Turka (Turuka) or Curama (Cuuramã, Tchourama, Tyurama), is a

Gur language The Gur languages, also known as Central Gur or Mabia, belong to the Niger–Congo languages. They are spoken in the Sahelian and savanna regions of West Africa, namely: in most areas of Burkina Faso, and in south-central Mali, northeastern Iv ...

which is spoken by the Turka people in southwest

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...

. Its closest linguistic relative is the

Cerma language Cerma (Kirma) is a Gur language of Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the north ...

: however, they are not mutually intelligible. Due to economic, religious and educational influence, many Turka people also speak

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

and Jula.

Writing system

Nasalization is indicated with a tilde on the vowel : . The tones are indicated using diacritics on the vowels or the syllabic nasals, with the acute accent for the high tone and the grave accent for the low tone.

References

Gur languages Languages of Burkina Faso {{gur-lang-stub