Gagauz (, ) is a

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

spoken by the

Gagauz people The Gagauz ( gag, Gagauzlar) are a Turkic people living mostly in southern Moldova (Gagauzia, Taraclia District, Basarabeasca District) and southwestern Ukraine (Budjak). Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians. The term Gagauz is also o ...

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

and it is an official language of the Autonomous Region of Gagauzia in Moldova. Gagauz belongs to the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, alongside Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Turkish. Gagauz is a distinct language from

Balkan Gagauz Turkish Balkan Gagauz Turkish, or Rumelian Turkish ( tr, 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. ...

to some degree. Though it was established as a written language in 1957, Gagauz was not used in schools until 1959. Gagauz is a language derived from Balkan Gagauz Turkish; Balkan linguistics was the first to view the consequences of language contact as normal rather than corrupt. The term "Gagauz language" and the identification of one's language as "Gagauz" were established concurrently with or even after the creation of national self-awareness. About 150,000 Gagauz resided in Moldova in 1986, where they lived in settlements within the Comrat, Ceadîr-Lunga and Vulcănești Rayons. Along with the majority of the Gagauz living in Moldova, there are four other cities in Bulgaria in which the Gagauz reside.

History

Between 1750 and 1846, ancestors of the Gagauz today emigrated from the current-day Bulgarian Black Sea coast north of Varna to Russia and settled in the region that is now the current-day Republic of Moldova, allowed to do so on the condition that they converted to Orthodox Christianity by Empress Catherine. In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the 1994 law on Special Legal Status of Gagauzia was passed in Moldova, which was put into effect in 1995, granting the Gagauz territorial autonomy.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Orthography

It appears that the first alphabet to be used for the language was the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...

in the late 19th century. For example, orientalist

Otto Blau Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded ...

claims that plays of

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars a ...

had been translated into the Gagauz language and had been written with Greek letters. Beginning in 1957, Cyrillic was used until 1993. On May 13, 1993, the parliament of the Republic of Moldova passed a decision providing for the official adoption of the Latin-based alphabet for the Gagauz language. This was subsequently amended in 1996. The Gagauz alphabet adopted is modelled on the modern

Turkish alphabet The Turkish alphabet ( tr, ) is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which ( Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic require ...

, with the addition of three letters: to represent the sound of (as in

Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numer ...

), to represent the (schwa) sound, which does not exist in Turkish, and to represent the sound from the Romanian alphabet. On the other hand, unlike Crimean Tatar, Turkish, and some other Turkic languages, Gagauz does not have the letter , which had become completely silent in the Gagauz language. Note that dotted and

dotless I I, or ı, called dotless I, is a letter used in the Latin-script alphabets of Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Kazakh, Tatar, Kyrgyz, and Turkish. It commonly represents the close back unrounded vowel , except in Kazakh where it represen ...

are separate letters, each with its own uppercase and lowercase form. ''I'' is the capital form of ''ı'', and ''İ'' is the capital form of ''i''. The Gagauz alphabet has no q, w or x. Instead, those characters are transliterated into Gagauz as k, v and ks. ''Modern Gagauz alphabet'':

Current situation

A study in 2012 was conducted on the Gagauz community to assess the current situation and sociocultural context. The findings show that within Gagauzia, official documents, printed publications, and official web sites are only in Russian. The National Passport System in Moldova does not allow the spelling of names in Gagauz. Signposts in Gagauzia are mostly in Romanian, and the names of squares and streets have not changed since the time of the Soviet Union.Sirkeli, M. & Lisenco, S. (2012). "Policy Brief: Implementation of linguistic rights of the Gagauz of Moldova. Integration of the Gagauz Community into the Society of Moldova."

Education

Despite various laws that support the rights of citizens to education in their native language, almost all instruction in Gagauzian schools is in Russian. Gagauz, while the native language of all students, is only taught as a "native language" class for a few hours per week. Research has also shown that there are not serious desires or attempts to institute Gagauz as a language of instruction. In a study, 80.6% of respondents preferred Russian as the medium of instructions at schools. There are, however, some notable efforts to increase Gagauz language education.

Todur Zanet Todur Zanet (sometimes rendered Fedor Ivanoviç Zanet, first name also Feodor, Fiodor, Todor, or Tudor; russian: Фёдор Иванович Занет, ''Fyodor Ivanovich Zanet''; born June 14, 1958)Şavk, p. 130 is a Gagauz and Moldovan journal ...

, editor-in-chief of the '' Ana Sözü'' local newspaper, has played an active role in encouraging readers and local authorities to promote instruction in their mother tongue. Zanet has also contributed significantly to efforts to standardize the language, and increase its accessibility through print and other mediums.

Media

''Ana Sözü'' is the largest local newspaper in Gagauzia. It is also the only local newspaper still written entirely in Gagauz, and was the first newspaper of any kind published in the Gagauz language. Apart from ''Ana Sözü'', there are various newspapers published in the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, including ''Açık Göz'', ''Gagauz Yeri'', ''Gagauz Sesi'', ''Halk Birlii'', ''Novıy Vzgliad'', ''Vesti Gagauzii'', and ''Znamea''. In addition to printed materials, the company Gagauz Radio Televisionu (GRT) produces radio and television broadcasts in Gagauz.

References

External links

A Gagauz song "Yaşa, Halkım!" by Andrey İVANOV

* ttp://sozluk.gagauz.in/ Russian-Gagauz Gagauz-Russian Dictionary
anasozu.com Gagauz language web site
{{Authority control Agglutinative languages Languages of Moldova