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| VOCABULARY DATABASE > TURKMEN > INFORMATION |
Turkmen is a Turkic language spoken as a first language by almost 4 million people in Turkmenistan, which accounts for three quarters of its total population.
Evidence of written Turkmen dates back to the 14th c. After being superseded by Chatagai as a literary language, it won ground again from the 18th c. The modern literary language in use following the Soviet revolution of 1917 is based on the spoken language. During the Soviet era, cultural life of the country was dominated by Communist censorship, and intellectuals were purged by Stalin. After independence, the country has been ruled by former Communist party member Saparmurad Niyazov, now a commited Muslim. "Türkmenbashy" or "The Father of all Turkmens" set up his own account of Turkmen history (the "Ruhnama"). This work is now the basis of all education in Turkmenistan.
Turkmen is an agglutinative language. It was formerly written in Arabic characters, but Cyrillic was in use 1825-1991. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, a modified version of the Turkish alphabet was adopted.
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