World Language Map

Where is Rumelian Turkish spoken?

Rumelian Turkish is a Turkic language, spoken in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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  • Austronesian
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  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
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  • Austroasiatic
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  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

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Where Rumelian Turkish is spoken

Rumelian Turkish is spoken in 4 countries: Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Turkey0.5%386,950
BulgariaNot givenNot given
GreeceNot givenNot given
North MacedoniaNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Rumelian Turkish has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Rumelian Turkish?

Wikidata gives about 464,000 speakers (ethnologue.com, 2021). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Shifting. Glottolog lists it as shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up speaking another language.

Where Rumelian Turkish sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Rumelian Turkish as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Turkic
  2. Common Turkic
  3. Oghuz
  4. Nuclear Oghuz
  5. West Oghuz
  6. Rumelian Turkish

Related languages

Other languages in the West Oghuz group:

More about Rumelian Turkish

Codes: ISO 639-3 bgx, Glottolog balk1254. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Rumelian Turkish

Where is Rumelian Turkish spoken?

Rumelian Turkish is spoken in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and North Macedonia. Unicode CLDR puts it at 0.5% of the population of Turkey, which is about 386,950 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Rumelian Turkish?

Wikidata gives about 464,000 speakers (ethnologue.com, 2021). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Rumelian Turkish in?

Glottolog places Rumelian Turkish in the Turkic family, in the branch Common Turkic, Oghuz, Nuclear Oghuz and West Oghuz.

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