The article deals with the history and the development of the Turkic languages from
the first traces of Turkic until today. It provides the reader with an overview about the
languages of the Modern Turkic, the Middle Turkic and the Ancient Turkic periods.
Furthermore, the article gives basic informations about the different cultures of the
speakers of these languages. The reader is taken through the history of those groups
which are suspected to have played a role during the formation of Turkic, and of groups
which really spoke or speak a Turkic language. The part about Turkic language history
also includes the treatment of Turkic-Mongolic language contacts. Both languagefamilies
have influenced each other to such a degree that they became more and more
similar to each other through the curse of time. This seems more probable than a genetic
relationship between the two language families which is a central postulate of the Altaic
Hypothesi
