qashqai	Turkmen	Tatar	Karaim	Bashkir	Kazakh	Kyrgyz	Uzbek	Uyghur	Sakha/Yakut	Chuvash

Azerbaijani “ǝ” and “ä”: IPA /æ/

Turkish and Azerbaijani “ı”, Karakhanid “ɨ”, Turkmen “y”, and Sakha “ï”: IPA /ɯ/

Turkmen “ň”, Karakhanid “ŋ”: IPA /ŋ/

Turkish and Azerbaijani “y”,Turkmen “ý” and “j” in other languages: IPA /j/

All “ş” and “š” letters: IPA /ʃ/

All “ç” and “č” letters: IPA /ʧ/

Kazakh “ž”: IPA /ʒ/

Kyrgyz “ǰ”: IPA /ʤ/

Other possible relations

The Turkic language family is currently regarded as one of the world’s primary language families. Turkic is one of the main members of the controversial Altaic language family. There are some other theories about an external relationship but none of them are generally accepted.

Korean

The possibility of a genetic relation between Turkic and Korean, independently from Altaic, is suggested by some linguists. The linguist Kabak (2004) of the University of Würzburg states that Turkic and Korean share similar phonology as well as morphology. Li Yong-Sŏng (2014) suggest that there are several cognatesbetween Turkic and Old Korean. He states that these supposed cognates can be useful to reconstruct the early Turkic language. According to him, words related to nature, earth and ruling but especially to the sky and stars seem to be cognates.

The linguist Choi suggested already in 1996 a close relationship between Turkic and Korean regardless of any Altaic connections:

In addition, the fact that the morphological elements are not easily borrowed between languages, added to the fact that the common morphological elements between Korean and Turkic are not less numerous than between Turkic and other Altaic languages, strengthens the possibility that there is a close genetic affinity between Korean and Turkic.

— Choi Han-Woo, A Comparative Study of Korean and Turkic (Hoseo University)

Many historians also point out a close non-linguistic relationship between Turkic peoples and Koreans. Especially close were the relations between the Göktürks and Goguryeo.

Rejected or controversial theories

Uralic

Some linguists suggested a relation to Uralic languages, especially to the Ugric languages. This view is rejected and seen as obsolete by mainstream linguists. Similarities are because of language contact and borrowings mostly from Turkic into Ugric languages. Stachowski (2015) states that any relation between Turkic and Uralic must be a contact one.