The Modern Turkish Dialects and Literatures Department was founded in 2012. The department started its educational life in 2013 when it admitted 41 daytime education students.

It serves with 2 professors, 1 associate professor, 5 doctor lecturer  and 3 research assistants. 

The students and the lecturers of the department have been in cooperation with many countries, making exchanges under the scope of Erasmus and Farabi Programs.

Double major and minor programs are applied at our department. The second bachelor’s degree and minor program certificate are granted to the students from other departments through double major program and minor program respectively. Also our students have the right to take the second bachelor’s degree and minor program certificate from other departments.

The students who manage to graduate from the department by passing all the compulsory and elective courses are titled as the philologists of Modern Turkish Dialects and Literatures, and they may work as a teacher at private schools and at private teaching institutions. If they get pedagogical formation education, they may also work at schools of the Ministry of National Education.

Modern Turkish Dialects and Literatures Bachelor's Degree is given to the students who have completed the program successfully.

Students have to have a high school diploma or an equivalent school diploma and get enough point in the related field in the examination held by the Student Selection and Placement Center in order to be admitted to the program.

The students studying at Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University may be exempt from some courses in accordance with the Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University Rules and Regulations on Education and Exam Procedures in Associate and Bachelor’s Degree Programs. To be exempt from courses, students have to make an application within the periods specified, and obtain approval from the board of directors of the concerned school/faculty/institute.

Graduation from the program requires completing all the courses designated within the curriculum of the program– having a total of 240 ECTS credits – with passing grades, and achieving a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of at least 2.00 out of 4.00.

The graduates of the program may continue with graduate education provided that they fulfill the requirements set forth in the Regulations on Graduate Education.

In Niğde University, exams are conducted pursuant to the Niğde University Rules and Regulations on Education and Exam Procedures in Associate and Bachelor’s Degree Programs in accordance with student workload in the Bologna process.

Scientific studies are intensively conducted at our department.

The field of the Modern Turkish language is very large (approximately eleven million square kilometers from the Balkans to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Ocean to Tibet). Turkish language has both changed and been divided into branches and dialects, as have all languages, due to the changes arising from its own nature in the course of time and some external factors including geography, relations with different socio-cultural backgrounds, etc. It is quite difficult to say that the degree of dialect differences was important in the language history before the 20th century. However, it is not the case today. In the 20th century, Turkish language was exposed to conscious external language plans. One of the external factors causing the ratio of understandability between Turkish dialects to fall in the 20th century was the Soviet-period central language planning efforts and the local practices within the scope of that language planning, which could be described as attempts aimed at turning the dialects of general Turkish language to a “language” at their own right. On the other hand, the fact that Russian was spoken and written (used) in all socio-cultural and economic situations and all institutions formally and informally as a meta-language caused speakers of various dialects of Turkish language in the Soviet region to face the risk of losing their mother tongues. In addition, the restricted use of the mother tongues hindered the natural development of the Turkish dialects. The disappearance of the interaction between different dialects caused differences between the Turkish dialects to be sharp. The establishment of communication through Russian alone prevented different dialect group members from noticing the properties involving dialect differences. At the present time, a great majority of the Turkish dialects are used in the statuses of state language, written language, literary language, etc. The Turkish dialects bearing the same names as some republics, independent republics and/or autonomous republics are used in the above-mentioned statuses in such countries (e.g. the republics of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kirgizstan; and the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Dagestan, Tyva, Sakha (Yakutia), Altai, and Khakassiawithin the body of the Russian Federation). The language usage levels of the Uyghur Turks living in the Eastern Turkistan region of People’s Republic of China in particular and having “minority status” are similar to the usage of the Turkish dialects in the Soviet period.