The Turkmen Language Survival in the City of Erbil: A Sociolinguistic Study

The main aim of the current study is to shed light on the current status of the Turkmen language in the city of Erbil. The main research questions for the current study are: Is the Turkmen language in any danger of extinction in Erbil? Does the Kurdistan Regional Government have any role in surviving the Turkmen language as an ethnic minority language in Erbil? The Turkmen language in Erbil is believed to be safe from extinction as Turkmen people use it in daily life without facing political or social issues. In order to obtain data, an open-ended survey is used involving 60 Turkmen teachers and instructors at Turkmen Atabag primary and secondary school for girls, Fuzuli primary and secondary coeducational school, Oghuzkhan primary and secondary school for boys, Gharibi high school for girls, Imaddadin high school for boys, and the Turkish Department at Salahaddin University/ College of Languages. For analysing the achieved data, the researcher used a mixed methods research approach, encompassing both quantitative and qualitative methods. The researcher follows the work of Mühlhäusler (1992) as an adopted model. The current study concludes that the Turkmen language is not in any danger at all in the city of Erbil. Moreover, the Kurdistan Regional Government plays a great role in surviving the Turkmen language in the city of Erbil.