LOAN WORDS IN TEKIRDAG CENTRAL DISTRICT DIALECT

The region called East Thrace is in the northwest of Turkey. There are five cities in this region: Edirne, Kırklareli, Tekirdağ, Istanbul (European side) and Çanakkale (Only Gelibolu region). The east branch of Rumelia dialect is spoken in the cities, which are in this region. Generally, in East Trace, “Gacals”, “immigrants from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia (former)”, “Tatars”, “Pomaks”, “Dağlılar” (Mountaineers), “Yörüks”, “Gypsies” live and speak a kind of Turkish dialect. Tekirdağ is in the southeast part of East Thrace and it is most populous city (except Istanbul) in this region. In Tekirdağ dialect, there are several loan words from Arabian, Persian, English, French, German, Latin, Romaic, Italian, Bulgarian etc. These loan words have some phonetic differences in Tekirdağ dialect. This paper aims to search these phonetic differences and etymology of these loan words.

Keywords

Tekirdağ central district dialect, loan words, phonetics, language contact, East Thrace