Turkic languages are a group of closely related languages that are used by a variety of people distributed in a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China.
Though various different Turkic tribes and their languages have mixed with each other throughout centuries, making a classification extremely difficult, a very simplified classification could be as follows:
- Southwestern languages: Oghuz group [[[Turkey]], Cyprus, Balkans, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan) and Khorasan group (Iran)]
- Northwestern languages: Kipchak group [[[Kazakhstan]], Kyrgyzstan, Caucasus, Crimea, Russia]
- Eastern languages: Uighur-Chagatai group [[[Uzbekistan]], Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China]
- Northern languages: Siberian group (mainly used by Yakut Turks living in Siberia)
Various elements have passed to Turkic languages especially from Chinese, Persian and Arabic languages and various elements from Turkic languages have been carried as far as Southeastern Asia, Northernmost territories of Russia and even Northern America.