Turkish dialects

There is considerable dialectal variation in Turkish. Turkish is a member of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. Turkish is natively and historically spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), Kosovo, Meskhetia, North Macedonia, Romania, Iraq, Syria and other areas of traditional settlement which formerly, in whole or part, belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Turkish is the official language of Turkey, the de facto country of North Cyprus and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. It also has official (but not primary) status in the Prizren District of Kosovo and several municipalities of North Macedonia, depending on the concentration of Turkish-speaking local population. Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul. Nonetheless, dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and the Turkish education system since the 1930s. The terms ağız or şive are often used to refer to the different types of Turkish dialects (such as Cypriot Turkish).