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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization adopted a resolution Monday establishing Dec. 15 as World Turkic Language Family Day, a decision Türkiye's Foreign Ministry hailed as a milestone for linguistic preservation across the Turkic world.
The resolution passed during UNESCO's 43rd General Conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, marking the first international recognition of a day dedicated to the Turkic language family. Türkiye jointly drafted the measure with other Turkic states.
"This resolution, drafted by Türkiye and our brotherly and sisterly Turkic states, will further enhance collective efforts aimed at preserving the Turkic language – the common heritage of the Turkic world – and passing it on to future generations," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Turkish officials emphasized the symbolic significance of adopting the resolution in Samarkand, calling the Uzbek city "one of the ancient cities of the Turkic world."
The date commemorates a pivotal moment in linguistic history. On Dec. 15, 1893, Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen announced his decipherment of the Orkhon Inscriptions, ancient stone monuments discovered four years earlier in Mongolia's Orkhon Valley. His work proved the eighth-century carvings represented the earliest known written records of the Turkic language.
The Göktürks, a nomadic confederation that controlled vast territories across Central Asia, carved the inscriptions into two memorial steles. The monuments have served as foundational texts for understanding the development of Turkic languages, which today span from Türkiye westward through Central Asia to parts of Siberia.
The Foreign Ministry extended congratulations "to the Turkic world and to our friends who speak and learn Turkish" in its statement marking the designation.
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