Socio-linguistic situation
Turkish
The most spoken language in Turkey is, of course, Turkish. Around 90% (72 mln) of the population speaks it as their mother tongue.
Example of spoken Turkish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB4e8Iv-DfM
This is an episode of the youtube program Sokak Röportajları (Street Interviews).
(Something that may interest Vijay: the first respondent is a Roma woman. She refers to her people as "Roman").
Kurdish
Around 10% (8 mln) of the population of Turkey speaks Kurmanji Kurdish.
The city where Kurdish is the most spoken is Istanbul. There are about 1.5 mln Kurds in Istanbul. It's possible to hear Kurdish in any district of Istanbul, but in some districts, such as Bağcılar, Şirinevler, Yenibosna, Kurds live side by side and you can hear Kurdish all the time there.
The second city where Kurdish is the most spoken is Diyarbakır in the east of Turkey. Out of approximately 1 mln of its population, 75% is Kurdish speaking.
An interesting fact: Syrian Kurds and Turkish Kurds understand each other very well when they speak Kurdish, so Syrian Kurdish migrants may prefer to settle down in Kurdish speaking areas of Turkey (including Istanbul), where they can integrate easier.
Example of spoken Kurdish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEg2de5slSE
This is an episode of the travel show Rêwî (Traveller) produced by the state channel TRT Kurdî. This particular episode takes place in Hazro, a district of Diyarbakır province.
Arabic
There are two kinds of Arabic spoken in Turkey.
- The first kind is Arabic spoken by recent migrants from Syria. There are more than 3 mln Syrians in Turkey. 0.5 mln of Syrians live in Istanbul. Just like with Kurdish, in some districts Syrians live side by side, so it's very common to hear Arabic and see signs in Arabic there.
- The second kind is spoken by indigenous Arab communities in the south provinces of Turkey, with the total number of about 1 mln people. The dialects spoken there are Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects.
Example of spoken Syrian Arabic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wydNuLxFtZY
This is the first episode of the Syrian series بقعة ضوء (Spot Light).
Mutual intelligibility between Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic
Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic belong to 3 different language families (Turkic, Indo-European and Semitic respectively) so, despite sharing a common layer of Arabic loans, there is absolutely no mutual intelligibility between them. They are no more similar than English, Hungarian and Basque.
(This note is obvious for language enthusiasts; still, I often get asked by people if these 3 languages are similar, so I decided to mention it here).