File talk:Idioma turco.png

Colors and factual accuracy tag

It looks to me like dark blue is: "Native and official language," while light blue is "native or official language." So Turkish being official in the Republic of Cyprus, the coloring of southern Cyprus would seem to be accurate, though we need to instate a key.

However I have to question the light blue in Kurdish areas Pretty much every Kurd I've met in Turkey between the age of 5 and 50 speaks fluent Turkish, thanks to the Turkish education system, so even if it's not a "native language" in that most Kurds in Kurdish areas are taught Kurdish from birth and Turkish only from kindergarten, as a practical matter, most Turkish Kurds are fully bilingual.

In fact Turkish Kurdistan seems to be undergoing the process of language shift and nowadays, it seems like there's far more Kurds who are monolingual Turkish speakers (every Kurd I've met from a non-Kurdish-majority area under the age of 30) than monolingual Kurdish speakers (I haven't met any, though some much older Kurds supposedly have poor Turkish skills, particularly in the rural east). Even in areas which have significant Kurdish minorities, if Kurds aren't the majority Kurdish parents tend not to teach their children much Kurdish because they believe it will deprive their children of economic opportunities and/or don't want their children to be labeled Kurds (even though these children seem quite happy to identify as Kurdish despite not speaking the language).

While Turkish Kurdistan isn't quite at the level of Wales where the native language is a minority in its historic range, it seems to be rapidly heading that way. My point being, Turkish Kurdistan probably still does have a majority of native Kurdish speakers, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also have a majority of native Turkish speakers nowadays. —Quintucket (talk) 17:14, 6 December 2013 (UTC)