For the first time, the international community is marking World Turkic Languages Day on December 15.
According to Report, the corresponding decision was adopted at the UNESCO General Conference held in Samarkand in November.
The choice of the date is symbolic and deeply meaningful, as on December 15, 1983, Danish linguist Wilhelm Thomsen announced the successful decipherment of the alphabet of the Orkhon inscriptions, one of the oldest known written sources. The inscriptions were created by the ancient Turkic peoples in the 8th century AD in the Orkhon Valley, on the territory of present-day Mongolia, and were discovered in 1889.
Thomsen"s achievement provided invaluable insight into a linguistic tradition that today connects dozens of communities across Eurasia.
Languages belonging to the Turkic language family-such as Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkish, Turkmen, and Uzbek-are native to more than 200 million people across an area of about 12 million square kilometers. A rich documentary heritage in Turkic languages, along with vibrant oral traditions, is shared by more than ten countries.
The initiative to mark World Turkic Languages Day was put forward by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, and Uzbekistan, and was supported by 21 countries.