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Turkish language

Turkish (Türkçe (listen), Türk dili), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (Türkiye Türkçesi), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Iraq, Syria, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia,[15] Greece,[16] the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested the European Union to add Turkish as an official language, even though Turkey is not a member state.[17] Turkish is the 13th most spoken language in the world.

Turkish
Türkçe (noun, adverb)
Türk dili (noun)
Türkçe written in the Turkish alphabet
PronunciationTürkçe: [ˈtyɾctʃe] (listen)
Türk dili: Turkish pronunciation: [ˈtyɾc ˈdili]
Native toTurkey (official), Northern Cyprus (official), Cyprus (official), Azerbaijan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
RegionAnatolia, Balkans, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Levant, Transcaucasia
EthnicityTurks
SpeakersNative: 82 million (2006)[1]
L2: 5.9 million (2019)[1]
Turkic
Early forms
Standard forms
  • Istanbul Turkish
Dialects
Latin (Turkish alphabet)
Turkish Braille
Official status
Official language in
Cyprus
Northern Cyprus
Turkey
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byTurkish Language Association
Language codes
ISO 639-1tr
ISO 639-2tur
ISO 639-3tur
Glottolognucl1301
Linguaspherepart 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
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
A Turkish speaker from Kosovo.

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 Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet.

The 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

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.[18]

Classification of the Turkic languages is complicated. The migrations of the Turkic peoples and their consequent intermingling with one another and with peoples who spoke non-Turkic languages, have created a linguistic situation of vast complexity.[18]

There is ongoing debate about whether the Turkic family is itself a branch of a larger Altaic family, including Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and Tungusic.[19] The nineteenth-century Ural-Altaic theory, which grouped Turkish with Finnish, Hungarian and Altaic languages, is controversial.[20] The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features: agglutination, vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender.[20]

History

 
The 10th-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).[21] 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.[22]

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.[23] 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).[24]

Ottoman Turkish

 
The 15th century Book of Dede Korkut

Following the adoption of Islam c. 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.[25]

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[26]
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 masjid 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. They became urban.

Language reform and modern 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.[27] By banning the usage of imported words in the press,[clarification needed] 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.[28] In 1935, the TDK published a bilingual Ottoman-Turkish/Pure Turkish dictionary that documents the results of the language reform.[29]

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 a style of Ottoman which sounded so alien to later listeners that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995.[30]

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.[31]

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

Ottoman Turkish Modern Turkish English translation Comments
müselles üçgen triangle Compound of the noun üç ("three") and the suffix -gen
tayyare uçak aeroplane Derived from the verb uçmak ("to fly"). The word was first proposed to mean "airport".
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").
şimal kuzey north Derived from the Old Turkic noun kuz ("cold and dark place", "shadow"). The word is restored from Middle Turkic usage.[32]
teşrinievvel ekim October The noun ekim means "sowing", referring to the planting of cereal seeds in autumn, which is widespread in Turkey

Geographic distribution

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

Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. Turkish language is mutually intelligible with Azerbaijani and other Turkic languages. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Iraq[33], 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.[1] Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic members of the diaspora speak the language with native fluency.[34]

In 2005 93% of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish,[35] about 67 million at the time, with Kurdish languages making up most of the remainder.[36]

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 dinstictive 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.[37] 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,[38][39], two in the Republic of North Macedonia and in Kirkuk Governorate in Iraq.[40][41]

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.[42] 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.[28]

Dialects

Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul.[43] This Istanbul Turkish (İstanbul Türkçesi) constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish, as recommended by Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfettin and others.[44]

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.[45] 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.[46][47]

 
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 theoretized 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.[48] 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.[49]

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;[50] 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.[51]

Phonology

Consonants

At least one source claims Turkish consonants are laryngeally-specified three-way fortis-lenis (aspirated/neutral/voiced) like Armenian.[53]

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.[54]

In native Turkic words, the sounds [c], [ɟ], and [l] are 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:[55] some examples are given below.

Consonant 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/.[56][57]

Obstruent devoicing in nouns
Underlying
consonant
Devoiced
form
Underlying
morpheme
Dictionary form Dative case /
1sg present
Meaning
b p *kitab kitap kitaba book (loan)
c ç *uc 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 /at/ 'name' (dative ada), the underlying form is retained in the spelling (cf. at /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.[citation needed]

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//.[58]

Vowels

 
Vowels of Turkish. From Zimmer & Orgun (1999:155)

The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, ⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨ı⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨ü⟩.[59] 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.[60] Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high].[61]

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.[54]

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.[62] 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.[62]
  2. If the first vowel is unrounded, so too are subsequent vowels.[62]
  3. If the first vowel is rounded, subsequent vowels are either rounded and close or unrounded and open.[63]

The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech. More specifically, they are related to the phenomenon of labial assimilation:[64] if the lips are rounded (a process that requires muscular effort) for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels.[63] If they are unrounded for the first vowel, the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently.[62]

Grammatical affixes have "a chameleon-like quality",[65] and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony:

  • twofold (-e/-a):[66] 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.[67] 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"),[68] kapıdır ("it is the door"), but gündür ("it is the day"), paltodur ("it is the coat").[69]

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," haydi "come on," inanmak "to believe," kardeş "brother," şişman "fat," anne "mother"
  2. Native compound words, e.g. bugün "today," dedikodu "gossip"
  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"), –imtrak (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."
–imtrak ekşimtrak "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[citation needed]

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's 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.[70]

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:[62] 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,[62] e.g., lokánta (< Italian locanda "restaurant"), ólta (< Greek βόλτα "fishing line"), gazéte (< Italian gazzetta "newspaper")
  3. Some words about family members[63] and living creatures[63] 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[63] 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[64] 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 hayváncasına bestially
–leyin gecéleyin by night
–me anlamádı 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:[71]

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 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').[72]

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?').[72]

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.[73]

Immediately preverbal

Consider the following simple sentence which demonstrates that the focus in Turkish is on the element that immediately precedes the verb:[74]

Word order 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:[71]

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.[75] 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

Turkish is an agglutinative language and frequently uses affixes, and specifically suffixes, or endings.[76] 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.[77] The only native prefixes are alliterative intensifying syllables used with adjectives or adverbs: for example sımsıcak ("boiling hot" < sıcak) and masmavi ("bright blue" < mavi).[78]

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").[79] 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").[80]

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 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 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").[citation needed]

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".[81] 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]".[citation needed]

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).[citation needed]

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?".[citation needed]

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.[citation needed]

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[82] = 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.[citation needed]

The following table illustrates these principles.[83] 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. Note that 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 araba the Ford family's car[84]
Ankara [Kız Lisesi][85] 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!"[86] 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.[87]

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,[88] 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").[citation needed]

Verbs

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. Negation is expressed by the infix -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

(Note. 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 9 simple and 20 compound tenses in Turkish. 9 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.[89] 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.[90] 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.[91] 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,[92] 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.[93] 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.[94]

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[95][96]

Vocabulary

Latest 2010 edition of Büyük Türkçe Sözlük (Great Turkish Dictionary), the official dictionary of the Turkish language published by Turkish Language Association, contains 616,767 words, expressions, terms and nouns, including place names and person names, both from the standard language and from dialects.[97]

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.[98]

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) (the k changes to ğ)

Writing system

 
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 Latin alphabet introduced in 1928 by Atatürk to replace the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, a version of Perso-Arabic alphabet. 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.[99]

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.[100] As a result, there was a dramatic increase in literacy from its original, pre-modern levels.[101][need quotation to verify]

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[102]—"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.[103] 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.[104]

The Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters (q, x, w 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 (Note that 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), a minstrel 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

Whistled language

In the Turkish province of Giresun, the locals in the village of Kuşköy have communicated using a whistled version of Turkish for over 400 years. The region consists of a series of deep valleys and the unusual mode of communication allows for conversation over distances of up to 5 kilometres. Turkish authorities estimate that there are still around 10,000 people using the whistled language. However, in 2011 UNESCO found whistling Turkish to be a dying language and included it in its intangible cultural heritage list. Since then the local education directorate has introduced it as a course in schools in the region, hoping to revive its use.

A study was conducted by a German scientist of Turkish origin Onur Güntürkün at Ruhr University, observing 31 "speakers" of kuş dili ("bird's tongue") from Kuşköy, and he found that the whistled language mirrored the lexical and syntactical structure of Turkish language.[105]

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

Notes

  1. ^ Turkish language is currently official in Kirkuk Governorate, Kifri and Tuz Khurmatu districts.[9][10] In addition to that, it is considered an educational language for Iraqi Turkmen by Kurdistan Region[11]
  2. ^ Turkish language is currently official in Gjilan, Southern Mitrovica, Vučitrn, Mamuša and Prizren municipalities.[12]
  3. ^ Turkish language is currently official in Centar Zupa and Plasnica Municipality[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c Turkish at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  2. ^ Karcı, Durmuş (2018), "The Effects of Language Characters and Identity of Meskhetian Turkish in Kazakhstan", Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 4 (13)
  3. ^ Behnstedt, Peter (2008). "Syria". In Versteegh, Kees; Eid, Mushira; Elgibali, Alaa; Woidich, Manfred; Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.). Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Vol. 4. Brill Publishers. p. 402. ISBN 978-90-04-14476-7.
  4. ^ "Bosnia and Herzegovina", The European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages: Collected Texts, Council of Europe, 2010, pp. 107–108, ISBN 9789287166715
  5. ^ Rehm, Georg; Uszkoreit, Hans, eds. (2012), "The Croatian Language in the European Information Society", The Croatian Language in the Digital Age, Springer, p. 51, ISBN 9783642308826
  6. ^ Franceschini, Rita (2014). "Italy and the Italian-Speaking Regions". In Fäcke, Christiane (ed.). Manual of Language Acquisition. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. p. 546. ISBN 9783110394146. In Croatia, Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Czech, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Polish, Romanian, Romany, Rusyn, Russian, Montenegrin, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Turkish, and Ukrainian are recognized (EACEA 2012, 18, 50s)
  7. ^ Trudgill, Peter; Schreier, Daniel (2006), "Greece and Cyprus / Griechenland und Zypern", in Ulrich, Ammon (ed.), Sociolinguistics / Soziolinguistik, Walter de Gruyter, p. 1886, ISBN 3110199874
  8. ^ a b c d Johanson, Lars (2021), Turkic, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781009038218, Turkish is the largest and most vigorous Turkic language, spoken by over 80 million people, a third of the total number of Turkic-speakers... Turkish is a recognized regional minority language in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania, and Iraq.
  9. ^ [1] Text: Article 1 of the declaration stipulated that no law, regulation, or official action could interfere with the rights outlined for the minorities. Although Arabic became the official language of Iraq, Kurdish became a corollary official language in Sulaimaniya, and both Kurdish and Turkish became official languages in Kirkuk and Kifri.
  10. ^ "Türkmenler, Türkçe tabelalardan memnun – Son Dakika".
  11. ^ [2] Kurdistan: Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region
  12. ^ "Municipal language compliance in Kosovo". OSCE Minsk Group. Turkish language is currently official in Prizren and Mamuşa/Mamushë/Mamuša municipalities. In 2007 and 2008, the municipalities of Gjilan/Gnjilane, southern Mitrovicë/Mitrovica, Prishtinë/Priština and Vushtrri/Vučitrn also recognized Turkish as a language in official use.
  13. ^ [3] Text: Turkish is co-official in Centar Zupa and Plasnica
  14. ^ "Romania", The European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages: Collected Texts, Council of Europe, 2010, pp. 135–136, ISBN 9789287166715
  15. ^ Boeschoten, Henrik. Turkic Languages in Contact.
  16. ^ . Archived from the original on 2017-07-01.
  17. ^ "As the E.U.'s Language Roster Swells, So Does the Burden", The New York Times, 4 January 2017, retrieved 17 March 2017
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  19. ^ Benzing, J. Einführung in das Studium der altäischen Philologie und der Turkologie, Wiesbaden, 1953.
  20. ^ a b Gandjeï, T. "Über die türkischen und mongolischen Elemente der persischen Dichtung der Ilchan-Zeit," in Ural-altaische Jahrbücher 30, 1958, pp. 229–31.
  21. ^ Erdal, Marcel (March 2004). A Grammar Of Old Turkic.
  22. ^ "A Database of Turkic Runiform Inscriptions".
  23. ^ Findley[full citation needed]
  24. ^ Soucek 2000
  25. ^ Glenny 2001, p. 99
  26. ^ Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: III. pp. 174–175. Retrieved 17 October 2022.
  27. ^ See Lewis (2002) for a thorough treatment of the Turkish language reform.
  28. ^ a b Turkish Language Association. (in Turkish). Archived from the original on March 16, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  29. ^ Szurek, Emmanuel (2015-02-17). Aymes, Marc (ed.). Order and Compromise: Government Practices in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Early 21st Century. Brill Publishers. p. 94. ISBN 978-90-04-28985-7.
  30. ^ See Lewis (2002): 2–3 for the first two translations. For the third see Bedi Yazıcı. (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-09-28.
  31. ^ . Çok Bilgi. Archived from the original on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
  32. ^ Mütercim Asım (1799). Burhân-ı Katı Tercemesi (in Turkish). İstanbul.
  33. ^ "Iraq". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2016.
  34. ^ See for example citations given in Cindark, Ibrahim/Aslan, Sema (2004): Deutschlandtürkisch?. Institut für Deutsche Sprache, page 3.
  35. ^ European Commission (2006). "Special Eurobarometer 243: Europeans and their Languages (Survey)" (PDF). Europa. Retrieved 2010-02-14.
  36. ^ Kurdish, Northern at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)  
  37. ^ Safarova, Durna (2017-02-28). "Azerbaijan Grapples With the Rise of Turkish Language". Eurasianet. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
  38. ^ "Kosovo". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2016.
  39. ^ "Kosovo starts using Turkish as fifth official language in documents". Daily Sabah. 9 July 2015.
  40. ^ . CIA World Factbook. 2002. Archived from the original on June 13, 2007. Retrieved 2016-02-10.
  41. ^ Güçlü, Yücel (January 2007). "Who Owns Kirkuk? The Turkoman Case". Middle East Quarterly.
  42. ^ The name TDK itself exemplifies this process. The words tetkik and cemiyet in the original name are both Arabic loanwords (the final -i of cemiyeti being a Turkish possessive suffix); kurum is a native Turkish word based on the verb kurmak, "set up, found".[citation needed]
  43. ^ Campbell, George (1995). "Turkish". Concise compendium of the world's languages. London: Routledge. p. 547.
  44. ^ "En iyi İstanbul Türkçesini kim konuşur?". Milliyet. Retrieved 2017-12-30.
  45. ^ Johanson, Lars (2001), (PDF), Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2007, retrieved 2007-03-18
  46. ^ Özsoy
  47. ^ Akalın, Şükrü Halûk (January 2003). (PDF). Türk Dili (in Turkish). 85 (613). ISSN 1301-465X. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 27, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
  48. ^ Shashi, Shyam Singh (1992). Encyclopaedia of Humanities and Social Sciences. Anmol Publications. p. 47. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
  49. ^ Aydıngün, Ayşegül; Harding, Çiğdem Balım; Hoover, Matthew; Kuznetsov, Igor; Swerdlow, Steve (2006), (PDF), Center for Applied Linguistics, archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-07-14
  50. ^ Brendemoen, B. (1996). Phonological Aspects of Greek-Turkish Language Contact in Trabzon. Conference on Turkish in Contact, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Wassenaar, 5–6 February 1996.
  51. ^ Balta, Evangelia (Fall 2017). "Translating Books from Greek into Turkish for the Karamanli Orthodox Christians of Anatolia (1718–1856)". International Journal of Turkish Studies. 23 (1–2): 20 – via Ebsco.
  52. ^ Zimmer & Orgun (1999), pp. 154–155.
  53. ^ Petrova, Olga; Plapp, Rosemary; Ringen, Catherine; Szentgyörgyi, Szilárd (2006). (PDF). The Linguistic Review. 23 (1): 1–35. doi:10.1515/tlr.2006.001. ISSN 0167-6318. S2CID 42712078. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-09-08.
  54. ^ a b Handbook of the IPA, p. 155
  55. ^ Lewis 2001, pp. 93–4, 6
  56. ^ (in Turkish). Turkish Language Association. Archived from the original on 2012-07-28. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  57. ^ "Turkish Consonant Mutation". turkishbasics.com.
  58. ^ Lewis 2001, p. 10
  59. ^ The vowel represented by ⟨ı⟩ is also commonly transcribed as ⟨ɨ⟩ in linguistic literature.
  60. ^ Goksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005). Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0-415-11494-2.
  61. ^ Khalilzadeh, Amir (Winter 2010). "Vowel Harmony in Turkish". Karadeniz Araştırmaları: Balkan, Kafkas, Doğu Avrupa Ve Anadolu İncelemeleri Dergisi. 6 (24): 141–150.
  62. ^ a b c d e f Mundy, C. Turkish Syntax as a System of Qualification. Oxford, 1957, pp. 279–305.
  63. ^ a b c d e Deny, J. Grammaire de la langue turque. Paris, 1963.
  64. ^ a b von Gabain, A. Alttürkische Grammatik. Leipzig, 1950.
  65. ^ Lewis 1953, p. 21
  66. ^ For the terms twofold and fourfold, as well as the superscript notation, see Lewis (1953):21–22. 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]:18).
  67. ^ Underhill, Robert (1976). Turkish Grammar. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 25. ISBN 0-262-21006-1.
  68. ^ In modern Turkish orthography, an apostrophe is used to separate proper names from any suffixes.
  69. ^ Husby, Olaf. "Diagnostic use of nonword repetition for detection of language impairment among Turkish speaking minority children in Norway". Working Papers Department of Language and Communication Studies NTNV. 3/2006: 139–149 – via Academia.edu.
  70. ^ Boeschoten, Hendrik; Johanson, Lars; Milani, Vildan (2006). Turkic Languages in Contact. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-05212-2.
  71. ^ a b Goksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005). Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11494-2.
  72. ^ a b Underhill, Robert (1976). Turkish Grammar. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-21006-1.
  73. ^ Thompson, Sandra (April 1978). "Modern English from a Typological Point of View: Some Implications of the Function of Word Order". Linguistische Berlichte. 1978 (54): 19–35 – via ProQuest.
  74. ^ Erguvanlı, Eser Emine (1984). The Function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar. Linguistics Vol. 106. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-09955-9.
  75. ^ Kiliçasaslan, Yılmaz. "A Typological Approach to Sentence Structure in Turkish" (PDF).
  76. ^ This section draws heavily on Lewis (2001) and, to a lesser extent, Lewis (1953). Only the most important references are specifically flagged with footnotes.
  77. ^ see Lewis (2001) Ch XIV.
  78. ^ "The prefix, which is accented, is modelled on the first syllable of the simple adjective or adverb but with the substitution of m, p, r, or s for the last consonant of that syllable." Lewis (2001):55. The prefix retains the first vowel of the base form and thus exhibits a form of reverse vowel harmony.
  79. ^ This "splendid word" appeared at the time of Bayram, the festival marking the end of the month of fasting. Lewis (2001):287.
  80. ^ . Dilimiz.com. Archived from the original on 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
  81. ^ Because it is also used for the indefinite accusative, Lewis uses the term "absolute case" in preference to "nominative". Lewis (2001):28.
  82. ^ Lewis points out that "an indefinite izafet group can be turned into intelligible (though not necessarily normal) English by the use of a hyphen". Lewis (2001): 42.
  83. ^ The examples are taken from Lewis (2001): 41–47.
  84. ^ For other possible permutations of this vehicle, see Lewis (2001):46.
  85. ^ "It is most important to note that the third-person suffix is not repeated though theoretically one might have expected Ankara [Kız Lisesi]si." Lewis (2001): 45 footnote.
  86. ^ Note the similarity with the French phrase un m'as-tu-vu "a have-you-seen-me?", i.e., a vain and pretentious person.
  87. ^ The term substantival sentence is Lewis's. Lewis(2001:257).
  88. ^ Demir, Celal (2007). "Türkiye Türkçesi Gramerlerinde İsim Tamlaması Sorunu ve Bir Tasnif Denemesi" [The Problem of Adjective in Turkish: An Attempt of Classification] (PDF). Türk Dünyası İncelemeleri Dergisi [Journal of Turkish World Studies] (in Turkish). 7 (1): 27–54. Retrieved 2013-03-29.
  89. ^ Yüksel Göknel:Turkish Grammar[full citation needed]
  90. ^ (PDF) (in Turkish). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-03-13. Retrieved 2013-03-29.
  91. ^ "Dersimiz Edebiyat Online course" (in Turkish). Dersimizedebiyat.com. Retrieved 2013-03-29.
  92. ^ The conventional translation of the film title Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam, The Man Who Saved the World, uses the past tense. Semantically, his saving the world takes place though in the (narrative) present.
  93. ^ See Lewis (2001):163–165, 260–262 for an exhaustive treatment.
  94. ^ For the terms personal and relative participle see Lewis (1958):98 and Lewis (2001):163 respectively. Most of the examples are taken from Lewis (2001).
  95. ^ This more complex example from Orhan Pamuk's Kar (Snow) contains a nested structure: [which he knew [were approaching]]. Maureen Freely's more succinct and idiomatic translation is the days in prison he knew lay ahead. Note that Pamuk uses the spelling hapisane.
  96. ^ From the perspective of Turkish grammar yaklaştığını anladığı is exactly parallel to babasını gördüğüm ("whose father I saw"), and could therefore be paraphrased as "whose approaching he understood".
  97. ^ (in Turkish). Tdkterim.gov.tr. Archived from the original on 2013-03-28. Retrieved 2013-03-29.
  98. ^ Goksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005). Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. pp. 43–48. ISBN 0-415-11494-2.
  99. ^ Zimmer & Orgun (1999:155)
  100. ^ Dilaçar, Agop (1977). "Atatürk ve Yazım". Türk Dili (in Turkish). 35 (307). ISSN 1301-465X. Retrieved 2007-03-19.
  101. ^ Coulmas 1989, pp. 243–244
  102. ^ In modern Turkish spelling: elma ağaçtan ırak düşmez.
  103. ^ Celia Kerslake; Asli Goksel (11 June 2014). Turkish: An Essential Grammar. Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-134-04218-0.
  104. ^ Lewis (2001):3–7. Note that in these cases the circumflex conveys information about the preceding consonant rather than the vowel over which it is written.
  105. ^ "Northern village of Kuşköy still communicates with amazing Turkish whistling language". The Daily Sabah. February 16, 2016.

Sources

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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

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

turkish, language, this, article, about, language, family, belongs, turkic, languages, turkish, türkçe, listen, türk, dili, also, referred, turkish, turkey, türkiye, türkçesi, most, widely, spoken, turkic, languages, with, around, million, speakers, national, . This article is about the Turkish language For the language family it belongs to see Turkic languages Turkish Turkce listen Turk dili also referred to as Turkish of Turkey Turkiye Turkcesi is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages with around 80 to 90 million speakers It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Iraq Syria Germany Austria Bulgaria North Macedonia 15 Greece 16 the Caucasus and other parts of Europe and Central Asia Cyprus has requested the European Union to add Turkish as an official language even though Turkey is not a member state 17 Turkish is the 13th most spoken language in the world TurkishTurkce noun adverb Turk dili noun Turkce written in the Turkish alphabetPronunciationTurkce ˈtyɾctʃe listen Turk dili Turkish pronunciation ˈtyɾc ˈdili Native toTurkey official Northern Cyprus official Cyprus official Azerbaijan Iraq Syria Lebanon Greece Bulgaria Romania Kosovo North Macedonia Bosnia and HerzegovinaRegionAnatolia Balkans Cyprus Mesopotamia Levant TranscaucasiaEthnicityTurksSpeakersNative 82 million 2006 1 L2 5 9 million 2019 1 Language familyTurkic Common TurkicOghuzWestern OghuzTurkishEarly formsOld Anatolian Turkish Ottoman TurkishStandard formsIstanbul TurkishDialectsCypriot Turkish Iraqi Turkmen Karamanli Turkish Meskhetian Turkish 2 Rumelian Turkish Syrian Turkish 3 Writing systemLatin Turkish alphabet Turkish BrailleOfficial statusOfficial language inCyprusNorthern CyprusTurkeyRecognised minoritylanguage inBosnia 4 Croatia 5 6 Greece 7 Iraq 8 a Kosovo 8 b North Macedonia 8 c Romania 8 14 Regulated byTurkish Language AssociationLanguage codesISO 639 1 span class plainlinks tr span ISO 639 2 span class plainlinks tur span ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code tur class extiw title iso639 3 tur tur a Glottolognucl1301Linguaspherepart of a href Oghuz languages html title Oghuz languages 44 AAB a 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 municipalityThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA source source source source source source source source source source A Turkish speaker from Kosovo 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 Ataturk s Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet The 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 Contents 1 Classification 2 History 2 1 Ottoman Turkish 2 2 Language reform and modern Turkish 3 Geographic distribution 3 1 Official status 3 2 Dialects 4 Phonology 4 1 Consonants 4 1 1 Consonant devoicing 4 2 Vowels 4 2 1 Vowel harmony 4 2 1 1 Exceptions to vowel harmony 5 Word accent 5 1 Exceptions to word accent rules 6 Syntax 6 1 Sentence groups 6 1 1 Negation 6 1 2 Yes no questions 6 2 Word order 6 2 1 Immediately preverbal 6 2 2 Postpredicate 6 2 3 Topic 7 Grammar 7 1 Nouns 7 1 1 Gender 7 1 2 Case 7 2 Personal pronouns 7 2 1 Noun phrases tamlama 7 3 Adjectives 7 4 Verbs 7 5 Verb tenses 7 5 1 Attributive verbs participles 8 Vocabulary 8 1 Word formation 9 Writing system 10 Sample 11 Whistled language 12 Turkish computer keyboard 13 See also 14 Notes 15 References 15 1 Sources 16 Further reading 17 External linksClassification EditMain 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 18 Classification of the Turkic languages is complicated The migrations of the Turkic peoples and their consequent intermingling with one another and with peoples who spoke non Turkic languages have created a linguistic situation of vast complexity 18 There is ongoing debate about whether the Turkic family is itself a branch of a larger Altaic family including Japanese Korean Mongolian and Tungusic 19 The nineteenth century Ural Altaic theory which grouped Turkish with Finnish Hungarian and Altaic languages is controversial 20 The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features agglutination vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender 20 History EditSee also Turkish people and Turkic peoples History The 10th 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 21 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 22 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 23 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 Diwan Lughat al Turk ديوان لغات الترك 24 Ottoman Turkish Edit The 15th century Book of Dede Korkut Main article Ottoman Turkish language See also Old Anatolian Turkish Following the adoption of Islam c 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 Turkce 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 25 While visiting the region between Adiyaman and Adana Evliya Celebi 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 26 Turkman language Ottoman Turkish Modern Turkish English Turkman language Ottoman Turkish Modern Turkish Englishyalvac peygamber peygamber prophet faki imam imam imamyuce Calap Ali Allah yuce Allah mighty God eyne cami cami mosquemezgit mescid mescit masjid gumec lavasa pisi ekmek ekmek lavas pisi bread lavash boortsogkekremsi sarab sarap wine Kancaridaydin Nerede idin Neredeydin Where were you Kancari yiligan be Nereye gidersin bire Nereye gidersin bre Where are you going Muhidi geyen mi Ferace giyermisin Ferace giyer misin Will you wear ferace Bargim yavincidi Karnim agridi Karnim agridi My stomach hurt sarikdi sehirli oldu Sehirli oldu They became urban Language reform and modern Turkish Edit 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 Ataturk 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 27 By banning the usage of imported words in the press clarification needed 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 28 In 1935 the TDK published a bilingual Ottoman Turkish Pure Turkish dictionary that documents the results of the language reform 29 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 Ataturk himself in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927 used a style of Ottoman which sounded so alien to later listeners that it had to be translated three times into modern Turkish first in 1963 again in 1986 and most recently in 1995 30 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 bolem to replace firka political party also failed to meet with popular approval firka 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 31 Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are Ottoman Turkish Modern Turkish English translation Commentsmuselles ucgen triangle Compound of the noun uc three and the suffix gentayyare ucak aeroplane Derived from the verb ucmak to fly The word was first proposed to mean airport 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 simal kuzey north Derived from the Old Turkic noun kuz cold and dark place shadow The word is restored from Middle Turkic usage 32 tesrinievvel ekim October The noun ekim means sowing referring to the planting of cereal seeds in autumn which is widespread in TurkeyFor a more comprehensive list see List of replaced loanwords in Turkish Geographic distribution EditSee also Turkish diaspora An advertisement by the IKEA branch in Berlin written in the German and Turkish languages Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries Turkish language is mutually intelligible with Azerbaijani and other Turkic languages In particular Turkish speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly in whole or part belonged to the Ottoman Empire such as Iraq 33 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 1 Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries not all ethnic members of the diaspora speak the language with native fluency 34 In 2005 93 of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish 35 about 67 million at the time with Kurdish languages making up most of the remainder 36 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 dinstictive 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 37 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 Edit 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 38 39 two in the Republic of North Macedonia and in Kirkuk Governorate in Iraq 40 41 In Turkey the regulatory body for Turkish is the Turkish Language Association Turk Dil Kurumu or TDK which was founded in 1932 under the name Turk 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 42 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 etat of 1980 28 Dialects Edit Main article Turkish dialects Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul 43 This Istanbul Turkish Istanbul Turkcesi constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish as recommended by Ziya Gokalp Omer Seyfettin and others 44 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 45 Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as agiz or sive 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 update work continued on the compilation and publication of their research as a comprehensive dialect atlas of the Turkish language 46 47 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 theoretized Balkan sprachbund Kibris Turkcesi 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 Yoruks of the Mediterranean Region of Turkey also have their own dialect of Turkish 48 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 49 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 50 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 Karamanlhdika It is the literary standard for the Karamanlides 51 Phonology EditMain article Turkish phonology See Turkish alphabet for a pronunciation guide Consonants Edit Consonant phonemes of Standard Turkish 52 Labial Dental Alveolar Post alveolar Palatal Velar GlottalNasal m nStop voiceless p t t ʃ c kvoiced b d d ʒ ɟ ɡFricative voiceless f s ʃ hvoiced v z ʒApproximant ɫ l j ɰ Tap ɾAt least one source claims Turkish consonants are laryngeally specified three way fortis lenis aspirated neutral voiced like Armenian 53 The phoneme that is usually referred to as yumusak g soft g written g 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 54 In native Turkic words the sounds c ɟ and l are 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 55 some examples are given below Consonant devoicing Edit 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 g 56 57 Obstruent devoicing in nouns Underlying consonant Devoiced form Underlying morpheme Dictionary form Dative case 1sg present Meaningb p kitab kitap kitaba book loan c c uc uc uca tipd t bud but buda thighg k reng renk renge color loan g k ekmeg ekmek ekmege breadThis 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 at name dative ada the underlying form is retained in the spelling cf at at horse dative ata Other exceptions are od fire vs ot herb sac sheet metal sac hair Most loanwords such as kitap above are spelled as pronounced but a few such as hac hajj sad happy and yad strange or stranger also show their underlying forms citation needed Native nouns of two or more syllables that end in k in dictionary form are nearly all g in underlying form However most verbs and monosyllabic nouns are underlyingly k 58 Vowels Edit Vowels of Turkish From Zimmer amp Orgun 1999 155 The vowels of the Turkish language are in their alphabetical order a e i i o o u u 59 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 60 Vowels are classified back round and high 61 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 54 Vowel harmony Edit Further information Vowel harmony Turkish Vowel Harmony Front Vowels Back VowelsUnrounded Rounded Unrounded RoundedVowel e e i i u y o o a a i ɯ u u o o Twofold Backness e aFourfold Backness Rounding i u i 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 62 This principle is expressed in Turkish through three rules 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 62 If the first vowel is unrounded so too are subsequent vowels 62 If the first vowel is rounded subsequent vowels are either rounded and close or unrounded and open 63 The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech More specifically they are related to the phenomenon of labial assimilation 64 if the lips are rounded a process that requires muscular effort for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels 63 If they are unrounded for the first vowel the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently 62 Grammatical affixes have a chameleon like quality 65 and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony twofold e a 66 the locative case suffix for example is de after front vowels and da after back vowels The notation de is a convenient shorthand for this pattern fourfold i i u u the genitive case suffix for example is in or in after unrounded vowels front or back respectively and un 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 67 The following examples based on the copula dir4 it is illustrate the principles of i type vowel harmony in practice Turkiye dir it is Turkey 68 kapidir it is the door but gundur it is the day paltodur it is the coat 69 Exceptions to vowel harmony Edit These are four word classes that are exceptions to the rules of vowel harmony Native non compound words e g dahi also ela light brown elma apple hangi which hani where haydi come on inanmak to believe kardes brother sisman fat anne mother Native compound words e g bugun today dedikodu gossip Foreign words e g ferman lt Farsi فرماندهی command mikrop lt French microbe microbe piskopos lt Greek episkopos bishop Invariable suffixes das 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 imtrak 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 das meslektas colleague From meslek profession yor geliyor he she it is coming From gel to come ane sahane regal From sah king ken uyurken while sleeping From uyu to sleep leyin sabahleyin in the morning From sabah morning imtrak eksimtrak sourish From eksi sour ki ormandaki that in the forest From orman forest gil annemgiller my mother s family From annem my mother gen altigen hexagon From alti six The road sign in the photograph above illustrates several of these features a native compound which does not obey vowel harmony Orta koy middle village a place name a loanword also violating vowel harmony viyaduk lt French viaduc viaduct the possessive suffix i4 harmonizing with the final vowel and softening the k by consonant alternation viyadugu citation needed 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 u and i thus there is no palatal harmony It s likely that elun meant your hand in Old Anatolian While the 2nd person singular possessive would vary between back and front vowel un or un as in elun for your hand and kitabun for your book the lack of u vowel in the Trabzon dialect means un would be used in both of these cases elun and kitabun 70 This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it August 2018 Word accent EditFurther information Turkish phonology Word accent With the exceptions stated below Turkish words are oxytone accented on the last syllable Exceptions to word accent rules Edit Place names are not oxytone 62 Anadolu Anatolia Istanbul Most place names are accented on their first syllable as in Paris and Zonguldak This holds true when place names are spelled the same way as common nouns which are oxytone misir maize Misir Egypt sirkeci vinegar seller Si rkeci district in Istanbul bebek doll baby Bebek district in Istanbul ordu army ordu a Turkish city on the Black Sea Foreign nouns usually retain their original accentuation 62 e g lokanta lt Italian locanda restaurant olta lt Greek bolta fishing line gazete lt Italian gazzetta newspaper Some words about family members 63 and living creatures 63 have irregular accentuation anne mother abla older sister gorumce husband s sister yenge brother s wife hala paternal aunt teyze maternal aunt amca paternal uncle ceki rge grasshopper karinca ant kokarca skunk Adverbs 63 are usually accented on the first syllable e g si mdi now sonra after ansizin suddenly gercekten really but gercekten from reality kisin during winter Compound words 64 are accented on the end of the first element e g ciplak naked cirilciplak stark naked bakan minister basbakan prime minister Diminutives constructed by suffix cik are accented on the first syllable e g ufacik very tiny evcik small house 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 memnuniyetle with pleasure ken yazarken while writing ce hayvancasina bestially leyin geceleyin by night me anlamadi he she it did not understand yor geli yor he she it is comingEnclitic words which shift the accentuation to the previous syllable e g ol meaning to be mi denoting a question gibi meaning similar to icin for ki that de too Enclitic suffix Turkish example Meaning in Englishol as a separate word arkadasim idi he she was my friendol as a suffix arkadasimdi he she was my friendmi anlamadi mi did he she not understand gibi sizi n gibi like youicin beni m icin for meki diyorlar ki olmiyacak they are saying that it won t happende biz de us tooSyntax EditSentence groups Edit 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 71 Sentence type Turkish EnglishSubject PredicateVerbal Necla okula gitti Necla went to schoolNominal no verb Necla ogretmen Necla is a teacher copula Necla ev de y mis hyphens delineate suffixes Apparently Necla is at homeNegation Edit The two groups of sentences have different ways of forming negation A nominal sentence can be negated with the addition of the word degil For example the sentence above would become Necla ogretmen degil 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 72 Yes no questions Edit 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 ogretmen misiniz Necla are you formal plural a teacher 72 Word order Edit 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 73 Immediately preverbal Edit Consider the following simple sentence which demonstrates that the focus in Turkish is on the element that immediately precedes the verb 74 Word order FocusSOV AhmetAhmetyumurta yiegg ACCyediateAhmet yumurta yi yediAhmet egg ACC ateAhmet ate the egg unmarkedSVO AhmetAhmetyediateyumurta yiegg ACCAhmet yedi yumurta yiAhmet ate egg ACCAhmet ate the egg the focus is on the subject Ahmet it was Ahmet who ate the egg OVS Yumurta yiegg ACCyediateAhmetAhmetYumurta yi yedi Ahmetegg ACC ate AhmetAhmet ate the egg the focus is on the object egg it was an egg that Ahmet ate Postpredicate Edit 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 71 Sentence type Word orderNominal S predicate Bu ev guzelmis apparently this house is beautiful unmarkedPredicate s Guzelmis bu ev it is apparently beautiful this house it is understood that the sentence is about this houseVerbal SOV Bana da bir kahve getir get me a coffee too unmarkedBana da getir bir kahve get me one too a coffee it is understood that it is a coffee that the speaker wantsTopic Edit 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 75 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 EditMain article Turkish grammar Turkish is an agglutinative language and frequently uses affixes and specifically suffixes or endings 76 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 77 The only native prefixes are alliterative intensifying syllables used with adjectives or adverbs for example simsicak boiling hot lt sicak and masmavi bright blue lt mavi 78 The extensive use of affixes can give rise to long words e g Cekoslovakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmissinizcasina 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 Bayramlasamadiklarimiz Bayram festival Recipr Impot Partic Plur PossPl1 Those of our number with whom we cannot exchange the season s greetings 79 Another example can be seen in the final word of this heading of the online Turkish Spelling Guide Imla Kilavuzu Dilde birlik ulusal birligin vazgecilemezlerindendir 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 80 Nouns Edit Gender Edit 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 Most domestic animals have male and female forms e g aygir stallion kisrak mare boga bull inek cow For other animals the sex may be indicated by adding the word disi female before the corresponding noun e g disi kedi female cat For people the female sex may be indicated by adding the word kiz girl or kadin woman e g kadin kahraman heroine instead of kahraman hero Some foreign words of French or Arabic origin already have separate female forms e g aktris actress The Serbo Croat feminine suffix ica is used in three borrowings kralice queen imparatorice empress and carice tsarina This suffix was used in the neologism tanrica lt Old Turkic tanri god Case Edit 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 it takes the genitive with personal pronouns singular demonstratives and interrogative kim The plural marker ler immediately follows the noun before any case or other affixes e g koylerin of the villages citation needed Case Ending Examples Meaningkoy village agac tree Nominative none koy agac the village treeAccusative i 4 koyu agaci the village treeGenitive in 4 koyun agacin the village s tree sof the village treeDative e koye agaca to the village treeLocative de koyde agacta in on at the village treeAblative den koyden agactan from the village treeInstrumental le koyle agacla with the village treeThe accusative case marker is used only for definite objects compare bir agac gorduk we saw a tree with agaci gorduk we saw the tree 81 The plural marker ler is generally not used when a class or category is meant agac gorduk can equally well mean we saw trees as we walked through the forest as opposed to agaclari gorduk we saw the trees in question citation needed The declension of agac illustrates two important features of Turkish phonology consonant assimilation in suffixes agactan agacta and voicing of final consonants before vowels agacin agaca agaci citation needed 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 koye mi going to the village agac mi is it a tree citation needed Turkish Englishev the houseevler the housesevin your sing houseeviniz your pl formal houseevim my houseevimde at my houseevlerinizin of your housesevlerinizden from your housesevlerinizdendi he she it was from your housesevlerinizdenmis he she it was apparently said to be from your housesEvinizdeyim I am at your house Evinizdeymisim I was apparently at your house Evinizde miyim Am I at your house Personal pronouns Edit 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 citation needed Noun phrases tamlama Edit Two nouns or groups of nouns may be joined in either of two ways definite possessive compound belirtili tamlama E g Turkiye 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 i 4 indefinite qualifying compound belirtisiz tamlama E g Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Turkey Republic 82 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 i 4 the same as in definite compounds citation needed The following table illustrates these principles 83 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 Note that 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 Meaningkimsenin yaniti nobody s answer kimse yaniti the answer nobody Ataturk un evi Ataturk s houseAtaturk Bulvari Ataturk Boulevard named after not belonging to Ataturk Orhan in adi Orhan s name Orhan adi the name Orhan r sessizi the consonant r r sessizi nin soylenisi pronunciation of the consonant rTurk Dil Kurumu Turkish language association Turk Dili Dergisi Turkish language magazineFord aile arabasi Ford family carFord un aile arabasi Mr Ford s family car Ford ailesi nin arabasi the Ford family s car 84 Ankara Kiz Lisesi 85 Ankara Girls School yil sonu sinavlari year end examinationsBulgaristan in Istanbul Baskonsoloslugu the Istanbul Consulate General of Bulgaria located in Istanbul but belonging to Bulgaria Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi Turk Edebiyati Profesoru Professor of Turkish Literature in the Faculty of Literature of the University of Istanbulne oldum delisi what have I become 86 madman parvenu who gives himself airsAs the last example shows the qualifying expression may be a substantival sentence rather than a noun or noun group 87 There is a third way of linking the nouns where both nouns take no suffixes takisiz tamlama However in this case the first noun acts as an adjective 88 e g Demir kapi iron gate elma yanak apple cheek i e red cheek komur goz coal eye i e black eye Adjectives Edit Turkish adjectives are not declined However most adjectives can also be used as nouns in which case they are declined e g guzel beautiful guzeller 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 sut 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 ayakkabilari yoktu my cat had no shoes lit cat my of shoe plur its non existent past tense citation needed Verbs Edit 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 Negation is expressed by the infix me immediately following the stem Turkish Englishgel to comegelebil to be able to comegelme not to comegeleme to be unable to comegelememis Apparently s he couldn t comegelebilecek s he ll be able to comegelmeyebilir s he may possibly not comegelebilirsen if you can comegelinir passive one comes people comegelebilmeliydin you should have been able to comegelebilseydin if you could have comegelmeliydin you should have comeVerb tenses Edit Note 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 9 simple and 20 compound tenses in Turkish 9 simple tenses are simple past di li gecmis inferential past mis li gecmis present continuous simple present aorist future optative subjunctive necessitative must and imperative 89 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 kosul is the conditional form of the first five basic tenses 90 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 hikaye Rumor rivayet Condition kosul you went gittin gittiydin gittiysenyou have gone gitmissin gitmistin gitmismissin gitmissenyou are going gidiyorsun gidiyordun gidiyormussun gidiyorsanyou are wont to go gidersin giderdin gidermissin gidersenyou will go gideceksin gidecektin gidecekmissin gideceksenif only you go gitsen gitseydin gitseymissin may you go gidesin gideydin gideymissin you must go gitmelisin gitmeliydin gitmeliymissin 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 91 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 Edit Turkish verbs have attributive forms including present 92 similar to the English present participle with the ending en 2 future ecek 2 indirect inferential past mis 4 and aorist er 2 or ir 4 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 en 2 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 ecek 2 and an older form dik 4 which covers both present and past meanings 93 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 yedigim means what I eat yedigin 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 94 English equivalent ExampleCase of relative pronoun PronounNominative who which that simdinowkonusanspeakingadammansimdi konusan adamnow speaking manthe man who is now speakingGenitive whose nom babasifather issimdinowkonusanspeakingadammanbabasi simdi konusan adamfather is now speaking manthe man whose father is now speakingwhose acc babasinifather is ACCdunyesterdaygordugumseen myadammanbabasini dun gordugum adamfather is ACC yesterday seen my manthe man whose father I saw yesterdayat whose resimlerinepictures is tobaktigimizlooked ourressamartistresimlerine baktigimiz ressampictures is to looked our artistthe artist whose pictures we looked atof which muhtarimayor itssecildigibeen chosen hiskoyvillagemuhtari secildigi koymayor its been chosen his villagethe village of which he was elected mayorof which muhtarisecilmekistedigikoymuhtari secilmek istedigi koythe village of which he wishes to be elected mayorRemaining cases incl prepositions whom which yazdigimwritten mymektupletteryazdigim mektupwritten my letterthe letter which I wrotefrom which ciktigimizemerged ourkapidoorciktigimiz kapiemerged our doorthe door from which we emergedon which geldiklericome theirvapurshipgeldikleri vapurcome their shipthe ship they came onwhich subordinate clause yaklastiginiapproach their ACCanladigiunderstood hishapishaneprisongunleridays itsyaklastigini anladigi hapishane gunleriapproach their ACC understood his prison days itsthe prison days which he knew were approaching 95 96 Vocabulary EditMain article Turkish vocabularyLatest 2010 edition of Buyuk Turkce Sozluk Great Turkish Dictionary the official dictionary of the Turkish language published by Turkish Language Association contains 616 767 words expressions terms and nouns including place names and person names both from the standard language and from dialects 97 Word formation Edit 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 98 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 classgoz goz eye Noungozluk goz luk eyeglasses Noungozlukcu goz luk cu optician Noungozlukculuk goz luk cu luk optician s trade Noungozlem goz lem observation Noungozlemci goz lem ci observer Noungozle goz le observe Verb order gozlemek goz le mek to observe Verb infinitive gozetlemek goz et le mek to peep Verb infinitive Another example starting from a verbal root Turkish Components English Word classyat yat lie down Verb order yatmak yat mak to lie down Verb infinitive yatik yat i k leaning Adjectiveyatak yat ak bed place to sleep Nounyatay yat ay horizontal Adjectiveyatkin yat gin inclined to stale from lying too long Adjectiveyatir yat i r lay down Verb order yatirmak yat i r mak to lay down something someone Verb infinitive yatirim yat i r i m laying down deposit investment Nounyatirimci yat i r i m ci depositor investor NounNew 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 kizarkadas kiz arkadas or black pepper karabiber kara biber A few examples of compound words are given below Turkish English Constituent words Literal meaningpazartesi Monday pazar Sunday and ertesi after after Sundaybilgisayar computer bilgi information and say to count information countergokdelen skyscraper gok sky and del to pierce sky piercerbasparmak thumb bas prime and parmak finger primary fingeronyargi prejudice on before and yargi splitting judgement fore judgingHowever 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 Suffixel cantasi handbag el hand and canta bag simasa ortusu tablecloth masa table and ortu cover sucay bardagi tea glass cay tea and bardak glass i the k changes to g Writing system EditMain articles Turkish alphabet and Turkish Braille Ataturk 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 Latin alphabet introduced in 1928 by Ataturk to replace the Ottoman Turkish alphabet a version of Perso Arabic alphabet The Ottoman alphabet marked only three different vowels long a u and i 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 99 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 Ataturk himself who toured the country teaching the new letters to the public 100 As a result there was a dramatic increase in literacy from its original pre modern levels 101 need quotation to verify 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 102 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 103 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 i representing ɯ As in German o and u represent o and y The letter g in principle denotes ɣ but has the property of lengthening the preceding vowel and assimilating any subsequent vowel The letters s and c 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 104 The Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters q x w omitted and c s g i o u added the complete list is a b c c d e f g g h i i j k l m n o o p r s s t u u v y and z Note that capital of i is I and lowercase I is i The specifically Turkish letters and spellings described above are illustrated in this table Turkish spelling Pronunciation MeaningCagaloglu ˈdʒaːɫoːɫu Istanbul district calistigi tʃaɫɯʃtɯː where that s he works workedmujde myʒˈde good newslazim laːˈzɯm necessarymahkum mahˈcum condemnedSample EditDostlar Beni Hatirlasin by Asik Veysel Satiroglu 1894 1973 a minstrel and highly regarded poet in the Turkish folk literature tradition Orthography IPA TranslationBen giderim adim kalir baen ɟid e ɾim ad ɯm kaɫɯɾ I depart my name remainsDostlar beni hatirlasin d o st ɫaɾ be ni hatɯɾɫasɯn May friends remember meDugun olur bayram gelir d yjyn o ɫuɾ bajɾam ɟe liɾ There are weddings there are feastsDostlar beni hatirlasin d o st ɫaɾ be ni hatɯɾɫasɯn May friends remember meCan kafeste durmaz ucar d ʒaŋ kafe st e d uɾmaz ut ʃaɾ The soul won t stay caged it flies awayDunya bir han konan gocer d ynja biɾ haŋ ko nan ɟo t ʃaeɾ The world is an inn residents departAy dolanir yillar gecer aj d o ɫanɯɾ jɯɫːaɾ ɟe t ʃaeɾ The moon wanders years pass byDostlar beni hatirlasin d o st ɫaɾ be ni hatɯɾɫasɯn May friends remember meCan bedenden ayrilacak d ʒan be d aend aen ajɾɯɫad ʒak The soul will leave the bodyTutmez baca yanmaz ocak t yt maez bad ʒa janmaz o d ʒak The chimney won t smoke furnace won t burnSelam olsun kucak kucak se laːm o ɫsuŋ kud ʒak kud ʒak Goodbye goodbye to you allDostlar beni hatirlasin d o st ɫaɾ be ni hatɯɾɫasɯn May friends remember meAcar solar turlu cicek at ʃaɾ so laɾ t yɾly t ʃit ʃe c Various flowers bloom and fadeKimler gulmus kim gulecek cimlaeɾ ɟylmyʃ cim ɟyle d ʒe c Someone laughed someone will laughMurat yalan olum gercek muɾat jaɫan o lym ɟaeɾt ʃe c Wishes are lies death is realDostlar beni hatirlasin d o st ɫaɾ be ni hatɯɾɫasɯn May friends remember meGun ikindi aksam olur ɟyn icindi akʃam o ɫuɾ Morning and afternoon turn to nightGor ki basa neler gelir ɟo ɾ ci baʃa ne laeɾ ɟe liɾ And many things happen to a person anywayVeysel gider adi kalir ʋe jsael ɟidaeɾ ad ɯ kaɫɯɾ Veysel departs his name remainsDostlar beni hatirlasin d o st ɫaɾ be ni hatɯɾɫasɯn May friends remember meWhistled language EditMain article Turkish bird language In the Turkish province of Giresun the locals in the village of Kuskoy have communicated using a whistled version of Turkish for over 400 years The region consists of a series of deep valleys and the unusual mode of communication allows for conversation over distances of up to 5 kilometres Turkish authorities estimate that there are still around 10 000 people using the whistled language However in 2011 UNESCO found whistling Turkish to be a dying language and included it in its intangible cultural heritage list Since then the local education directorate has introduced it as a course in schools in the region hoping to revive its use A study was conducted by a German scientist of Turkish origin Onur Gunturkun at Ruhr University observing 31 speakers of kus dili bird s tongue from Kuskoy and he found that the whistled language mirrored the lexical and syntactical structure of Turkish language 105 Turkish computer keyboard Edit 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 Edit Turkey portalSun Language Theory Turkish name Turkish Sign Language List of English words of Turkic origin List of Turkish exonyms Ozturkce Languages used on the InternetNotes Edit Turkish language is currently official in Kirkuk Governorate Kifri and Tuz Khurmatu districts 9 10 In addition to that it is considered an educational language for Iraqi Turkmen by Kurdistan Region 11 Turkish language is currently official in Gjilan Southern Mitrovica Vucitrn Mamusa and Prizren municipalities 12 Turkish language is currently official in Centar Zupa and Plasnica Municipality 13 References Edit a b c Turkish at Ethnologue 25th ed 2022 Karci Durmus 2018 The Effects of Language Characters and Identity of Meskhetian Turkish in Kazakhstan Kesit Akademi Dergisi 4 13 Behnstedt Peter 2008 Syria In Versteegh Kees Eid Mushira Elgibali Alaa Woidich Manfred Zaborski Andrzej eds Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Vol 4 Brill Publishers p 402 ISBN 978 90 04 14476 7 Bosnia and Herzegovina The European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages Collected Texts Council of Europe 2010 pp 107 108 ISBN 9789287166715 Rehm Georg Uszkoreit Hans eds 2012 The Croatian Language in the European Information Society The Croatian Language in the Digital Age Springer p 51 ISBN 9783642308826 Franceschini Rita 2014 Italy and the Italian Speaking Regions In Facke Christiane ed Manual of Language Acquisition Walter de Gruyter GmbH p 546 ISBN 9783110394146 In Croatia Albanian Bosnian Bulgarian Czech German Hebrew Hungarian Italian Macedonian Polish Romanian Romany Rusyn Russian Montenegrin Slovak Slovenian Serbian Turkish and Ukrainian are recognized EACEA 2012 18 50s Trudgill Peter Schreier Daniel 2006 Greece and Cyprus Griechenland und Zypern in Ulrich Ammon ed Sociolinguistics Soziolinguistik Walter de Gruyter p 1886 ISBN 3110199874 a b c d Johanson Lars 2021 Turkic Cambridge University Press ISBN 9781009038218 Turkish is the largest and most vigorous Turkic language spoken by over 80 million people a third of the total number of Turkic speakers Turkish is a recognized regional minority language in North Macedonia Kosovo Romania and Iraq 1 Text Article 1 of the declaration stipulated that no law regulation or official action could interfere with the rights outlined for the minorities Although Arabic became the official language of Iraq Kurdish became a corollary official language in Sulaimaniya and both Kurdish and Turkish became official languages in Kirkuk and Kifri Turkmenler Turkce tabelalardan memnun Son Dakika 2 Kurdistan Constitution of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Municipal language compliance in Kosovo OSCE Minsk Group Turkish language is currently official in Prizren and Mamusa Mamushe Mamusa municipalities In 2007 and 2008 the municipalities of Gjilan Gnjilane southern Mitrovice Mitrovica Prishtine Pristina and Vushtrri Vucitrn also recognized Turkish as a language in official use 3 Text Turkish is co official in Centar Zupa and Plasnica Romania The European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages Collected Texts Council of Europe 2010 pp 135 136 ISBN 9789287166715 Boeschoten Henrik Turkic Languages in Contact The Muslim Minority of Greek Thrace Archived from the original on 2017 07 01 As the E U s Language Roster Swells So Does the Burden The New York Times 4 January 2017 retrieved 17 March 2017 a b Aalto P Iranian Contacts of the Turks in Pre Islamic times in Studia Turcica ed L Ligeti Budapest 1971 pp 29 37 Benzing J Einfuhrung in das Studium der altaischen Philologie und der Turkologie Wiesbaden 1953 a b Gandjei T Uber die turkischen und mongolischen Elemente der persischen Dichtung der Ilchan Zeit in Ural altaische Jahrbucher 30 1958 pp 229 31 Erdal Marcel March 2004 A Grammar Of Old Turkic A Database of Turkic Runiform Inscriptions Findley full citation needed Soucek 2000 Glenny 2001 p 99 Evliya Celebi Seyahatnamesi III pp 174 175 Retrieved 17 October 2022 See Lewis 2002 for a thorough treatment of the Turkish language reform a b Turkish Language Association Turk Dil Kurumu Tarihce History of the Turkish Language Association in Turkish Archived from the original on March 16 2007 Retrieved 2007 03 18 Szurek Emmanuel 2015 02 17 Aymes Marc ed Order and Compromise Government Practices in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Early 21st Century Brill Publishers p 94 ISBN 978 90 04 28985 7 See Lewis 2002 2 3 for the first two translations For the third see Bedi Yazici Nutuk Ozgun metin ve ceviri Ataturk s Speech original text and translation in Turkish Archived from the original on 2007 09 28 Retrieved 2007 09 28 Oz Turkcelestirme Calismalari Cok Bilgi Archived from the original on 14 July 2019 Retrieved 29 May 2014 Mutercim Asim 1799 Burhan i Kati Tercemesi in Turkish Istanbul Iraq Encyclopedia Britannica 2016 See for example citations given in Cindark Ibrahim Aslan Sema 2004 Deutschlandturkisch Institut fur Deutsche Sprache page 3 European Commission 2006 Special Eurobarometer 243 Europeans and their Languages Survey PDF Europa Retrieved 2010 02 14 Kurdish Northern at Ethnologue 25th ed 2022 Safarova Durna 2017 02 28 Azerbaijan Grapples With the Rise of Turkish Language Eurasianet Retrieved 2022 08 18 Kosovo Encyclopedia Britannica 2016 Kosovo starts using Turkish as fifth official language in documents Daily Sabah 9 July 2015 Official regional languages CIA World Factbook 2002 Archived from the original on June 13 2007 Retrieved 2016 02 10 Guclu Yucel January 2007 Who Owns Kirkuk The Turkoman Case Middle East Quarterly The name TDK itself exemplifies this process The words tetkik and cemiyet in the original name are both Arabic loanwords the final i of cemiyeti being a Turkish possessive suffix kurum is a native Turkish word based on the verb kurmak set up found citation needed Campbell George 1995 Turkish Concise compendium of the world s languages London Routledge p 547 En iyi Istanbul Turkcesini kim konusur Milliyet Retrieved 2017 12 30 Johanson Lars 2001 Discoveries on the Turkic linguistic map PDF Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul archived from the original PDF on February 5 2007 retrieved 2007 03 18 Ozsoy Akalin Sukru Haluk January 2003 Turk Dil Kurumu nun 2002 yili calismalari Turkish Language Association progress report for 2002 PDF Turk Dili in Turkish 85 613 ISSN 1301 465X Archived from the original PDF on June 27 2007 Retrieved 2007 03 18 Shashi Shyam Singh 1992 Encyclopaedia of Humanities and Social Sciences Anmol Publications p 47 Retrieved 2008 03 26 Aydingun Aysegul Harding Cigdem Balim Hoover Matthew Kuznetsov Igor Swerdlow Steve 2006 Meskhetian Turks An Introduction to their History Culture and Resettelment Experiences PDF Center for Applied Linguistics archived from the original PDF on 2007 07 14 Brendemoen B 1996 Phonological Aspects of Greek Turkish Language Contact in Trabzon Conference on Turkish in Contact Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study NIAS in the Humanities and Social Sciences Wassenaar 5 6 February 1996 Balta Evangelia Fall 2017 Translating Books from Greek into Turkish for the Karamanli Orthodox Christians of Anatolia 1718 1856 International Journal of Turkish Studies 23 1 2 20 via Ebsco Zimmer amp Orgun 1999 pp 154 155 Petrova Olga Plapp Rosemary Ringen Catherine Szentgyorgyi Szilard 2006 Voice and aspiration Evidence from Russian Hungarian German Swedish and Turkish PDF The Linguistic Review 23 1 1 35 doi 10 1515 tlr 2006 001 ISSN 0167 6318 S2CID 42712078 Archived from the original PDF on 2018 09 08 a b Handbook of the IPA p 155 Lewis 2001 pp 93 4 6 Sesler ve ses uyumlari Sounds and Vovel karmony in Turkish Turkish Language Association Archived from the original on 2012 07 28 Retrieved 2013 01 13 Turkish Consonant Mutation turkishbasics com Lewis 2001 p 10 The vowel represented by i is also commonly transcribed as ɨ in linguistic literature Goksel Asli Kerslake Celia 2005 Turkish A Comprehensive Grammar Routledge pp 24 25 ISBN 0 415 11494 2 Khalilzadeh Amir Winter 2010 Vowel Harmony in Turkish Karadeniz Arastirmalari Balkan Kafkas Dogu Avrupa Ve Anadolu Incelemeleri Dergisi 6 24 141 150 a b c d e f Mundy C Turkish Syntax as a System of Qualification Oxford 1957 pp 279 305 a b c d e Deny J Grammaire de la langue turque Paris 1963 a b von Gabain A Altturkische Grammatik Leipzig 1950 Lewis 1953 p 21 For the terms twofold and fourfold as well as the superscript notation see Lewis 1953 21 22 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 18 Underhill Robert 1976 Turkish Grammar Cambridge Massachusetts The MIT Press p 25 ISBN 0 262 21006 1 In modern Turkish orthography an apostrophe is used to separate proper names from any suffixes Husby Olaf Diagnostic use of nonword repetition for detection of language impairment among Turkish speaking minority children in Norway Working Papers Department of Language and Communication Studies NTNV 3 2006 139 149 via Academia edu Boeschoten Hendrik Johanson Lars Milani Vildan 2006 Turkic Languages in Contact Otto Harrassowitz Verlag ISBN 978 3 447 05212 2 a b Goksel Asli Kerslake Celia 2005 Turkish A Comprehensive Grammar Routledge ISBN 0 415 11494 2 a b Underhill Robert 1976 Turkish Grammar Cambridge Massachusetts The MIT Press ISBN 0 262 21006 1 Thompson Sandra April 1978 Modern English from a Typological Point of View Some Implications of the Function of Word Order Linguistische Berlichte 1978 54 19 35 via ProQuest Erguvanli Eser Emine 1984 The Function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar Linguistics Vol 106 Berkeley University of California Press ISBN 0 520 09955 9 Kilicasaslan Yilmaz A Typological Approach to Sentence Structure in Turkish PDF This section draws heavily on Lewis 2001 and to a lesser extent Lewis 1953 Only the most important references are specifically flagged with footnotes see Lewis 2001 Ch XIV The prefix which is accented is modelled on the first syllable of the simple adjective or adverb but with the substitution of m p r or s for the last consonant of that syllable Lewis 2001 55 The prefix retains the first vowel of the base form and thus exhibits a form of reverse vowel harmony This splendid word appeared at the time of Bayram the festival marking the end of the month of fasting Lewis 2001 287 Imla Kilavuzu Dilimiz com Archived from the original on 2011 10 06 Retrieved 2011 11 03 Because it is also used for the indefinite accusative Lewis uses the term absolute case in preference to nominative Lewis 2001 28 Lewis points out that an indefinite izafet group can be turned into intelligible though not necessarily normal English by the use of a hyphen Lewis 2001 42 The examples are taken from Lewis 2001 41 47 For other possible permutations of this vehicle see Lewis 2001 46 It is most important to note that the third person suffix is not repeated though theoretically one might have expected Ankara Kiz Lisesi si Lewis 2001 45 footnote Note the similarity with the French phrase un m as tu vu a have you seen me i e a vain and pretentious person The term substantival sentence is Lewis s Lewis 2001 257 Demir Celal 2007 Turkiye Turkcesi Gramerlerinde Isim Tamlamasi Sorunu ve Bir Tasnif Denemesi The Problem of Adjective in Turkish An Attempt of Classification PDF Turk Dunyasi Incelemeleri Dergisi Journal of Turkish World Studies in Turkish 7 1 27 54 Retrieved 2013 03 29 Yuksel Goknel Turkish Grammar full citation needed Turkish Studies Vol 7 3 PDF in Turkish Archived from the original PDF on 2013 03 13 Retrieved 2013 03 29 Dersimiz Edebiyat Online course in Turkish Dersimizedebiyat com Retrieved 2013 03 29 The conventional translation of the film title Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam The Man Who Saved the World uses the past tense Semantically his saving the world takes place though in the narrative present See Lewis 2001 163 165 260 262 for an exhaustive treatment For the terms personal and relative participle see Lewis 1958 98 and Lewis 2001 163 respectively Most of the examples are taken from Lewis 2001 This more complex example from Orhan Pamuk s Kar Snow contains a nested structure which he knew were approaching Maureen Freely s more succinct and idiomatic translation is the days in prison he knew lay ahead Note that Pamuk uses the spelling hapisane From the perspective of Turkish grammar yaklastigini anladigi is exactly parallel to babasini gordugum whose father I saw and could therefore be paraphrased as whose approaching he understood Buyuk Turkce Sozluk Turkish Language Association in Turkish Tdkterim gov tr Archived from the original on 2013 03 28 Retrieved 2013 03 29 Goksel Asli Kerslake Celia 2005 Turkish A Comprehensive Grammar Routledge pp 43 48 ISBN 0 415 11494 2 Zimmer amp Orgun 1999 155 Dilacar Agop 1977 Ataturk ve Yazim Turk Dili in Turkish 35 307 ISSN 1301 465X Retrieved 2007 03 19 Coulmas 1989 pp 243 244 In modern Turkish spelling elma agactan irak dusmez Celia Kerslake Asli Goksel 11 June 2014 Turkish An Essential Grammar Routledge p 12 ISBN 978 1 134 04218 0 Lewis 2001 3 7 Note that in these cases the circumflex conveys information about the preceding consonant rather than the vowel over which it is written Northern village of Kuskoy still communicates with amazing Turkish whistling language The Daily Sabah February 16 2016 Sources Edit Akalin Sukru Haluk January 2003 Turk Dil Kurumu nun 2002 yili calismalari Turkish Language Association progress report for 2002 PDF Turk Dili in Turkish 85 613 ISSN 1301 465X Archived from the original PDF on June 27 2007 Retrieved 2007 03 18 Bazin Louis 1975 Turcs et Sogdiens Les Enseignements de L Inscription de Bugut Mongolie Melanges Linguistiques Offerts a Emile Benveniste Collection Linguistique Publiee Par la Societe de Linguistique de Paris in French LXX 37 45 Brendemoen B 1996 Phonological Aspects of Greek Turkish Language Contact in Trabzon Conference on Turkish in Contact Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study NIAS in the Humanities and Social Sciences Wassenaar 5 6 February 1996 Encyclopaedia Britannica Expo 70 Edition Vol 12 William Benton 1970 Coulmas Florian 1989 Writing Systems of the World Blackwell Publishers Ltd Oxford ISBN 0 631 18028 1 Dilacar Agop 1977 Ataturk ve Yazim Turk Dili in Turkish 35 307 ISSN 1301 465X Retrieved 2007 03 19 Ergin Muharrem 1980 Orhun Abideleri in Turkish Bogazici Yayinlari ISBN 0 19 517726 6 Findley Carter V October 2004 The Turks in World History Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 517726 6 Glenny Misha 2001 The Balkans Nationalism War and the Great Powers 1804 1999 New York Penguin Johanson Lars 2001 Discoveries on the Turkic linguistic map PDF Stockholm Svenska forskningsinstitutet i Istanbul ISBN 978 91 86884 10 9 Archived from the original PDF on February 5 2007 Retrieved 2007 03 18 Ishjatms N October 1996 Nomads In Eastern Central Asia History of civilizations of Central Asia Vol 2 UNESCO Publishing ISBN 92 3 102846 4 Lewis Geoffrey 1953 Teach Yourself Turkish English Universities Press ISBN 978 0 340 49231 4 2nd edition 1989 Lewis Geoffrey 2001 Turkish Grammar Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 870036 9 Lewis Geoffrey 2002 The Turkish Language Reform A Catastrophic Success Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 925669 1 Ozsoy A Sumru Taylan Eser E eds 2000 Turkce nin agizlari calistayi bildirileri Workshop on the dialects of Turkish in Turkish Bogazici University Yayinevi ISBN 975 518 140 7 Soucek Svat 2000 A History of Inner Asia Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 65169 1 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 Zimmer Karl Orgun Orhan 1999 Turkish PDF Handbook of the International Phonetic Association A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 154 158 ISBN 0 521 65236 7 Archived from the original PDF on 2018 07 25 Retrieved 2015 04 12 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 CIA Factbook Iraq 2013 Guncel Turkce Sozluk in Turkish Turkish Language Association 2005 Archived from the original on 2007 03 12 Retrieved 2007 03 21 Turkish Etymological Dictionary online in Turkish Sevan Nisanyan 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 Special Eurobarometer 243 Wave 64 3 Europeans and their Languages PDF European Commission Directorate of General Press and Communication February 2006 Retrieved 2007 03 28 Turkish Language Association Sesler ve ses uyumlari Sounds and Vovel karmony in Turkish Turkish Language Association Archived from the original on 2012 07 28 Retrieved 2013 01 13 Goknel Yuksel 2012 Turkish Grammar Updated Academic edition Retrieved 2013 01 16 Turkish Language Association Turk Dil Kurumu Tarihce History of the Turkish Language Association in Turkish Archived from the original on 2007 03 16 Retrieved 2007 03 18 Turkce Sozluk 2005 teki Sozlerin Kokenlerine Ait Sayisal Dokum Numerical list on the origin of words in Turkce Sozluk 2005 in Turkish Turkish Language Association 2005 Archived from the original on March 1 2007 Retrieved 2007 03 21 Spartak KADIU Turkcede zaman ve kip kavrami ve i ek eylemin fonksiyonu uzerine 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 EditEyuboglu Ismet Zeki 1991 Turk Dilinin Etimoloji Sozlugu Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language in Turkish Sosyal Yayinlari Istanbul ISBN 978975 7384 72 4 Ozel Sevgi Haldun Ozen Ali Puskulluoglu eds 1986 Ataturk un Turk Dil Kurumu ve Sonrasi Ataturk s Turkish Language Association and its Legacy in Turkish Bilgi Yayinevi Ankara OCLC 18836678 Puskulluoglu Ali 2004 Arkadas Turkce Sozluk Arkadas Turkish Dictionary in Turkish Arkadas Yayinevi Ankara ISBN 975 509 053 3 Rezvani B Turkce Mi Turkce deki Irani Farsca Dimilce Kurmancca Orijinli kelimeler Sozlugu Turkish title roughly translated Is this Turkish An etymological dictionary of originally Iranic Persian Zazaki and Kurmanji Kurdish words 2006 External links EditTurkish dictionaries at Curlie Turkish language at Curlie Swadesh list of Turkish basic vocabulary words from Wiktionary s Swadesh list appendix Turkish Language Resources University of MichiganTurkish language at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons News from Wikinews Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Phrasebook from Wikivoyage Resources from Wikiversity Turkish Edition from Wikipedia Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Turkish language amp oldid 1131768985, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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