Turkic Languages

Turkic languages are spoken over vast parts of Eurasia, stretching from Western Europe to Northeast Siberia. The Turkic language family comprises twenty standardized languages and dozens of additional varieties with or without official status, including endangered ones. The research on Turkic languages focuses on philological and linguistic investigations of historical and modern Turkic languages with the broadest possible coverage.

Comparative methods are primarily used to study Turkic languages from diachronic and synchronic perspectives. Descriptive and typological studies aim to describe and analyse the typical Turkic grammatical structures such as auxiliary constructions, copular clauses or clause-linking strategies, as well as their development and grammaticalization processes. The main areas of linguistic investigation are phonology, morphosyntax, discourse analysis, semantics and pragmatics. Historical linguistic studies focus on reconstructing proto-stages of Turkic and etymological issues.

Our research profile includes genealogical studies, that is, the relation of the Turkic languages to other language families, particularly Mongolic and Tungusic, and studies of language contact phenomena between Turkic and non-Turkic languages, as well as within the Turkic language family. A further area of research concerns questions of language acquisition and bilingualism.

Text edition, digital philology, and philological and linguistic investigations of Old and Middle Turkic sources are also of vital importance. Another focus area is the cultural history of the Turkic speaking peoples.