Gagavuz Autonomous Region        

       Neighbours

       Ukraine in the north, Romania in the west and Bulgaria in the southwest.

       Cultural Structure

       Gagavuz Turkish is one of the Turkish dialects that have survived. Gagavuz Turkish constitutes the Oguz group of the Turkish language together with the Azerbaijani Turkish, Turkmen Turkish and Turkish as spoken in Turkey. Of these three dialects, the dialect that is the closest one to the Turkish spoken in Turkey is Gagavuz Turkish. The Ottoman Turkish influenced this language and it was ameliorated with the adoption of Turkish, Arabian and Farsi words. It also appropriated various words from the Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Moldavian and Russian languages with which it lived together. There are numerous Slav-rooted words within the structure of Gagavuz Turkish spoken today. Gagavuz people had not learned the Ottoman alphabet and could not read the written literature of Ottomans.

       They had read the Turkish books that were written in Cyrillic alphabet in the period of Ottomans and in the further periods. Until the year of 1957, Gagavuz people did not have any alphabet of their own. Occasionally, Gagavuz people were obliged to learn the Greek, Bulgarian, Russian and Romanian languages and to use the alphabets of these languages. They used the Cyrillic alphabet between the years of 1918 and 1932 and then they used the Latin alphabet between the years of 1932 and 1957. As per the resolution of the Moldavia High Soviet of USSR in the year 1957, the Gagavuz Alphabet based on Cyrillic alphabet was arranged upon the addition of some letters to the Russian alphabet. They returned to the Cyrillic alphabet between the years of 1957 and 1996 and they have started to use the Latin alphabet since the year of 1996. Russian language was the effective factor in the struggle of formation of the Gagavuz Turkish as a written language. Considering its morphology, phonetics and syntax, Gagavuz Turkish has been under Slav effect. There are two dialects of Gagavuz Turkish that have survived so far. One is the central dialect (Konrat and Çadır) and the other is the southern dialect (Vulkaneş).

       As per the law, the official languages of the Gagavuz's Place are "Gagavuz, Russian and Romanian languages". In the process of autonomy, Gagavuz people had the opportunity to use their mother tongue in every field. Although there were some theological problems among the Christian churches until the century XI, these problems did not cause a great differentiation among the churches. However, the Christian church was divided into two main sects as Orthodox and Catholic churches in the year of 1054. Just as in the past, there are Baptist and Adventist groups and their churches among the Gagavuz people of today.

       Gagavuz people did not have a written literature for a long time. Gagavuz people who had to use different alphabets in different periods published Turkish books with the alphabets of the countries in which they lived. Mihail Çakır played a significant role in the development of the contemporary Gagavuz literature. Afterwards, Çakır published the first newspaper in Gagavuz Turkish in the year of 1934 and he flamed the first flambeau in the advance of this language towards a literary language. He published the book titled as Basarabyalı Gagavuzların İstoryası (History of Gagavuz people from Bessarabia) in Gagavuz Turkish in the year of 1934. This is the first Gagavuz history written by a Gagavuz person. Additionally, Çakır also published the Gagavuz-Romanian dictionary in 1939 and had the Bible translated into their mother tongue. There have been nearly 25-30 thousands of literary works published in Gagavuz Turkish since the year of 1957 until today.