Western Thrace Meriç (Evros) Region Turkish Dialect (Sound and form information-texts-vocabulary)

The fact that people of Turkish origin who settled in different geographies throughout history continued to use the Turkish language has led to the emergence of dialect studies worth examining in this field. The fact that no known dialect study has been conducted in the Meriç (Evros) Region before has led us to write this thesis. Previous studies on the Komotini and Xanthi regions of Western Thrace guided us in the preparation of this thesis. In line with the data obtained, it was seen that the Meriç Dialect has similarities and differences with the Komotini and Xanthi Dialects. The study consists of four main sections. The introduction section includes information on the geographical location of Western Thrace, basic information about the Meriç (Evros) Region, the history of Western Thrace, Western Thrace Turks, and Western Thrace Region Dialect Studies. These sections were created by reviewing various studies on the region. The introduction is followed by phonology and morphology. This section was developed by examining the phonology and grammatical structures of the words in the texts. This section was created using data obtained from audio recordings selected from areas with a large Turkish population in the Meriç Region. When transferring the sounds to the computer, we used the transcription letters we created for the region. The final section of the study is the dictionary. It is crucial that the words obtained have survived to the present day, fully preserving the characteristics of the local dialect and presenting slices of the region's cultural life. With this study, the studies on the Turkish dialects in the Meriç (Evros) Region and Greece, which is the last unstudied part of the Western Thrace Region, will be completed. The materials we obtained for the region research can be used as resources for future research in literature, history or other disciplines. We believe that the research to be conducted on the obtained data will contribute to science by serving as a resource for both Turkish Language History and other disciplines. Keywords: Meriç/ Evros/ Dialect studies/ Turkish Language/ Western Thrace.