A sociolinguistic study on the language situation of Gagauz people

In this study, the causes of endangered languages and the sociolinguistic concepts related to this subject are explained in terms of Gagauz language which is one of the endangered Turkic languages. The evaluations of current situation of Gagauz language are based on information that are obtained from field work in Komrat and Avdarma village and the other studies. Gagauz people are a community that have migrated many times on the score of wars and political reasons and had to live under the domination of different nations. The geographical separations and changes which are brought about by migration had a profound impact on their language and culture. Because of those impacts Gagauz people eventually became a multilingual community. Under the influence of dominant languages and cultures, today Gagauz Language categorized as one of the endangered languages among Turkic language family. Gagauz people mostly live in Ukraine and Romania, and especially in Moldova. There also Gagauz language speakers appear in Greece, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Macedonia. In the first part of the study, the history, language and language related devolopments of the Gagauz people were emphasized in order to evaluate language weakening process from past to present. In the second part, sociolinguistic concepts such as language choice, language shift, language death are stated by examining the danger of a language and these concepts are explained in detail with examples. In the last and main part of the research, the reasons for endangerment of Gagauz language are mentioned. The situations in which Gagauz people perform language choice, domains and the current state of the language were discussed based on the interviews and observations which are obtained during the field research conducted in Comrat, the capital of the Gagauz Autonomous Region.