Turkish language

This article is about the Turkish language. For the language family it belongs to, see Turkic languages.

Turkish
Türkçe (noun, adverb) Türk dili (noun)
Pronunciation	Türkçe [ˈtyɾctʃe] Türk dili [ˈtyɾc ˈdili]
Native to	Turkey (official) Northern Cyprus (official) Cyprus (official) Azerbaijan Iraq Syria Lebanon Iran Greece Bulgaria Romania Kosovo North Macedonia Bosnia and Herzegovina
Region	Anatolia Balkans Cyprus Mesopotamia Levant Transcaucasia
Ethnicity	Turks
Speakers	L1: 84 million (2006) L2: 6.0 million (2019) Total: 90 million
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Oghuz Western Turkish
Early forms	Old Anatolian Turkish Ottoman Turkish
Standard forms	Istanbul Turkish
Dialects	Cypriot Turkish Iraqi Turkmen Karamanli Turkish Meskhetian Turkish Rumelian Turkish Syrian Turkish
Writing system	Latin (Turkish alphabet) Turkish Braille
Official status
Official language in	Cyprus Northern Cyprus Turkey
Recognised minority language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Greece Iraq Kosovo North Macedonia Romania
Regulated by	Turkish Language Association
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tr
ISO 639-2	tur
ISO 639-3	tur
Glottolog	nucl1301
Linguasphere	part of 44-AAB-a
Countries where Turkish is an official language   Countries where Turkish is recognised as a minority language   Countries where Turkish is recognised as a minority language and co-official in at least one municipality

Turkish (Türkçe [ˈtyɾctʃe] , Türk dili; also known as Türkiye Türkçesi 'Turkish of Turkey') is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languages of Cyprus. Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Greece, other parts of Europe, the South Caucasus, and some parts of Central Asia, Iraq, and Syria. Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world.

To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish—the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire—spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. In 1928, as one of Atatürk's reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Perso-Arabic script-based Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with the Latin script-based Turkish alphabet.

Some distinctive characteristics of the Turkish language are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination. The basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no noun classes or grammatical gender. The language makes usage of honorifics and has a strong T–V distinction which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a single person out of respect.

Classification

Main article: Turkic languages

Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of the Turkic family. Other members include Azerbaijani, spoken in Azerbaijan and north-west Iran, Gagauz of Gagauzia, Qashqai of south Iran and the Turkmen of Turkmenistan.

Historically the Turkic family was seen as a branch of the larger Altaic family, including Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and Tungusic, with various other language families proposed for inclusion by linguists.

Altaic theory has fallen out of favour since the 1960s, and a majority of linguists now consider Turkic languages to be unrelated to any other language family, though the Altaic hypothesis still has a small degree of support from individual linguists. The nineteenth-century Ural-Altaic theory, which grouped Turkish with Finnish, Hungarian and Altaic languages, is considered even less plausible in light of Altaic's rejection. The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features: agglutination, vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender.

History

See also: Turkish people and Turkic peoples § History

The 9th-century Irk Bitig or "Book of Divination"

The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia. Erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the Second Turkic Khaganate (dated 682–744 CE). After the discovery and excavation of these monuments and associated stone slabs by Russian archaeologists in the wider area surrounding the Orkhon Valley between 1889 and 1893, it became established that the language on the inscriptions was the Old Turkic language written using the Old Turkic alphabet, which has also been referred to as "Turkic runes" or "runiform" due to a superficial similarity to the Germanic runic alphabets.

With the Turkic expansion during Early Middle Ages (c. 6th–11th centuries), peoples speaking Turkic languages spread across Central Asia, covering a vast geographical region stretching from Siberia all the way to Europe and the Mediterranean. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, Oghuz—the direct ancestor of today's Turkish language—into Anatolia during the 11th century. Also during the 11th century, an early linguist of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from the Kara-Khanid Khanate, published the first comprehensive Turkic language dictionary and map of the geographical distribution of Turkic speakers in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk (ديوان لغات الترك).

Ottoman Turkish

The 15th century Book of Dede Korkut

Main article: Ottoman Turkish

See also: Old Anatolian Turkish

Following the adoption of Islam around the year 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks, who are both regarded as the ethnic and cultural ancestors of the Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire period (c. 1299–1922) is termed Ottoman Turkish, which was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably and was largely unintelligible to the period's everyday Turkish. The everyday Turkish, known as kaba Türkçe or "vulgar Turkish", spoken by the less-educated lower and also rural members of society, contained a higher percentage of native vocabulary and served as basis for the modern Turkish language.

While visiting the region between Adıyaman and Adana, Evliya Çelebi recorded the "Turkman language" and compared it with his own Turkish:

Comparison of 17th-century Southern Anatolian Turkman, 17th-century elite, and modern standard Turkish dialects
Turkman language	Ottoman Turkish	Modern Turkish	English	Turkman language	Ottoman Turkish	Modern Turkish	English
yalvaç	peygamber	peygamber	prophet	fakı	imâm	imam	imam
yüce Çalap	Âli Allah	yüce Allah	mighty God	eyne	câmi'	cami	mosque
mezgit	mescid	mescit	mosque	gümeç, lavâşa, pişi	ekmek	ekmek, lavaş, pişi	bread, lavash, boortsog
kekremsi	şarâb	şarap	wine	Kancarıdaydın?	Nerede idin?	Neredeydin?	Where were you?
Kancarı yılıgan be?	Nereye gidersin bire?	Nereye gidersin bre?	Where are you going?	Muhıdı geyen mi?	Ferâce giyermisin?	Ferace giyer misin?	Will you wear ferace?
Bargım yavıncıdı.	Karnım ağrıdı.	Karnım ağrıdı.	My stomach hurt.	şarıkdı	şehirli oldu	Şehirli oldu.	He/She/It became urban.

Language reform and modern Turkish

Main article: Turkish language reform

See also: Turkish alphabet reform and Replacement of loanwords in Turkish

After the foundation of the modern state of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. In 1935, the TDK published a bilingual Ottoman-Turkish/Pure Turkish dictionary that documents the results of the language reform.

Owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, the younger generations favor new expressions. It is considered particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used the formal style of Ottoman Turkish that had been common at the time amongst statesmen and the educated strata of society in the setting of formal speeches and documents. After the language reform, the Turkish education system discontinued the teaching of literary form of Ottoman Turkish and the speaking and writing ability of society atrophied to the point that, in later years, Turkish society would perceive the speech to be so alien to listeners that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995.

The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance. However, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, "political party"—also failed to meet with popular approval (fırka has been replaced by the French loanword parti). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for example betik (originally meaning "book") is now used to mean "script" in computer science.

Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are:

Ottoman Turkish	Modern Turkish	English translation	Comments
مثلث (müselles)	üçgen	triangle	Compound of the noun üç ("three") and the suffix -gen
طیاره (tayyare)	uçak	aeroplane	Derived from the verb uçmak ("to fly"). The word was first proposed to mean "airport".
نسبت (nispet)	oran	ratio	The old word is still used in the language today together with the new one. The modern word is from the Old Turkic verb or- ("to cut").
شمال (şimal)	kuzey	north	Derived from the Old Turkic noun kuz ("cold and dark place", "shadow"). The word is restored from Middle Turkic usage.
تشرینِ اول (teşrinievvel)	ekim	October	The noun ekim means "sowing", referring to the planting of cereal seeds in autumn, which is widespread in Turkey

For a more comprehensive list, see List of replaced loanwords in Turkish.

Geographic distribution

See also: Turkish diaspora

  Majority of Turkish speakers in Asia and Europe

  Minority of Turkish speakers in Asia and Europe

note: the map is not completely accurate, only concentrated in the Anatolia and Cyprus regions.

Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. The Turkish language is mutually intelligible with Azerbaijani. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Iraq, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), the Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. More than two million Turkish speakers live in Germany; and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic members of the diaspora speak the language with native fluency.

An advertisement by the IKEA branch in Berlin written in the German and Turkish languages.

In 2005, 93% of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish, about 67 million at the time, with Kurdish languages making up most of the remainder.

Azerbaijani language, official in Azerbaijan, is mutually intelligible with Turkish and speakers of both languages can understand them without noticeable difficulty, especially when discussion comes on ordinary, daily language. Turkey has very good relations with Azerbaijan, with a multitude of Turkish companies and authorities investing there, while the influence of Turkey in the country is very high. The rising presence of this very similar language in Azerbaijan and the fact that many children use Turkish words instead of Azerbaijani words due to satellite TV has caused concern that the distinctive features of the language will be eroded. Many bookstores sell books in Turkish language along Azerbaijani language ones, with Agalar Mahmadov, a leading intellectual, voicing his concern that Turkish language has "already started to take over the national and natural dialects of Azerbaijan". However, the presence of Turkish as foreign language is not as high as Russian. In Uzbekistan, the second most populated Turkic country, a new TV channel Foreign Languages TV was established in 2022. This channel has been broadcasting Turkish lessons along with English, French, German and Russian lessons.

Official status

Left: Bilingual sign, Turkish (top) and Arabic (bottom), at a Turkmen village in Kirkuk Governorate, Iraq.
Right: Road signs in Prizren, Kosovo. Official languages are: Albanian (top), Serbian (middle) and Turkish (bottom).

Turkish is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. Turkish has official status in 38 municipalities in Kosovo, including Mamusha,, two in the Republic of North Macedonia and in Kirkuk Governorate in Iraq. Cyprus has requested the European Union to add Turkish as an official language, as it is one of the two official languages of the country.

In Turkey, the regulatory body for Turkish is the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu or TDK), which was founded in 1932 under the name Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for Research on the Turkish Language"). The Turkish Language Association was influenced by the ideology of linguistic purism: indeed one of its primary tasks was the replacement of loanwords and of foreign grammatical constructions with equivalents of Turkish origin. These changes, together with the adoption of the new Turkish alphabet in 1928, shaped the modern Turkish language spoken today. The TDK became an independent body in 1951, with the lifting of the requirement that it should be presided over by the Minister of Education. This status continued until August 1983, when it was again made into a governmental body in the constitution of 1982, following the military coup d'état of 1980.

Dialects

Main article: Turkish dialects

Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul. This Istanbul Turkish (İstanbul Türkçesi) constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish, as recommended by Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfettin and others.

Dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and in the Turkish education system since the 1930s. Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as ağız or şive, leading to an ambiguity with the linguistic concept of accent, which is also covered with these words. Several universities, as well as a dedicated work-group of the Turkish Language Association, carry out projects investigating Turkish dialects. As of 2002 work continued on the compilation and publication of their research as a comprehensive dialect-atlas of the Turkish language. Although the Ottoman alphabet, being slightly more phonetically ambiguous than the Latin script, encoded for many of the dialectal variations between Turkish dialects, the modern Latin script fails to do this. Examples of this are the presence of the nasal velar sound [ŋ] in certain eastern dialects of Turkish which was represented by the Ottoman letter /ڭ/ but that was merged into /n/ in the Latin script. Additionally are letters such as /خ/, /ق/, /غ/ which make the sounds [ɣ], [q], and [x], respectively in certain eastern dialects but that are merged into [g], [k], and [h] in western dialects and are therefore defectively represented in the Latin alphabet for speakers of eastern dialects.

Map of the main subgroups of Turkish dialects across Southeast Europe and the Middle East.

Some immigrants to Turkey from Rumelia speak Rumelian Turkish, which includes the distinct dialects of Ludogorie, Dinler, and Adakale, which show the influence of the theorized Balkan sprachbund. Kıbrıs Türkçesi is the name for Cypriot Turkish and is spoken by the Turkish Cypriots. Edirne is the dialect of Edirne. Ege is spoken in the Aegean region, with its usage extending to Antalya. The nomadic Yörüks of the Mediterranean Region of Turkey also have their own dialect of Turkish. This group is not to be confused with the Yuruk nomads of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, who speak Balkan Gagauz Turkish.

The Meskhetian Turks who live in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia as well as in several Central Asian countries, also speak an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, originating in the areas of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin and sharing similarities with Azerbaijani, the language of Azerbaijan.

The Central Anatolia Region speaks Orta Anadolu. Karadeniz, spoken in the Eastern Black Sea Region and represented primarily by the Trabzon dialect, exhibits substratum influence from Greek in phonology and syntax; it is also known as Laz dialect (not to be confused with the Laz language). Kastamonu is spoken in Kastamonu and its surrounding areas. Karamanli Turkish is spoken in Greece, where it is called Kαραμανλήδικα. It is the literary standard for the Karamanlides.

Phonology

Main article: Turkish phonology

See Turkish alphabet for a pronunciation guide

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Standard Turkish

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ	(c)	k
	voiced	b	d	d͡ʒ	(ɟ)	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ			h
	voiced	v	z	ʒ
Approximant			(ɫ)	l	j	(ɰ)
Tap			ɾ

At least one source claims Turkish consonants are laryngeally-specified three-way fortis-lenis (aspirated/neutral/voiced) like Armenian, although only syllable-finally.

The phoneme that is usually referred to as yumuşak g ("soft g"), written ⟨ğ⟩ in Turkish orthography, represents a vowel sequence or a rather weak bilabial approximant between rounded vowels, a weak palatal approximant between unrounded front vowels, and a vowel sequence elsewhere. It never occurs at the beginning of a word or a syllable, but always follows a vowel. When word-final or preceding another consonant, it lengthens the preceding vowel.

In native Turkic words, the sounds [c], [ɟ], and [l] are mainly in complementary distribution with [k], [ɡ], and [ɫ]; the former set occurs adjacent to front vowels and the latter adjacent to back vowels. The distribution of these phonemes is often unpredictable, however, in foreign borrowings and proper nouns. In such words, [c], [ɟ], and [l] often occur with back vowels: some examples are given below. However, there are minimal pairs that distinguish between these sounds, such as kar [kɑɾ] "snow" vs kâr [cɑɾ] "profit".

Consonant devoicing

Main article: Final-obstruent devoicing

Turkish orthography reflects final-obstruent devoicing, a form of consonant mutation whereby a voiced obstruent, such as /b d dʒ ɡ/, is devoiced to [p t tʃ k] at the end of a word or before a consonant, but retains its voicing before a vowel. In loan words, the voiced equivalent of /k/ is /g/; in native words, it is /ğ/.

Obstruent devoicing in nouns

Underlying consonant	Devoiced form	Underlying form	Dictionary form	Dative case / 1sg present	Meaning
b	p	*kitab	kitap	kitaba	book (loan)
c	ç	*uc	uç	uca	tip
d	t	*bud	but	buda	thigh
g	k	*reng	renk	renge	color (loan)
ğ	k	*ekmeğ	ekmek	ekmeğe	bread

This is analogous to languages such as German and Russian, but in the case of Turkish it only applies, as the above examples demonstrate, to stops and affricates, not to fricatives. The spelling is usually made to match the sound. However, in a few cases, such as ad 'name' (dative ada), the underlying form is retained in the spelling (cf. at 'horse', dative ata). Other exceptions are od 'fire' vs. ot 'herb', sac 'sheet metal', saç 'hair'. Most loanwords, such as kitap above, are spelled as pronounced, but a few such as hac 'hajj', şad 'happy', and yad 'strange' or 'stranger' also show their underlying forms.

Native nouns of two or more syllables that end in /k/ in dictionary form are nearly all /ğ/ in underlying form. However, most verbs and monosyllabic nouns are underlyingly /k/.

Vowels

Vowels of Turkish.

The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, ⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨ı⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨ü⟩. The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being three-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by how and where they are articulated focusing on three key features: front and back, rounded and unrounded and vowel height. Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high].

The only diphthongs in the language are found in loanwords and may be categorised as falling diphthongs usually analyzed as a sequence of /j/ and a vowel.

Vowel harmony

Further information: Vowel harmony

Turkish Vowel Harmony	Front Vowels				Back Vowels
	Unrounded		Rounded		Unrounded		Rounded
Vowel	e /e/	i /i/	ü /y/	ö /ø/	a /a/	ı /ɯ/	u /u/	o /o/
Twofold (Backness)	e				a
Fourfold (Backness + Rounding)	i		ü		ı		u

Road sign at the European end of the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. (Photo taken during the 28th Istanbul Marathon in 2006)

The principle of vowel harmony, which permeates Turkish word-formation and suffixation, is due to the natural human tendency towards economy of muscular effort. This principle is expressed in Turkish through three rules:

1. If the first vowel of a word is a back vowel, any subsequent vowel is also a back vowel; if the first is a front vowel, any subsequent vowel is also a front vowel.
2. If the first vowel is unrounded, so too are subsequent vowels.
3. If the first vowel is rounded, subsequent vowels are either rounded and close or unrounded and open.

The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech. More specifically, they are related to the phenomenon of labial assimilation: if the lips are rounded (a process that requires muscular effort) for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels. If they are unrounded for the first vowel, the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently.

Grammatical affixes have "a chameleon-like quality", and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony:

• twofold (-e/-a): In his more recent works Lewis prefers to omit the superscripts, on the grounds that "there is no need for this once the principle has been grasped" (Lewis [2001]). the locative case suffix, for example, is -de after front vowels and -da after back vowels. The notation -de² is a convenient shorthand for this pattern.
• fourfold (-i/-ı/-ü/-u): the genitive case suffix, for example, is -in or -ın after unrounded vowels (front or back respectively); and -ün or -un after the corresponding rounded vowels. In this case, the shorthand notation -in⁴ is used.

Practically, the twofold pattern (also referred to as the e-type vowel harmony) means that in the environment where the vowel in the word stem is formed in the front of the mouth, the suffix will take the e-form, while if it is formed in the back it will take the a-form. The fourfold pattern (also called the i-type) accounts for rounding as well as for front/back. The following examples, based on the copula -dir⁴ ("[it] is"), illustrate the principles of i-type vowel harmony in practice: Türkiye'dir ("it is Turkey"), kapıdır ("it is the door"), but gündür ("it is the day"), paltodur ("it is the coat").

Exceptions to vowel harmony

These are four word-classes that are exceptions to the rules of vowel harmony:

1. Native, non-compound words, e.g. dahi "also", ela "light brown", elma "apple", hangi "which", hani "where", inanmak "to believe", kardeş "sibling", şişman "fat", anne "mother"
2. Native compound words, e.g. bugün "today", dedikodu "gossip", haydi "come on"
3. Foreign words, e.g. ferman (< Farsi فرماندهی "command"), mikrop (< French microbe "microbe"), piskopos (< Greek επίσκοπος "bishop")
4. Invariable suffixes: –daş (denoting common attachment to the concept expressed by the noun), –yor (denoting the present tense in the third person), –ane (turning adjectives or nouns into adverbs), –ken (meaning "while being"), –leyin (meaning "in/at/during"), –imtırak (weakening an adjective of color or taste in a way similar to the English suffix –ish as in blueish), –ki (making a pronoun or adjective out of an adverb or a noun in the locative case), –gil (meaning "the house or family of"), –gen (referring to the name of plane figures)

Invariable suffix	Turkish example	Meaning in English	Remarks
–daş	meslektaş	"colleague"	From meslek "profession."
–yor	geliyor	"he/she/it is coming"	From gel– "to come."
–ane	şahane	"regal"	From şah, "king."
–ken	uyurken	"while sleeping"	From uyu–, "to sleep."
–leyin	sabahleyin	"in the morning"	From sabah, "morning."
–imtırak	ekşimtırak	"sourish"	From ekşi, "sour."
–ki	ormandaki	"(that) in the forest"	From orman, "forest."
–gil	annemgiller	"my mother's family"	From annem, "my mother."
–gen	altıgen	"hexagon"	From altı, "six."

The road sign in the photograph above illustrates several of these features:

• a native compound which does not obey vowel harmony: Orta+köy ("middle village"—a place name)
• a loanword also violating vowel harmony: viyadük (< French viaduc "viaduct")
• the possessive suffix-i⁴ harmonizing with the final vowel (and softening the k by consonant alternation): viyadüğü

The rules of vowel harmony may vary by regional dialect. The dialect of Turkish spoken in the Trabzon region of northeastern Turkey follows the reduced vowel harmony of Old Anatolian Turkish, with the additional complication of two missing vowels (ü and ı), thus there is no palatal harmony. It is likely that elün meant "your hand" in Old Anatolian. While the 2nd person singular possessive would vary between back and front vowel, -ün or -un, as in elün for "your hand" and kitabun for "your book", the lack of ü vowel in the Trabzon dialect means -un would be used in both of these cases — elun and kitabun.

Word-accent

Further information: Turkish phonology § Word-accent

With the exceptions stated below, Turkish words are oxytone (accented on the last syllable).

Exceptions to word-accent rules

1. Place-names are not oxytone: Anádolu (Anatolia), İstánbul. Most place names are accented on their first syllable as in Páris and Zónguldak. This holds true when place names are spelled the same way as common nouns, which are oxytone: mısír (maize), Mísır (Egypt), sirkecı̇́ (vinegar-seller), Sı̇́rkeci (district in Istanbul), bebék (doll, baby), Bébek (district in Istanbul), ordú (army), Órdu (a Turkish city on the Black Sea).
2. Foreign nouns usually retain their original accentuation, e.g., lokánta (< Italian locanda "restaurant"), ólta (< Greek βόλτα "fishing line"), gazéte (< Italian gazzetta "newspaper")
3. Some words about family members and living creatures have irregular accentuation: ánne (mother), ábla (older sister), görúmce (husband's sister), yénge (brother's wife), hála (paternal aunt), téyze (maternal aunt), ámca (paternal uncle), çekı̇́rge (grasshopper), karínca (ant), kokárca (skunk)
4. Adverbs are usually accented on the first syllable, e.g., şı̇́mdi (now), sónra (after), ánsızın (suddenly), gérçekten (really), (but gerçektén (from reality)), kíşın (during winter)
5. Compound words are accented on the end of the first element, e.g., çíplak (naked), çırílçıplak (stark naked), bakán (minister), báşbakan (prime minister)
6. Diminutives constructed by suffix –cik are accented on the first syllable, e.g., úfacık (very tiny), évcik (small house)
7. Words with enclitic suffixes, –le (meaning "with"), –ken (meaning "while"), –ce (creating an adverb), –leyin (meaning "in" or "during"), –me (negating the verbal stem), –yor (denoting the present tense)

Enclitic suffix	Turkish example	Meaning in English
–le	memnuniyétle	with pleasure
–ken	yazárken	while writing
–ce	hayvánca	bestially
–leyin	gecéleyin	by night
–me	anlámadı	he/she/it did not understand
–yor	gelı̇́yor	he/she/it is coming

• Enclitic words, which shift the accentuation to the previous syllable, e.g., ol- (meaning to be), mi (denoting a question), gibi (meaning similar to), için (for), ki (that), de (too)

Enclitic suffix	Turkish example	Meaning in English
ol- as a separate word	arkadaşím idi	he/she was my friend
ol- as a suffix	arkadaşímdı	he/she was my friend
mi	anlamadí mı	did he/she not understand?
gibi	sizı̇́n gibi	like you
için	benı̇́m için	for me
ki	diyorlár ki ólmıyacak	they are saying that it won't happen
de	biz de	us too

Syntax

Sentence groups

Turkish has two groups of sentences: verbal and nominal sentences. In the case of a verbal sentence, the predicate is a finite verb, while the predicate in nominal sentence will have either no overt verb or a verb in the form of the copula ol or y (variants of "be"). Examples of both are given below:

Sentence type	Turkish		English
	Subject	Predicate
Verbal	Necla	okula gitti	Necla went to school
Nominal (no verb)	Necla	öğretmen	Necla is a teacher
(copula)	Necla	ev-de-y-miş (hyphens delineate suffixes)	Apparently Necla is/was at home

Negation

The two groups of sentences have different ways of forming negation. A nominal sentence can be negated with the addition of the word değil. For example, the sentence above would become Necla öğretmen değil ('Necla is not a teacher'). However, the verbal sentence requires the addition of a negative suffix -me to the verb (the suffix comes after the stem but before the tense): Necla okula gitmedi ('Necla did not go to school').

Yes/no questions

In the case of a verbal sentence, an interrogative clitic mi is added after the verb and stands alone, for example Necla okula gitti mi? ('Did Necla go to school?'). In the case of a nominal sentence, then mi comes after the predicate but before the personal ending, so for example Necla, siz öğretmen misiniz? ('Necla, are you [formal, plural] a teacher?').

Word order

Word order in simple Turkish sentences is generally subject–object–verb, as in Korean and Latin, but unlike English, for verbal sentences and subject-predicate for nominal sentences. However, as Turkish possesses a case-marking system, and most grammatical relations are shown using morphological markers, often the SOV structure has diminished relevance and may vary. The SOV structure may thus be considered a "pragmatic word order" of language, one that does not rely on word order for grammatical purposes.

Immediately preverbal

Consider the following simple sentence which demonstrates that the focus in Turkish is on the element that immediately precedes the verb:

Word order	Example	Focus
SOV	Ahmet Ahmet yumurta-yı egg.ACC yedi ate Ahmet yumurta-yı yedi Ahmet egg.ACC ate Ahmet ate the egg	unmarked
SVO	Ahmet Ahmet yedi ate yumurta-yı egg.ACC Ahmet yedi yumurta-yı Ahmet ate egg.ACC Ahmet ate the egg	the focus is on the subject: Ahmet (it was Ahmet who ate the egg)
OVS	Yumurta-yı egg.ACC yedi ate Ahmet Ahmet Yumurta-yı yedi Ahmet egg.ACC ate Ahmet Ahmet ate the egg	the focus is on the object: egg (it was an egg that Ahmet ate)

Postpredicate

The postpredicate position signifies what is referred to as background information in Turkish — information that is assumed to be known to both the speaker and the listener, or information that is included in the context. Consider the following examples:

Sentence type	Word order
Nominal	S-predicate	Bu ev güzelmiş (apparently this house is beautiful)	unmarked
	Predicate-s	Güzelmiş bu ev (it is apparently beautiful, this house)	it is understood that the sentence is about this house
Verbal	SOV	Bana da bir kahve getir (get me a coffee too)	unmarked
		Bana da getir bir kahve (get me one too, a coffee)	it is understood that it is a coffee that the speaker wants

Topic

There has been some debate among linguists whether Turkish is a subject-prominent (like English) or topic-prominent (like Japanese and Korean) language, with recent scholarship implying that it is indeed both subject and topic-prominent. This has direct implications for word order as it is possible for the subject to be included in the verb-phrase in Turkish. There can be S/O inversion in sentences where the topic is of greater importance than the subject.

Grammar

Main article: Turkish grammar

Turkish is an agglutinative language and frequently uses affixes, and specifically suffixes, or endings. One word can have many affixes and these can also be used to create new words, such as creating a verb from a noun, or a noun from a verbal root (see the section on Word formation). Most affixes indicate the grammatical function of the word. The only native prefixes are alliterative intensifying syllables used with adjectives or adverbs: for example sımsıcak ("boiling hot" < sıcak) and masmavi ("bright blue" < mavi).

The extensive use of affixes can give rise to long words, e.g. Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınızcasına, meaning "In the manner of you being one of those that we apparently couldn't manage to convert to Czechoslovakian". While this case is contrived, long words frequently occur in normal Turkish, as in this heading of a newspaper obituary column: Bayramlaşamadıklarımız (Bayram [festival]-Recipr-Impot-Partic-Plur-PossPl1; "Those of our number with whom we cannot exchange the season's greetings"). Another example can be seen in the final word of this heading of the online Turkish Spelling Guide (İmlâ Kılavuzu): Dilde birlik, ulusal birliğin vazgeçilemezlerindendir ("Unity in language is among the indispensables [dispense-Pass-Impot-Plur-PossS3-Abl-Copula] of national unity ~ Linguistic unity is a sine qua non of national unity").

Nouns

Gender

Turkish does not have grammatical gender and the sex of persons do not affect the forms of words. The third-person pronoun o may refer to "he", "she" or "it." Despite this lack, Turkish still has ways of indicating gender in nouns:

1. Most domestic animals have male and female forms, e.g., aygır (stallion), kısrak (mare), boğa (bull), inek (cow).
2. For other animals, the sex may be indicated by adding the word erkek (male) or dişi (female) before the corresponding noun, e.g., dişi kedi (female cat).
3. For people, the female sex may be indicated by adding the word kız (girl) or kadın (woman), e.g., kadın kahraman (heroine) instead of kahraman (hero).
4. Some foreign words of French or Arabic origin already have separate female forms, e.g., aktris (actress).
5. The Serbo-Croat feminine suffix –ica is used in three borrowings: kraliçe (queen), imparatoriçe (empress) and çariçe (tsarina). This suffix was used in the neologism tanrıça (< Old Turkic tanrı "god").

Case

There is no definite article in Turkish, but definiteness of the object is implied when the accusative ending is used (see below). Turkish nouns decline by taking case endings. There are six noun cases in Turkish, with all the endings following vowel harmony (shown in the table using the shorthand superscript notation). Since the postposition ile often gets suffixed onto the noun, some analyze it as an instrumental case, although in formal speech it takes the genitive with personal pronouns, singular demonstratives, and interrogative kim. The plural marker -ler ² immediately follows the noun before any case or other affixes (e.g. köylerin "of the villages").

Case	Ending	Examples		Meaning
		köy "village"	ağaç "tree"
Nominative	∅ (none)	köy	ağaç	(the) village/tree
Accusative	-i 4	köyü	ağacı	the village/tree
Genitive	-in 4	köyün	ağacın	the village's/tree's of the village/tree
Dative	-e ²	köye	ağaca	to the village/tree
Locative	-de ²	köyde	ağaçta	in/on/at the village/tree
Ablative	-den ²	köyden	ağaçtan	from the village/tree
Instrumental	-le ²	köyle	ağaçla	with the village/tree

The accusative case marker is used only for definite objects; compare (bir) ağaç gördük "we saw a tree" with ağacı gördük "we saw the tree". The plural marker -ler ² is generally not used when a class or category is meant: ağaç gördük can equally well mean "we saw trees [as we walked through the forest]"—as opposed to ağaçları gördük "we saw the trees [in question]".

The declension of ağaç illustrates two important features of Turkish phonology: consonant assimilation in suffixes (ağaçtan, ağaçta) and voicing of final consonants before vowels (ağacın, ağaca, ağacı).

Additionally, nouns can take suffixes that assign person: for example -imiz ⁴, "our". With the addition of the copula (for example -im ⁴, "I am") complete sentences can be formed. The interrogative particle mi ⁴ immediately follows the word being questioned, and also follows vowel harmony: köye mi? "[going] to the village?", ağaç mı? "[is it a] tree?".

Turkish	English
ev	(the) house
evler	(the) houses
evin	your (sing.) house
eviniz	your (pl./formal) house
evim	my house
evimde	at my house
evlerinizin	of your houses
evlerinizden	from your houses
evlerinizdendi	(he/she/it) was from your houses
evlerinizdenmiş	(he/she/it) was (apparently/said to be) from your houses
Evinizdeyim.	I am at your house.
Evinizdeymişim.	I was (apparently) at your house.
Evinizde miyim?	Am I at your house?

Personal pronouns

The Turkish personal pronouns in the nominative case are ben (1s), sen (2s), o (3s), biz (1pl), siz (2pl, or 2h), and onlar (3pl). They are declined regularly with some exceptions: benim (1s gen.); bizim (1pl gen.); bana (1s dat.); sana (2s dat.); and the oblique forms of o use the root on. As mentioned before, all demonstrative singular and personal pronouns take the genitive when ile is affixed onto it: benimle (1s ins.), bizimle (1pl ins.); but onunla (3s ins.), onlarla (3pl ins.). All other pronouns (reflexive kendi and so on) are declined regularly.

Noun phrases (tamlama)

Two nouns, or groups of nouns, may be joined in either of two ways:

• definite (possessive) compound (belirtili tamlama). E.g. Türkiye'nin sesi "the voice of Turkey (radio station)": the voice belonging to Turkey. Here the relationship is shown by the genitive ending -in⁴ added to the first noun; the second noun has the third-person suffix of possession -(s)i⁴.
• indefinite (qualifying) compound (belirtisiz tamlama). E.g. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti "Turkey-Republic = the Republic of Turkey": not the republic belonging to Turkey, but the Republic that is Turkey. Here the first noun has no ending; but the second noun has the ending (s)i⁴—the same as in definite compounds.

The following table illustrates these principles. In some cases, the constituents of the compounds are themselves compounds; for clarity these subsidiary compounds are marked with [square brackets]. The suffixes involved in the linking are underlined. If the second noun group already had a possessive suffix (because it is a compound by itself), no further suffix is added.

Linked nouns and noun groups

Definite (possessive)	Indefinite (qualifier)	Complement	Meaning
kimsenin		yanıtı	nobody's answer
	"kimse"	yanıtı	the answer "nobody"
Atatürk'ün		evi	Atatürk's house
	Atatürk	Bulvarı	Atatürk Boulevard (named after, not belonging to Atatürk)
Orhan'ın		adı	Orhan's name
	"Orhan"	adı	the name "Orhan"
	r	sessizi	the consonant r
[r sessizi]nin		söylenişi	pronunciation of the consonant r
	Türk	[Dil Kurumu]	Turkish Language-Association
	[Türk Dili]	Dergisi	Turkish-Language Magazine
	Ford	[aile arabası]	Ford family car
Ford'un		[aile arabası]	(Mr) Ford's family car
[Ford ailesi]nin		arabası	the Ford family's car
	Ankara	[Kız Lisesi]	Ankara Girls' School
	[yıl sonu]	sınavları	year-end examinations
Bulgaristan'ın		[İstanbul Başkonsolosluğu]	the Istanbul Consulate-General of Bulgaria (located in Istanbul, but belonging to Bulgaria)
	[ [İstanbul Üniversitesi] [Edebiyat Fakültesi] ]	[ [Türk Edebiyatı] Profesörü]	Professor of Turkish Literature in the Faculty of Literature of the University of Istanbul
	ne oldum	delisi	"what-have-I-become!" madman = parvenu who gives himself airs

As the last example shows, the qualifying expression may be a substantival sentence rather than a noun or noun group.

There is a third way of linking the nouns where both nouns take no suffixes (takısız tamlama). However, in this case the first noun acts as an adjective, e.g. Demir kapı (iron gate), elma yanak ("apple cheek", i.e. red cheek), kömür göz ("coal eye", i.e. black eye) :

Adjectives

Turkish adjectives are not declined. However most adjectives can also be used as nouns, in which case they are declined: e.g. güzel ("beautiful") → güzeller ("(the) beautiful ones / people"). Used attributively, adjectives precede the nouns they modify. The adjectives var ("existent") and yok ("non-existent") are used in many cases where English would use "there is" or "have", e.g. süt yok ("there is no milk", lit. "(the) milk (is) non-existent"); the construction "noun 1-GEN noun 2-POSS var/yok" can be translated "noun 1 has/doesn't have noun 2"; imparatorun elbisesi yok "the emperor has no clothes" ("(the) emperor-of clothes-his non-existent"); kedimin ayakkabıları yoktu ("my cat had no shoes", lit. "cat-my-of shoe-plur.-its non-existent-past tense").

Verbs

See also: Turkish copula

Turkish verbs indicate person. They can be made negative, potential ("can"), or non-potential ("cannot"). Furthermore, Turkish verbs show tense (present, past, future, and aorist), mood (conditional, imperative, inferential, necessitative, and optative), and aspect. The inferential suffix -miş⁴ is also glossed as a direct evidential or a mirative. Negation is expressed by the suffix -me²- immediately following the stem.

Turkish	English
gel-	(to) come
gelebil-	(to) be able to come
gelme-	not (to) come
geleme-	(to) be unable to come
gelememiş	Apparently (s)he couldn't come
gelebilecek	(s)he'll be able to come
gelmeyebilir	(s)he may (possibly) not come
gelebilirsen	if you can come
gelinir	(passive) one comes, people come
gelebilmeliydin	you should have been able to come
gelebilseydin	if you could have come
gelmeliydin	you should have come

Verb tenses

(For the sake of simplicity the term "tense" is used here throughout, although for some forms "aspect" or "mood" might be more appropriate.) There are nine simple and 20 compound tenses in Turkish. The nine simple tenses are: simple past (di'li geçmiş), inferential past (miş'li geçmiş), present continuous, simple present (aorist), future, optative, subjunctive, necessitative ("must") and imperative. There are three groups of compound forms. Story (hikaye) is the witnessed past of the above forms (except command), rumor (rivayet) is the unwitnessed past of the above forms (except simple past and command), conditional (koşul) is the conditional form of the first five basic tenses. In the example below, the second person singular of the verb gitmek ("go"), stem gid-/git-, is shown.

English of the basic form	Basic tense	Story (hikâye)	Rumor (rivayet)	Condition (koşul)
you went	gittin	gittiydin	–	gittiysen
you have gone	gitmişsin	gitmiştin	gitmişmişsin	gitmişsen
you are going	gidiyorsun	gidiyordun	gidiyormuşsun	gidiyorsan
you (are wont to) go	gidersin	giderdin	gidermişsin	gidersen
you will go	gideceksin	gidecektin	gidecekmişsin	gideceksen
if only you go	gitsen	gitseydin	gitseymişsin	–
may you go	gidesin	gideydin	gideymişsin	–
you must go	gitmelisin	gitmeliydin	gitmeliymişsin	–
go! (imperative)	git	–	–	–

There are also so-called combined verbs, which are created by suffixing certain verb stems (like bil or ver) to the original stem of a verb. Bil is the suffix for the sufficiency mood. It is the equivalent of the English auxiliary verbs "able to", "can" or "may". Ver is the suffix for the swiftness mood, kal for the perpetuity mood and yaz for the approach ("almost") mood. Thus, while gittin means "you went", gidebildin means "you could go" and gidiverdin means "you went swiftly". The tenses of the combined verbs are formed the same way as for simple verbs.

Attributive verbs (participles)

Turkish verbs have attributive forms, including present, similar to the English present participle (with the ending -en²); future (-ecek²); indirect/inferential past (-miş⁴); and aorist (-er² or -ir⁴).

The most important function of some of these attributive verbs is to form modifying phrases equivalent to the relative clauses found in most European languages. The subject of the verb in an -en² form is (possibly implicitly) in the third person (he/she/it/they); this form, when used in a modifying phrase, does not change according to number. The other attributive forms used in these constructions are the future (-ecek²) and an older form (-dik⁴), which covers both present and past meanings. These two forms take "personal endings", which have the same form as the possessive suffixes but indicate the person and possibly number of the subject of the attributive verb; for example, yediğim means "what I eat", yediğin means "what you eat", and so on. The use of these "personal or relative participles" is illustrated in the following table, in which the examples are presented according to the grammatical case which would be seen in the equivalent English relative clause.

English equivalent		Example
Case of relative pronoun	Pronoun
Nominative	who, which/that	şimdi now konuşan speaking adam man şimdi konuşan adam now speaking man the man (who is) now speaking
Genitive	whose (nom.)	babası father-is şimdi now konuşan speaking adam man babası şimdi konuşan adam father-is now speaking man the man whose father is now speaking
	whose (acc.)	babasını father-is-ACC dün yesterday gördüğüm seen-my adam man babasını dün gördüğüm adam father-is-ACC yesterday seen-my man the man whose father I saw yesterday
	at whose	resimlerine pictures-is-to baktığımız looked-our ressam artist resimlerine baktığımız ressam pictures-is-to looked-our artist the artist whose pictures we looked at
	of which	muhtarı mayor-its seçildiği been-chosen-his köy village muhtarı seçildiği köy mayor-its been-chosen-his village the village of which he was elected mayor
	of which	muhtarı seçilmek istediği köy muhtarı seçilmek istediği köy the village of which he wishes to be elected mayor
Remaining cases (incl. prepositions)	whom, which	yazdığım written-my mektup letter yazdığım mektup written-my letter the letter (which) I wrote
	from which	çıktığımız emerged-our kapı door çıktığımız kapı emerged-our door the door from which we emerged
	on which	geldikleri come-their vapur ship geldikleri vapur come-their ship the ship they came on
	which + subordinate clause	yaklaştığını approach-their-ACC anladığı understood-his hapishane prison günleri days-its yaklaştığını anladığı hapishane günleri approach-their-ACC understood-his prison days-its the prison days (which) he knew were approaching

Vocabulary

Main article: Turkish vocabulary

Latest 2011 edition of Güncel Türkçe Sözlük (Current Turkish Dictionary), the official dictionary of the Turkish language published by Turkish Language Association, contains 117,000 vocabularies and 93,000 articles.

Word formation

Turkish extensively uses agglutination to form new words from nouns and verbal stems. The majority of Turkish words originate from the application of derivative suffixes to a relatively small set of core vocabulary.

Turkish obeys certain principles when it comes to suffixation. Most suffixes in Turkish will have more than one form, depending on the vowels and consonants in the root- vowel harmony rules will apply; consonant-initial suffixes will follow the voiced/ voiceless character of the consonant in the final unit of the root; and in the case of vowel-initial suffixes an additional consonant may be inserted if the root ends in a vowel, or the suffix may lose its initial vowel. There is also a prescribed order of affixation of suffixes- as a rule of thumb, derivative suffixes precede inflectional suffixes which are followed by clitics, as can be seen in the example set of words derived from a substantive root below:

Turkish	Components	English	Word class
göz	göz	eye	Noun
gözlük	göz + -lük	eyeglasses	Noun
gözlükçü	göz + -lük + -çü	optician	Noun
gözlükçülük	göz + -lük + -çü + -lük	optician's trade	Noun
gözlem	göz + -lem	observation	Noun
gözlemci	göz + -lem + -ci	observer	Noun
gözle-	göz + -le	observe	Verb (order)
gözlemek	göz + -le + -mek	to observe	Verb (infinitive)
gözetlemek	göz + -et + -le + -mek	to peep	Verb (infinitive)

Another example, starting from a verbal root:

Turkish	Components	English	Word class
yat-	yat-	lie down	Verb (order)
yatmak	yat-mak	to lie down	Verb (infinitive)
yatık	yat- + -(ı)k	leaning	Adjective
yatak	yat- + -ak	bed, place to sleep	Noun
yatay	yat- + -ay	horizontal	Adjective
yatkın	yat- + -gın	inclined to; stale (from lying too long)	Adjective
yatır-	yat- + -(ı)r-	lay down	Verb (order)
yatırmak	yat- + -(ı)r-mak	to lay down something/someone	Verb (infinitive)
yatırım	yat- + -(ı)r- + -(ı)m	laying down; deposit, investment	Noun
yatırımcı	yat- + -(ı)r- + -(ı)m + -cı	depositor, investor	Noun

New words are also frequently formed by compounding two existing words into a new one, as in German. Compounds can be of two types- bare and (s)I. The bare compounds, both nouns and adjectives are effectively two words juxtaposed without the addition of suffixes for example the word for girlfriend kızarkadaş (kız+arkadaş) or black pepper karabiber (kara+biber). A few examples of compound words are given below:

Turkish	English	Constituent words	Literal meaning
pazartesi	Monday	pazar ("Sunday") and ertesi ("after")	after Sunday
bilgisayar	computer	bilgi ("information") and say- ("to count")	information counter
gökdelen	skyscraper	gök ("sky") and del- ("to pierce")	sky piercer
başparmak	thumb	baş ("prime") and parmak ("finger")	primary finger
önyargı	prejudice	ön ("before") and yargı ("splitting; judgement")	fore-judging

However, the majority of compound words in Turkish are (s)I compounds, which means that the second word will be marked by the 3rd person possessive suffix. A few such examples are given in the table below (note vowel harmony):

Turkish	English	Constituent words	Possessive Suffix
el çantası	handbag	el (hand) and çanta (bag)	+sı
masa örtüsü	tablecloth	masa (table) and örtü (cover)	+sü
çay bardağı	tea glass	çay (tea) and bardak (glass)	+ı (the k changes to ğ)

Writing system

Main articles: Turkish alphabet and Turkish Braille

Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Kayseri. September 20, 1928. (Cover of the French L'Illustration magazine)

Turkish is written using a version of Latin script introduced in 1928 by Atatürk to replace the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, a version of Perso-Arabic script. The Ottoman alphabet marked only three different vowels—long ā, ū and ī—and included several redundant consonants, such as variants of z (which were distinguished in Arabic but not in Turkish). The omission of short vowels in the Arabic script was claimed to make it particularly unsuitable for Turkish, which has eight vowels.

The reform of the script was an important step in the cultural reforms of the period. The task of preparing the new alphabet and selecting the necessary modifications for sounds specific to Turkish was entrusted to a Language Commission composed of prominent linguists, academics, and writers. The introduction of the new Turkish alphabet was supported by public education centers opened throughout the country, cooperation with publishing companies, and encouragement by Atatürk himself, who toured the country teaching the new letters to the public. As a result, there was a dramatic increase in literacy from its original, pre-modern levels.

The Latin alphabet was applied to the Turkish language for educational purposes even before the 20th-century reform. Instances include a 1635 Latin-Albanian dictionary by Frang Bardhi, who also incorporated several sayings in the Turkish language, as an appendix to his work (e.g. alma agatsdan irak duschamas—"An apple does not fall far from its tree").

Turkish now has an alphabet suited to the sounds of the language: the spelling is largely phonemic, with one letter corresponding to each phoneme. Most of the letters are used approximately as in English, the main exceptions being ⟨c⟩, which denotes [dʒ] (⟨j⟩ being used for the [ʒ] found in Persian and European loans); and the undotted ⟨ı⟩, representing [ɯ]. As in German, ⟨ö⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ represent [ø] and [y]. The letter ⟨ğ⟩, in principle, denotes [ɣ] but has the property of lengthening the preceding vowel and assimilating any subsequent vowel. The letters ⟨ş⟩ and ⟨ç⟩ represent [ʃ] and [tʃ], respectively. A circumflex is written over back vowels following ⟨k⟩ and ⟨g⟩ when these consonants represent [c] and [ɟ]—almost exclusively in Arabic and Persian loans.

The Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters (q, w, x omitted and ç, ş, ğ, ı, ö, ü added); the complete list is:

a, b, c, ç, d, e, f, g, ğ, h, ı, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, ö, p, r, s, ş, t, u, ü, v, y, and z (Capital of i is İ and lowercase I is ı.)

The specifically Turkish letters and spellings described above are illustrated in this table:

Turkish spelling	Pronunciation	Meaning
Cağaloğlu	ˈdʒaːɫoːɫu	[İstanbul district]
çalıştığı	tʃaɫɯʃtɯː	where/that (s)he works/worked
müjde	myʒˈde	good news
lazım	laːˈzɯm	necessary
mahkûm	mahˈcum	condemned

Sample

Dostlar Beni Hatırlasın by Âşık Veysel Şatıroğlu (1894–1973), an ashik and highly regarded poet in the Turkish folk literature tradition.

Orthography	IPA	Translation
Ben giderim adım kalır	bæn ɟid̪e̞ɾim äd̪ɯm käɫɯɾ	I depart, my name remains
Dostlar beni hatırlasın	d̪o̞st̪ɫäɾ be̞ni hätɯɾɫäsɯn	May friends remember me
Düğün olur bayram gelir	d̪yjyn o̞ɫuɾ bäjɾäm ɟe̞liɾ	There are weddings, there are feasts
Dostlar beni hatırlasın	d̪o̞st̪ɫäɾ be̞ni hätɯɾɫäsɯn	May friends remember me
Can kafeste durmaz uçar	d͡ʒäŋ käfe̞st̪e̞ d̪uɾmäz ut͡ʃäɾ	The soul won't stay caged, it flies away
Dünya bir han konan göçer	d̪ynjä biɾ häŋ ko̞nän ɟø̞t͡ʃæɾ	The world is an inn, residents depart
Ay dolanır yıllar geçer	äj d̪o̞ɫänɯɾ jɯɫːäɾ ɟe̞t͡ʃæɾ	The moon wanders, years pass by
Dostlar beni hatırlasın	d̪o̞st̪ɫäɾ be̞ni hätɯɾɫäsɯn	May friends remember me
Can bedenden ayrılacak	d͡ʒän be̞d̪ænd̪æn äjɾɯɫäd͡ʒäk	The soul will leave the body
Tütmez baca yanmaz ocak	t̪yt̪mæz bäd͡ʒä jänmäz o̞d͡ʒäk	The chimney won't smoke, furnace won't burn
Selam olsun kucak kucak	se̞läːm o̞ɫsuŋ kud͡ʒäk kud͡ʒäk	Goodbye goodbye to you all
Dostlar beni hatırlasın	d̪o̞st̪ɫäɾ be̞ni hätɯɾɫäsɯn	May friends remember me
Açar solar türlü çiçek	ät͡ʃäɾ so̞läɾ t̪yɾly t͡ʃit͡ʃe̞c	Various flowers bloom and fade
Kimler gülmüş kim gülecek	cimlæɾ ɟylmyʃ cim ɟyle̞d͡ʒe̞c	Someone laughed, someone will laugh
Murat yalan ölüm gerçek	muɾät jäɫän ø̞lym ɟæɾt͡ʃe̞c	Wishes are lies, death is real
Dostlar beni hatırlasın	d̪o̞st̪ɫäɾ be̞ni hätɯɾɫäsɯn	May friends remember me
Gün ikindi akşam olur	ɟyn icindi äkʃäm o̞ɫuɾ	Morning and afternoon turn to night
Gör ki başa neler gelir	ɟø̞ɾ ci bäʃä ne̞læɾ ɟe̞liɾ	And many things happen to a person anyway
Veysel gider adı kalır	ʋe̞jsæl ɟidæɾ äd̪ɯ käɫɯɾ	Veysel departs, his name remains
Dostlar beni hatırlasın	d̪o̞st̪ɫäɾ be̞ni hätɯɾɫäsɯn	May friends remember me

Turkish pronunciation

• Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Turkish:

Bütün insanlar hür, haysiyet ve haklar bakımından eşit doğarlar. Akıl ve vicdana sahiptirler ve birbirlerine karşı kardeşlik zihniyeti ile hareket etmelidirler.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Turkish computer keyboard

A Turkish computer keyboard with Q (QWERTY) layout

Turkish language uses two standardised keyboard layouts, known as Turkish Q (QWERTY) and Turkish F, with Turkish Q being the most common.

See also

• Sun Language Theory
• Turkish name
• Turkish Sign Language
• List of English words of Turkic origin
• Languages used on the Internet
• Turkish bird language
• Öztürkçe

References

Sources

• Bazin, Louis (1975). "Turcs et Sogdiens: Les Enseignements de L'Inscription de Bugut (Mongolie), Mélanges Linguistiques Offerts à Émile Benveniste". Collection Linguistique, Publiée Par la Société de Linguistique de Paris (in French) (LXX): 37–45.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Expo 70 Edition Vol 12. William Benton. 1970.
• Ergin, Muharrem (1980). Orhun Abideleri (in Turkish). Boğaziçi Yayınları. ISBN 0-19-517726-6.
• Ishjatms, N. (October 1996). "Nomads In Eastern Central Asia". History of civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. 2. UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 92-3-102846-4.
• Vaux, Bert (2001). "Hemshinli: The Forgotten Black Sea Armenians" (PDF). Harvard University. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-24.

On-line sources

• Center for Studies on Turkey, University of Essen (2003). "The European Turks: Gross Domestic Product, Working Population, Entrepreneurs and Household Data" (PDF). Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 4, 2005. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
• "Turkish Etymological Dictionary online" (in Turkish). Sevan Nişanyan. 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-11.
• "Language Materials Project: Turkish". UCLA International Institute, Center for World Languages. February 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11. Retrieved 2007-04-26.
• Turkish Language Association. "Türk Dil Kurumu – Tarihçe (History of the Turkish Language Association)" (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 2007-03-16. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
• "Türkçe Sözlük (2005)'teki Sözlerin Kökenlerine Ait Sayısal Döküm (Numerical list on the origin of words in Türkçe Sözlük (2005))" (in Turkish). Turkish Language Association. 2005. Archived from the original on March 1, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
• "Spartak KADIU : Türkçede zaman ve kip kavramı ve i-ek eylemin fonksiyonu üzerine" (PDF) (in Turkish). Turkish Studies: International Periodical For The Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 7/3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-03-13. Retrieved 2013-01-15.

Further reading

• Eyüboğlu, İsmet Zeki (1991). Türk Dilinin Etimoloji Sözlüğü [Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language] (in Turkish). Sosyal Yayınları, İstanbul. ISBN 978975-7384-72-4.
• Özel, Sevgi; Haldun Özen; Ali Püsküllüoğlu, eds. (1986). Atatürk'ün Türk Dil Kurumu ve Sonrası [Atatürk's Turkish Language Association and its Legacy] (in Turkish). Bilgi Yayınevi, Ankara. OCLC 18836678.
• Püsküllüoğlu, Ali (2004). Arkadaş Türkçe Sözlük [Arkadaş Turkish Dictionary] (in Turkish). Arkadaş Yayınevi, Ankara. ISBN 975-509-053-3.
• Rezvani, B. "Türkçe Mi: Türkçe’deki İrani (Farsca, Dimilce, Kurmançca) Orijinli kelimeler Sözlüğü.[Turkish title (roughly translated): Is this Turkish? An etymological dictionary of originally Iranic (Persian, Zazaki, and Kurmanji Kurdish) words]." (2006).

External links

• Swadesh list of Turkish basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
• Turkish Language: Resources – University of Michigan