It is nutritionally rich in protein, calcium, riboflavin, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12.

Etymology and spelling

The word is derived from Turkish yoğurt, and is related to yoğurmak 'to knead' and yoğun 'dense' or 'thick'.. The letter ğ was traditionally rendered as "gh" in transliterations of Turkish, which used to be written in a variant of the Arabic alphabet until the introduction of the Latin alphabet in 1928. In older Turkish the letter denoted a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, but this sound is elided between back vowels in modern Turkish, in which the word is . Some eastern dialects retain the consonant in this position, and Turks in the Balkans pronounce the word with a hard /ɡ/.

In English^{citation needed}, there are several variations of the spelling of the word. In the United States, yogurt is the usual spelling and yoghurt a minor variant. In the United Kingdom yoghurt and yogurt are both current, yoghurt being more common, and yoghourt is an uncommon alternative. Canada uses yogourt; in Australia and New Zealand yoghurt prevails."yoghurt n." The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd edition. Ed. Bruce Moore. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Accessed on 2007-05-24."yoghurt n." The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary. Tony Deverson. Oxford University Press 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Accessed on 2007-05-24.

Whatever the spelling, the word is usually pronounced with a short o ( ) in the UK, with a long o (/ˈjoʊɡɚt/) in North America, Ireland, Australia and South Africa, and with a long or short o in New Zealand.

Usually, yoghurt is a mass noun, although countable senses exist (e.g., “I bought three yoghurts”, meaning three servings of yoghurt).

History

There is evidence of cultured milk products being produced as food for at least 4,500 years. The earliest yoghurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria Lactobacillus bulgaricus.Fact: date=April 2009

The use of yoghurt by mediaeval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the eleventh century. In both texts the word "yoghurt" is mentioned in different sections and its use by nomadic Turks is described. The first account of a European encounter with yoghurt occurs in French clinical history: Francis I suffered from a severe diarrhea which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a doctor, who allegedly cured the patient with yoghurt. Being grateful, the French king spread around the information about the food which had cured him.