Turkish alphabet

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Turkish language

Alphabet
Phonology
Vocabulary
Grammar:
o Copula
History and reform:
o Ottoman Turkish
o

Replaced loanwords

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The Turkish alphabet is a Latin-based alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29
letters, a certain number of which (, , I, , , , and ) have been adapted or modified for the
phonetic requirements of the language.
These letters are:

Capital letters

A B C D E F GH I J K L MNO P R S T U V Y Z
Lower case letters

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p r s t u v y z
Of these 29 letters, 8 are vowels (A, E, I, , O, , U, ); the 21 others are consonants.
The letters Q, W, and X of the Modern basic Latin alphabet do not occur in the Turkish alphabet.

Names
The names of the vowel letters are the vowels themselves, while the names of the consonant letters are
the consonant plus e. The one exception is "yumuak ge": a, be, ce, e, de, e, fe, ge, yumuak ge, he, ,
i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, , pe, re, se, e, te, u, , ve, ye, ze.

Sounds
See also: Turkish phonology

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering

support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead
of Unicode characters.

Turkish orthography is highly phonetic and a word's pronunciation is always completely identified by its
spelling. The following table presents the Turkish letters, the sounds they correspond to in International
Phonetic Alphabet and how these can be approximated more or less by an English speaker.

Letter IPA

English
approximation

English
approximation

Letter IPA

A a // As u in funny

M m /m/ As m in man

B b /b/ As b in bat

N n /n/ As n in nay

C c /d/ As j in job

O o /o/ As a shortened o in no

/t/ As c in cello

// As e in her

D d /d/ As d in dog

P p /p/ As p in put

E e /e/ As e in red

R r

F f

/f/

As f in far

G g /g/ As g in gap

// As the r in rapid

S s /s/ As s in sand
//

As s in sugar

 //1 No English equivalent1 T t

H h /h/ As h in hot

/t/

As t in top

U u /u/ As oo in boot

// As e in open

/y/ No English equivalent, like in German ber

/i/

V v /v/ As v in valve

J j

As i in hit

// As s in measure

K k /k/ As k in kangaroo

L l

/l/

Y y /j/

As y in you

Z z /z/ As z in zip

As l in let

1. The occurrence of [] is dialectal; for speakers who do not pronounce it as a voiced

velar fricative, it may instead appear as the lengthening of the preceding vowel.

History
Early history
The earliest known Turkish alphabet is the Orkhon script. In general, Turkic languages have been written
in a number of different alphabets including Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Latin and some other
Asiatic writing systems.
Turkish was written using the Arabic script during the Ottoman era. However, Latin was applied to the
Turkish language for educational purposes even before the 20th century reform. Instances include a 1635
Latin-Albanian dictionary by Frang Bardhi, who also incorporated several sayings in the Turkish
language, as an appendix to his work (e.g., Alma agatsdan irak duschamas An apple does not fall far
from its tree.)

Modern Turkish alphabet

Atatrk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Kayseri. September 20, 1928
The current 29-letter Turkish alphabet, used for the Turkish language, was established by the Law on
the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, numbered 1353,[1] in Turkey on November 1,
1928, as a vital step in the cultural part of Atatrk's Reforms.[2] Replacing the earlier Ottoman Turkish
script, the script was created as an extended version of the Latin alphabet at the initiative of Mustafa
Kemal Atatrk, who announced the alphabet change in July 1928.[3]
The alphabet reform, combined later with the foundation of Turkish Language Association in 1932,
campaigns by the Ministry of Education including the opening of Public Education Centers throughout
the country, and the active encouragement of people by Atatrk with many trips to the countryside often
involving him teaching the new alphabet, succeeded in achieving a substantial increase in the literacy
rate of the population from a figure around 20% to over 90%.[4] The reforms were also backed up by the
Law on Copyrights, issued in 1934, encouraging and strengthening the private publishing sector.[5] In
1939, The First Turkish Publications Congress was organized in Ankara, for discussing the issues like
copyright, printing, the progress on improving the literacy rate and scientific publications, with the
attendance of 186 deputies.

Participants of the conference on the Turkish alphabet, including Atatrk. August 29, 1929
The work of preparing the new alphabet based on the Latin letters and incorporating necessary
modifications to account for sounds specific to Turkish language, was undertaken by the Language
Commission (Dil Encmeni) consisting of the following members:
Linguists

Ragp Hulsi zdem,

Ahmet Cevat Emre,
brahim Grandi Grantay,
Educators
Mehmet Emin Eriirgil,
hsan Sungu,
Fazl Ahmet Ayka,
Writers and members of parliament
Falih Rfk Atay,
Ruen Eref naydn,
Yakup Kadri Karaosmanolu.
The commission started the work on the new alphabet on June 26, 1928. The letter was adopted from
the Swedish alphabet by suggestion from the Swedish interpreter of the Dragoman House (ambassador
house) present at the commission for discussing the new alphabet[citation needed]. was adopted from the
Albanian alphabet, was from the S-comma of the Romanian alphabet, and is from the German
alphabet. The unique use of C for the "dj" sound came from the Arabic letter jim , which is the third
letter shape in the Arabic alphabet (i.e., excluding other letters such as ta and tha which are the same as
ba, but with dots added), after alif, and ba, and before dal. Interestingly, the Arabic letter that looked like
jim (C) with three dots added became chim () , and the letter sin (S) with three dots added
became shin () .

Distinctive features
Note that dotted and dotless I are separate letters, each with its own uppercase and lowercase form. I is
the capital form of , and is the capital form of i. (In the original law establishing the alphabet, the
dotted came before the undotted I; now their places are reversed [Yazm Klavuzu].) The letter J,
however, uses a tittle in the same way English does, with a dotted lowercase version, and a dotless
uppercase version.
Optional circumflex accents can be used with "", "" and "" to disambiguate words with different
meanings but otherwise the same spelling, or to indicate palatalization of a preceding consonant (for
example, while "kar" /kar/ means "snow", "kr" /car/ means "profit"), or long vowels in loanwords,
particularly from Arabic. These are seen as variants of "a", "i", and "u" and are becoming quite rare in
modern usage.

Status of Q, W, X
The Turkish alphabet has no Q, W or X. Instead, these are transliterated into Turkish as K, V, and KS,
respectively. The 1928 Law 1353 enforced usage of only the Turkish letters on official documents like
birth certificates, marriage documents, and land registers;[1] the 1982 Constitution explicitly retains this
law.[6] In practice, the requirement of using the Turkish alphabet in state registers has made it impossible
to register some Kurdish names exactly as they are rendered in Kurdish orthography, which includes q,
w, and x. The families can give their children Kurdish names, but these names cannot include these
letters and are required to use the aforementioned transliterations. Many Kurds have applied to the courts
seeking to change their names to specifically include the letters q, w, and x.[7] A similar situation exists in
Europe where many people with Turkish names reside.[8] Many Turkish names include , , , , , , and
, some of which are unavailable in local official alphabets.

In popular culture

In Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow, there are several fictional scenes
relating to the various committees supposedly assigned in the Soviet Union to create
the New Turkish Alphabet for use in Central Asia, one for a different letter, each one
advocating their letter at the expense of other alternative transliterations of the sound in
question.

Richard Chambers / Chicago University

Since 1928, Turkish has been written in a slightly modified Latin alphabet which is very nearly phonetic.
The Turkish alphabet has 8 vowels (A E I O U ) and 21 consonants. The letters Q,W and X do not exist in
Turkish. Most letters are pronounced pretty much as you would expect, but some are not. Once the phonetic
value of all letters is known, then it is rather easy to pronounce any word one sees or to spell any word one
hears.The following letters require explanation:
Aa = "a" as in "card" or "dark", never as "a" in"cat" or "back" ( kan = blood )
Cc = "J" as in "judge" ( can= life, soul, pronounced like "John" )
= "ch" as in "church"( ay= tea, pronounced "chay", rhymes with "buy" )
Ee = "e" as in "bed" ( ekmek =bread )
Gg = "g" as in "get" ( gelin =bride )
g ( yumuak ge [soft g] Never appears as the first letter in a word; essentially silent; sometimes lengthens
preceding vowel; sometimes pronounced like "y" in "yet"
(dag =mountain, pronounced daa , rhymes with the "baa" of "baa baa black sheep";
diger =other, pronounced diyer )
l( undotted "i" ) "u" as in "radium" or "i" as in "cousin" (k =ligth, rmak = river )
i( dotted "i" ) ="i" as in "sit" ( bir = one, pronounced like "beer" )
Jj = "j" as in "azure" (garaj = garage, pronounced as in French & English )
Oo = "o" as in "fold"(okul =school )
German "" as in "Knig" or French "eu" as in "peur"( gl = lake, rhymes with furl)
Ss="s" as in "sing", never pronounced like a "z" as the "s" in "his"(ses = voice)
="sh"as in "ship" (ey = thing, pronounced "shey" , rhymes with "hay")
Uu "oo" as in "boot" (buz = ice, pronounced like "booze")
German "" as in "fr" or French "u" as in "tu" (gl = rose)
Zz="z" as in "zoo" (beyaz = white)
Turkish belongs to the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family.The earliest Turkic inscriptions date from the 7th
century C.E. and Islamic texts written in Turkic appear in the 11th century. Turkish, the language of modern

Turkey, is spoken by about 60 million people. Other important Turkic languages are Azeri (15 million speakers)
and Uzbek (14 million speakers). Turkish formerly used the same alphabet as Arabic, but has been written in the
Latin alphabet since 1928 as mentioned above; since 1940, Azeri and Uzbek have been written in Cyrillic but
efforts are now under way to replace it with Latin.
As an Altaic language, Turkish has virtually nothing in common with English or other Indo-European languages
except for some loan words, usually from French or English.
Turkish grammar is complex, but also quite regular. Its two most characteristic features are : (1) vowel harmony
(vowels within a word follow certain harmonic patterns) and (2) agglutination (addition suffixes to words.) Through
this process, astoundingly long word phrases can be encountered. For example, the following means, "Maybe you
are one of those whom we were not able to Turkify."
Trkletiremedigimizlerdensinizdir.
Another interesting feature is that there is no gender in Turkish.The same word , "o", for example, means "he",
"she" and "it".
Turks generally call each other by their given names.For example, a man whose name is Ahmet Kuran would be
called Ahmet bey( bey = Mr.), and his wife whose name is Aye Kuran would be called Aye hanm ( hanm =Ms.).
Good friends drop the "bey" and "hanm". But a letter would be addressed to Bay ve Bayan Ahmet Kuran (Mr. and
Mrs...).
Some useful Turkish words and expressions are :
Merhaba

Hello[response is the same word]

Gnaydn

Good day

Hogeldiniz

Welcome

Ho bulduk

reply of the person arriving

Naslsnz?

How are you?

yiyim

I am well

Teekkr ederim

Thank you

Bir ey degil

Not at all / You're welcome

Adnz / sminiz
nedir ?

What is your name ?

Adm / smim ___.

My name is _____.

Memnun oldum

I'm pleased to meet you.

Ben de memnun
oldum.

I, too , am pleased to meet you

yi Gnler

Good day. / Have a nice day

yi Akamlar

Good evening

yi Geceler

Good night

Allahasmarladk

-bye.[said by person leaving]

Gle gle

Good-bye.[said to person leaving]

Buyurun

After you. / Come in. / Be

seated / Help yourself; etc.

Elinize saglk

Health to your hands.[said to person

Afiyet olsun
who prepared food]

Bon apptit

Affedersiniz

Excuse me

Ltfen

Please

nallah

If God wills

Efendim?

What did you say? / I beg your

pardon?

Dikkat

Pay attention!/ Watch out!

Kaa?/ Ne kadar?

How much is it? / What does it

cost?

Bu pahal

This is expensive

O pahal degil

That is not expensive

Bu ok ucuz

This is very inexpensive / cheap

stiyorum

I want [it, this, that]

stemiyorum

I don't want [it, this, that]

Numbers :
Bir(1) , iki(2), (3), drt(4), be(5), alt(6), yedi(7), sekiz(8), dokuz(9), on(10), onbir(11), oniki(12) , yirmi(20),
yirmibe(25), otuz(30), otuz(33), krk(40), krkalt(46), elli(50) , ellibe(55), altm(60), altmiki(62),
yetmi(70), yetmisekiz(78), seksen(80), seksenbir(81), doksan(90), doksanyedi(97), yz(100),

yzdokuz(109), yzellibir(151), ikiyzonbe(215), yzotuz(330), bin(1000), bin dokuz yz doksan

alt(1996), milyon(milion), milyar(billion).

Other Useful Vocabulary :

Su

water

Fincan

cup

Portakal suyu

Orange-juice

Bardak

glass

Et suyu

meat-broth

Tabak

plate

St

milk

Bak

knife

eker

sugar, candy, sweet Byk

big, large

Kahve

coffee

Kk

small, little

Sade

no sugar

Erkek

man, male

Az ekerli

a little sugar

Kadn

woman

ok ekerli

a lot of sugar

Kz

girl

ay

tea

ocuk

child

Ayran

yogurt drink

Oglan

boy

Bira

beer

Kz

daughter

arap

wine

Ogul

son

Beyaz

white

Anne

mother

Krmz

red

Baba

father

Buz

ice

Karde

sibling

Biber

pepper

Kz karde

sister

Tuz

salt

Erkek karde

brother

Ekmek

bread

he , she, it, that

Tereyag

butter

Bu

this

Peynir

cheese

Arkada

friend, colleague

Meze

appetizers

Amerika Birleik Devletleri United States Of America

Et

meat

Soguk

cold

Trkiye Cumhuriyeti Republic of Turkey

Tavuk

chicken

Balk

fish

Pilav

pilaf

Salata

salad, lettuce

Meyva

fruit

Sebze

vegetable

orba

soup

Sandvi

Sandwich

Tatl

dessert

Dondurma

ice cream, sorbet

atal

fork

Kak

spoon

Pahal

expensive

Some most Common Turkish Phrases

What's your name?
My name is...:
Where are you from?
From London/?stanbul:

Adnz ne?
Benim adm...
Nerelisiniz?
Londralym/stanbulluyum

Are you alone?

Yalnz msnz?
Are you married?
Evli misiniz?
Where's your hotel?
Oteliniz nerede?
In town:
ehir merkezinde
What kind of music do you like? Ne tr mzik seversiniz?
What do you like doing?
Nelerden holanrsnz?
Pleased to meet you:
Memnun oldum
Would you like an icecream?
Dondurma ister misiniz?
No thanks :
Saolun
Let's go and swim:
Yzelim mi?
You go, I don't want to:
Siz gidin, ben istemiyorum.
Seriously?:
Ciddimisin?
Where do you work?:
Nerede alyorsunuz?
I'm a student:
renciyim
What are you studying?
Ne okuyorsun?
Business studies/French :
letme / Franszca
I work in a bank :
Bankaclk yapyorum
In an advertising agency:
Reklam ajansnda alyorum
I'm drunk:
Sarho oldum
Let's go and dance!
Hadi, dans edelim
Your eyes are beautiful:
Gzlerin ok gzel
I'm allergic to roses:
Gle alerjim var
Our friends have left early:
Arkadalarmz erken gittiler
You dance so well:
Mkemmel dans ediyorsun
I feel so close to you:
Kendimi sana yakn hissediyorum
I love you:
Seni seviyorum
Don't do that:
Yapma!
No, not tonight:
Bu akam olmaz
I love you too:
Ben de seni seviyorum.
Good night:
yi gecele

Useful Turkish phrases

A collection of useful phrases in Turkish. Click on the English phrases to see them
in many other languages.
Key to abbreviations: sg = singular (said to one person), pl = plural (said to more
than one person), inf = informal
English

Turkish (Trke)

Welcome

Ho geldin (sg) Ho geldiniz (pl/frm)

Hello

Merhaba, Selam, yi gnler

Alo, Efendim (on the phone)

How are you?

Naslsnz? (frm) Naslsn? (inf)

I'm fine, thanks. And

you?

yiyim teekkr ederim, siz naslsnz (frm)

yiyim saol, sen naslsn (inf)

Long time no see

Ne zamandr/ka zamandr grmedik (see)

Ne zamandr/ka zamandr haber yok (hear)

What's your name?

My name is ...

sminiz nedir? (frm) Adn ne? (inf)

Where are you from?

I'm from ...

Nerelisin? (inf) Nerelisiniz? (frm)

Pleased to meet you

Tantmza memnun oldum / Memnun oldum

Good morning

Gnaydn

Good afternoon

Tnaydn, yi gnler

Good evening

yi akamlar

Good night

yi geceler

Goodbye

Hoa kal

Good luck

yi anslar!

Cheers/Good health!

erefe! (to honour)

Saglna! (sg) Saglnza! (pl/frm) - to your
health

Have a nice day

yi gnler!

Bon appetit

Afiyet olsun!

Bon voyage

yi yolculuklar! Gle, gle!

I don't understand

Anlamyorum, Anlamadm

Please speak more slowly

Ltfen daha yava konuun

Please write it down for

me

Ltfen yaznz

Do you speak Turkish?

Trke biliyor musun? (inf)

Trke biliyor musunuz? (frm)

Yes, a little

ok az Trke biliyorum

How do you say ... in

Turkish?

Trke'de ... nasl denir?

Excuse me

Pardon, geebilirmiyim? (to get past)

Pardon, bakarmsnz? (to get attention)

smim ... (frm) Adm ... (inf)

...lym / ...liyim / ...den / ..dan

How much is this?

Ne kadar?

Sorry

Pardon (inf) zr dilerim (frm)

Thank you

Teekkr ederim, ok teekkr ederim

Teekkrler, Saol, Saolun

Response (You're
welcome)

Bir ey deil / Rica ederim

Where's the toilet?

Tuvalet nerede?

This gentleman/lady
will pay for everything

Bu bey/bu hanm, her eyi deyecek

Would you like to dance

with me?

Bu dans bana ltfeder misiniz? (frm)

Benimle dans eder misiniz? (inf)

I love you

Seni seviyorum

Get well soon

Gemi olsun

Help!
Fire!
Stop!

mdat!
Yangn!
Dur!

Call the police!

Polis arn!

Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year

yi Noeller ve Mutlu Yllar

yi seneler / Yeni ylnz kutlu olsun (Happy
New Year)
Yeni ylnz kutlar, salk ve baarlar dileriz
(We wish you a happy, healthy and successful
new year)

Happy Easter

Paskalya bayramnz kutlu olsun

(Note: most Turkish people are Muslims and
do not celebrate Easter)

Happy Birthday

Doum gnn kutlu olsun

My hovercraft is full of
eels

Hoverkraftimin ici ylan bal dolu

One language is never

enough

Bir dil asla yeterli deildir

Phrases compiled by Yun-ho Lee (), audio recorded by enol Mutlu

Download all the sound files (1.3MB)
If you would like to make any corrections or additions to this page, please contact
me.

Information about written and spoken Turkish

Turkish (Trke)
Turkish is a Turkic language with about 70 million speakers in Turkey and in 35
other countries, including Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany,
Greece, Honduras, Iran, Iraq and Israel.
Until 1928, Turkish was written with a version of the Perso-Arabic script known as
the Ottoman Turkish script. In 1928, as part of his efforts to modernise Turkey,
Mustafa Kemal Atatrk issued a decree replacing the Arabic script with a version of
the Latin alphabet, which has been used ever since. Nowadays, only scholars and
those who learnt to read before 1928 can read Turkish written in the Arabic script.

Ottoman Turkish script

Numerals

Latin alphabet for Turkish (trk alfabesi)

Sample text in Turkish

Btn insanlar hr, haysiyet ve haklar bakmndan eit doarlar. Akl ve vicdana
sahiptirler ve birbirlerine kar kardelik zihniyeti ile hareket etmelidirler.
Listen to this text

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed
with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)