Turkish is the principal language of the Republic of Turkey. It is a member along with the related languages of Iranian and Soviet Azerbaijan and of various areas within the Soviet Union mainly in Asia of the Turkic group of the Altaic branch of the Uralic-Altaic language family. This Altaic branch also includes many other languages mainly those grouped under the headings 'Mongol' and 'Manchu'. The Turkic languages are remarkably similar in structure and even in vocabulary at least as closely related to one another as say the Romance group of Indo-European languages. The population of the Republic of Turkey is about 30000000 of whom the great majority are native speakers of Turkish making Turkish by a considerable margin the largest language of the Turkic family. Among the remainder of the population of Turkey--native speakers of Kurdish Laz Circassian Arabic Greek Armenian Syriac and other languages--the great majority at least of the men have some acquaintance with Turkish. Thus this language will serve the student for communication in all parts of Turkey save the most isolated Kurdish village. In addition substantial numbers of Turkish speakers are to be found in parts of Syria Lebanon Greece and Cyprus. Turkish can serve the student also as an introduction to the Turkic language family and provide him with a basis for establishing communication with Asian Turkic speakers as far east as Sinkiang Province in China and as far west as the Tatar regions on the Volga. Turkish Basic Course Units 1-30 may be described as an introduction to spoken Turkish in that it includes the major patterns of simple sentences and a vocabulary of about 475 high frequency items. It is the first of a projected three-volume series. The subsequent volumes will complete the basic conversation course in approximately 60 units and will present graded reading selections as well as advanced exposition and conversation exercises.