# Turkish in Turkic-speaking countries



## James Bates

Does anybody have any idea how popular Turkish movies and television programs are in Azerbaijan and other Turkic-speaking countries? I met an Azerbaijani yesterday who told me he could understand Turkish perfectly even though he'd never been to Turkey thanks to Turkish movies.


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## Volcano

*I can understand many words too when i watch.I have seen they(**Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan) televise our old movies without changing the language but i am not sure about the programs*.


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## Artigh

Azerbaidjan and Turkey are too close to each other. That's why one can understand the other so long as they speak fairly slow.


Although there is an ocean between US and England, an english would understand an american. However this is not the case for turkik languages. In Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan etc they also speak a turkik language but it's just a few words that one can recognize from the other language. The further you go , the more it changes.


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## kalamazoo

My experience in visiting Uzbekistan is that it's hard for an American to understand Uzbek, but if you say something in Turkish, they quite often understand you.  There are an awful lot of similar words.  For instance, you can say "sapsari' for very yellow. The numbers are almost identical and if you speak Turkish, you should have no problems with prices and numbers.   Also you meet Uzbeks who speak real Turkish sometimes. It's not very hard for an Uzbek speaker to learn Turkish! The languages are pretty similar.  Turkish pop music is also common.  So with the large number of cognates in the two languages, the grammatical similarities, the exposure to Turkish music and film and the teaching of Turkish in some schools, a lot of Uzbeks can understand Turkish pretty readily.


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## Qomi

Most people in Uzbekhistan or in Azerbaijan understand Turkish. However, it's a pity that most Turks have difficulty in understanding an Uzbek or an Azerbaijani.


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## kalamazoo

It seems to me it would be extremely easy for a Turkish speaker to learn Uzbek or especially Azeribaijani.  The vocabulary overlap is huge and the grammars are very similar.  One the things I think is too bad is that the other Turkish languages that adopted the Roman alphabet didn't use the Turkish orthography though. Uzbekistan romanized a few years ago but just kind of adapted their alphabet from Cyrillic.  They could have used the Turkish alphabet very easily but they didn't.


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## Alex Iguaran

Azeris understand Turkish much better than Turks do Azeri. This has to do with the fact that Turkish television has been broadcast in Azerbaijan for years and a lot of people have gotten used to it, even though most still wouldn't understand all the intricacies of Turkish when it comes to reading literature.


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## Qomi

Welcome to Wordreference Alex. Yeah, I think you are right. It's mostly something to do with broadcasting.


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## Alex Iguaran

Thanks Qomi, hope to have some fruitful cooperation in future


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