Turkish Wikipedia: The Russian of the Turkic world?
Turkish Wikipedia is, as of 20 September 2022, the largest Wikipedia written in a Turkic language. Featuring nearly 520,000 articles and nearly 2,800 active users per month, Turkish Wikipedia is by far the largest Wikipedia written in a Turkic language, both in terms of quantity, quality and activity.
Turkish Wikipedia had always a good role to show in the Turkic countries, especially in Azerbaijan, where Azerbaijani, an Oghuz language with huge similarity to Turkish, is spoken, and where the pageviews are in the spectrum of 2 to 3,5 million pageviews, although with growth trends. Turkish Wikipedia has a fairly good amount of users, around to 3,000 in a summer month, and nearing or even surpassing 4,000 in a winter month.
Generally, in a month, Turkish earns around to 115 million pageviews (in summer), that in winter can reach up to 150 million, mostly from Turkey, but also from a diverse amount of other countries where Turkic languages are spoken, or Turks live there (e.g. Azerbaijan, Germany, Turkmenistan). In 29 April 2017 Turkish was blocked in Turkey while in 289,000 articles, accused for claiming that Turkey supports ISIS. The block was lifted in 15 January 2020, with Turkish stabilising in 3,500 users approximately, after a boom where it touched 5,000 active users.[1] During the block, Turks using proxies, users from other countries, most notably Azerbaijan, also helped Turkish Wikipedia grow.
Turkish Wikipedia has recorded notable growth in pageviews in other countries than Turkey since January 2020. From 110 thousand pageviews in Iran[2] (where various Oghuz people live, including Azerbaijanis, Turkmens, Khorasanis, Qashqais) in January 2020, in 2022 Turkish even touches 347 thousand pageviews (in March)[3]. Turkmenistan has given 157 thousand pageviews in Turkish for March 2022[4], but only 62 thousand in March 2020. In Cyprus, where English is the most popular Wikipedia and Greek is the second, Turkish has done a great growth since 2020.
Turkish has a recorded a notable growth in many countries with Turkish communities or Turkic peoples since the block, reaching levels not seen before 2020 or even 2017. Can Turkish become a notable Wikipedia in the Turkic world?
An introduction: Pageviews of Turkish Wikipedia in selected countries[edit]
This diagram shows the pageviews of Turkish Wikipedia in certain countries around Turkey, in order to show its strong growth in pageviews and outreach since the 2020 unblock. The countries shown below were selected are grouped for the reason selected:
- Countries where an Oghuz language, very similar to Turkish, is spoken: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan (main languages), Moldova (where Gagauz, with good similarities to Turkish, is spoken. Most Gagauzes nevertheless use Russian or Romanian).
- Countries where there are Turkish/Oghuz-speaking minorities: Iran (where 10 to 20 millions of Azerbaijanis, Turkmens, Qashqais, Khorasani Turks live), Iraq (home to around 3 million Turkish-speaking Turkmens), Bulgaria (around 600,000 people), Cyprus (in the north of the island).
- Countries where there are Turkish diaspora communities (Germany).
In this diagrams we will record the pageviews of Turkish Wikipedia in the selected countries from January 2020 to August 2022. We will model how this pace can continue in the future, the prospects of Turkish Wikipedia in the future in this countries, and how its potential on those areas can grow furthermore.
Although Azerbaijani, Iranian and Turkmenistani users and IPs edit Turkish (maybe and Gagauz in a much smaller scale), we don't see many users from there, mostly because the readers use it as an alternative source because their native languages has a good similarity to Turkish.
In Bulgaria, Germany, Iraq, Cyprus, where the readers of Turkish Wikipedia are mostly Turks who speak Istanbul Turkish rather than other Oghuz-speaking peoples, prospects are greater, as Turkish minority people are educated in Turkish.
We see here that in 2020 there was strong growth everywhere, except Germany. Although we can attribute a fairly good amount of the growth to the Covid lockdowns, this is not necessarily the case; Turkish grew to 383,000 articles in 31 December 2020 from 337,000 in 1 January 2020 and quality improved, and the improved quality and quantity resulted in its absorption from the readership of Turkish Wikipedia.
| Country | Pageviews per country | Change | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azerbaijan | 1,911,000 | 1,820,000 | 2,066,000 | 2,778,000 | 2,357,000 | 1,857,000 | 2,194,000 | 2,082,000 | 1,864,000 | 1,598,000 | 2,140,000 | 3,115,000 |  Upward
|
| Iran | 110,000 | 105,000 | 147,000 | 169,000 | 140,000 | 126,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 141,000 | 161,000 | 165,000 | 178,000 | Upward
|
| Turkmenistan | 61,000 | 59,000 | 62,000 | 71,000 | 68,000 | 57,000 | 68,000 | 72,000 | 65,000 | 79,000 | 70,000 | 72,000 | Template:Αύξηση Upward |
 Germany
|
12,202,000 | 10,305,000 | 11,059,000 | 10,099,000 | 3,742,000 | 3,019,000 | 2,371,000 | 2,392,000 | 2,452,000 | 3,175,000 | 3,182,000 | 3,290,000 |  Downward
|
| Moldova | 11,000 | 8,000 | 9,000 | 10,000 | 8,000 | 7,000 | 9,000 | 6,000 | 7,000 | 11,000 | 10,000 | 13,000 | Upward
|
| Iraq | 69,000 | 67,000 | 80,000 | 87,000 | 70,000 | 74,000 | 78,000 | 75,000 | 74,000 | 81,000 | 79,000 | 88,000 | Upward
|
| Cyprus | 39,000 | 47,000 | 96,000 | 62,000 | 59,000 | 61,000 | 63,000 | 60,000 | 62,000 | 70,000 | 65,000 | 62,000 | Upward
|
| Bulgaria | 196,000 | 168,000 | 200,000 | 208,000 | 194,000 | 160,000 | 164,000 | 177,000 | 162,000 | 174,000 | 185,000 | 216,000 |  steady to upward
|
References[edit]
- ↑ "User statistics - Wikiscan". tr.wikiscan.org. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
- ↑ "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
- ↑ "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2022-09-20.
- ↑ "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2022-09-20.