Oghuz
Geographic distribution	Turkish Group   Azerbaijani Group   Turkmen Group   Others
Linguistic classification	Turkic Oghuz
Subdivisions	Turkish Group Azerbaijani Group Turkmen Group

The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 90 million people in an area spanning from the Balkans to China.

Linguistic Features

The Oghuz languages share a number of features that have led linguists to classify them together. Some of these features are shared with other Turkic languages; others are unique to the Oghuz family.

Shared features

• Loss of initial *h sound (preserved only in Khalaj)
• Loss of the instrumental case (preserved only in Sakha and Khalaj)

Unique features

• Voicing of stops before front vowels (e.g. gör- < kör- "to see")
• Loss of q/ɣ after ɨ/u (e.g. quru < quruq "dry", sarɨ < sarɨɣ "yellow")

Classification

The Oghuz languages may be broken down into three main groups, based on geography and shared features:

• Turkish, including Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Gagauz, and the language of the Meskhetian Turks
• Azerbaijani, including the northern and southern varieties of Azerbaijani, the languages of the so-called "Turcoman" of Iran and Iraq, Qashqa'i, and Afshar
• Turkmen, including Turkmen, Khorasani Turkish, and the Oghuz dialect of Uzbek

An outlying language, Salar, is spoken by about 70,000 people in China.

Two languages, Crimean Tatar and Urum are historically Kipchak languages, but have been so heavily influenced by Oghuz languages that it is difficult to classify them definitively as either Oghuz or Kipchak.

The extinct Pecheneg language is probably Oghuz, but as it is poorly documented, it is difficult to further classify it within the Oghuz family.