Your comments

Mohsen Ghanbari
Im one of the Iran's Azeries.almost 50percent of Iran people speaking Azery ( on of the Turkish attitudes ). in regard to this information the result is that Turkish is spoken by almost 200 million people all over the world. but other friends in their comments didn't pay attention to Iran's Azerbayjan ( 7 states of Iran ).Iran has 35 million Turks alone .

arash amanpour
I live in azerbaijan region of Iran. In this region people speaks Azeri which is one of Turkish accecnts. In other sides of Iran also lives the Turkish speaking people. With regarding this information and other countries which has Turkish speaking people, there are more than 60milions Turkish speaking people in the wolrd. I think your news just cover Turkey country, not the world wide speaking Turkish people.

Dr Erhan AlpEren
Firstly, I respect the space BBC has allocated to the section of "Turkish" and would like to thank the publisher. There are a few posts however, which should be highlighted for correction. 1."Turkish is spoken today by an estimated 60 million people worldwide. " The actual figure is over 200 million. As an Azerbaycan Turk, our official language is Turkish, which in Turkish we call as "Turkche" and this is the term all Turks use to name their language. I mean in Azerbaycan (North) and South Azerbaycan which is located in Iran there is a Turk population which almost amounts to 60 million in itself.

Azerbaijani, South[azb] 23,500,000 in Iran (1997). Khalaj, Turkic[klj] 42,107 (2000 WCD). Khorasani Turkish[kmz] 400,000 (1977 Doerfer). Qashqa'i[qxq] 1,500,000 (1997). Turkmen[tuk] 2,000,000 in Iran (1997). Add that to the 9-10 million population of Iran and the Azeri Turks in diaspora and the figure rises to above 40 million. In the Balkans Turkish [tur] 845,550 in Bulgaria (1986). Turkish [tur] 200,000 in Macedonia (1982). Turkish [tur] 128,380 in Greece (1976 WA). Gagauz [gag] 138,000 in Moldova (2000). Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Southern, Turkish In Asia I have already shown Azerbaycan and Iran Russia Bashkir [bak] 1,800,000 in Russia (2001 Johnstone and Mandryk). Classification: Altaic, Turkic, Chuvash [chv] 1,800,000 in Russia (2001 Johnstone and Mandryk). Tatar [tat] 464,669 in Russia (2000). Population total all countries: 1,610,032. Ethnic population: 6,645,588 in the former USSR (1989 census). Afganistan Uzbek, Southern [uzs] 1,403,000 in Afghanistan (1991 WA). Turkmen [tuk] 500,000 in Afghanistan (1995). Kazakhistan Kazakh [kaz] 8,178,879. Uyghur [uig] 300,000 in Kazakhstan (1993). Turkmenistan. 4,863,169. Kyrgyz Republic. 5,081,429 Uzbekistan. 26,410,416. China - Uygurs - 12-15 million. Well it goes on and on.........

As you can see Turkish is spoken in a very wide geographical area by much more than 60 million people. I mean theres almost 4 millin Turkish speakers in the EU alone. Also this quote "Turkish, a member of the Altaic language family, is the national language of Turkey, but is also widely spoken by Turkish minorities in Central Asia" In Central Asia it is the majority language, before the Soviet Invasion the area was known as "Turkestan" and to the people there today it is still "Turkestan" and their language is still "Turkce". Regards

Dr Ender Olcayto
"Turkish is spoken today by an estimated 60 million people worldwide. " This statement cannot be correct as today, there are more than 60 million people living in Turkey alone. Turkish is also spoken outside Turkey by many Central Asian countries albeit with some variation in dialects. In Azerbayjan, Turkish most close to that of the language spoken in Turkey is spoken. In Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Khazakistan Turkish dialects are spoken. I would therefore estimate closer to 150-200 million people speak Turkish.

Suzanne Nuri
Turkish is my mother tongue though it is more of a Turkish Cypriot dialect. People from Turkey can be a bit snobby in their attitude towards Turkish Cypriot language and pronunciation but it is considered a more pure form of Turkish, more Ottoman than that of the mainland. I am immensely proud that I can speak another language and am very proud of my heritage. However, I'm also very proud to be a Londoner born and bred and like the fact I can speak such a universal language as English. A pet hate is bad spelling! I have two daughters who were born here in London too and they also know Turkish. My husband is from Cyprus originally. I also worked at the London Turkish Gazette as English Pages editor for 9 years and this improved my Turkish language considerably. I have noticed that Turkish Cypriots from North Cyprus now speak with Turkish accents while London Turkish Cypriots retain the accents of their parents/grandparents. Nevertheless, we are very proud of our roots, just as much as we are of living in one of the world's greatest cities.