Mini Turkish Lesson

make yourself heard in Turkish !

SOME NOTES ON THE TURKISH ALPHABET AND LANGUAGE

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 İ O Ö U Ü ) 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” )

Çç = “ch” as in “church”( çay= tea, pronounced “chay”, rhymes with “buy” )

Ee = “e” as in “bed” ( ekmek =bread )

Gg = “g” as in “get” ( gelin =bride )

g ( yumuşak 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 )

lı( undotted “i” ) “u” as in “radium” or “i” as in “cousin” (ışık =ligth, ırmak = river )

İi( 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 )

Öö German “ö” as in “König” or French “eu” as in “peur”( göl = lake, rhymes with furl)

Ss=”s” as in “sing”, never pronounced like a “z” as the “s” in “his”(ses = voice)

Şş=”sh”as in “ship” (şey = thing, pronounced “shey” , rhymes with “hay”)

Uu “oo” as in “boot” (buz = ice, pronounced like “booze”)

Üü German “ü” as in “für” or French “u” as in “tu” (gül = 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.”

Türkleştiremedigimizlerdensinizdir.

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 Ayşe Kuran would be called Ayşe hanım ( hanım =Ms.). Good friends drop the “bey” and “hanım”. 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]	Günaydın	Good day
Hoşgeldiniz	Welcome	Hoş bulduk	reply of the person arriving
Nasılsınız?	How are you?	İyiyim	I am well
Teşekkür ederim	Thank you	Bir şey degil	Not at all / You’re welcome
Adınız / İsminiz nedir ?	What is your name ?	Adım / İsmim ___.	My name is _____.
Memnun oldum	I’m pleased to meet you.	Ben de memnun oldum.	I, too , am pleased to meet you
İyi Günler	Good day. / Have a nice day	İyi Akşamlar	Good evening
İyi Geceler	Good night	Allahaısmarladık	-bye.[said by person leaving]
Güle güle	Good-bye.[said to person leaving]	Buyurun	After you. / Come in. / Be seated / Help yourself; etc.
Elinize saglık	Health to your hands.[said to person who prepared food]	Afiyet olsun	Bon appétit
Affedersiniz	Excuse me	Lütfen	Please
İnşallah	If God wills	Efendim?	What did you say? / I beg your pardon?
Dikkat	Pay attention!/ Watch out!	Kaça?/ Ne kadar?	How much is it? / What does it cost?
Bu pahalı	This is expensive	O pahalı degil	That is not expensive
Bu çok ucuz	This is very inexpensive / cheap	İstiyorum	I want [it, this, that]
İstemiyorum	I don’t want [it, this, that]

Numbers :

Bir(1) , iki(2), üç(3), dört(4), beş(5), altı(6), yedi(7), sekiz(8), dokuz(9), on(10), onbir(11), oniki(12) , yirmi(20), yirmibeş(25), otuz(30), otuzüç(33), kırk(40), kırkaltı(46), elli(50) , ellibeş(55), altmış(60), altmışiki(62), yetmiş(70), yetmişsekiz(78), seksen(80), seksenbir(81), doksan(90), doksanyedi(97), yüz(100), yüzdokuz(109), yüzellibir(151), ikiyüzonbeş(215), üçyüzotuz(330), bin(1000), bin dokuz yüz doksan altı(1996), milyon(milion), milyar(billion).

Other Useful Vocabulary :

Su	water	Fincan	cup
Portakal suyu	Orange-juice	Bardak	glass
Et suyu	meat-broth	Tabak	plate
Süt	milk	Bıçak	knife
Şeker	sugar, candy, sweet	Büyük	big, large
Kahve	coffee	Küçük	small, little
Sade	no sugar	Erkek	man, male
Az şekerli	a little sugar	Kadın	woman
Çok şekerli	a lot of sugar	Kız	girl
Çay	tea	Çocuk	child
Ayran	yogurt drink	Oglan	boy
Bira	beer	Kız	daughter
Şarap	wine	Ogul	son
Beyaz	white	Anne	mother
Kırmızı	red	Baba	father
Buz	ice	Kardeş	sibling
Biber	pepper	Kız kardeş	sister
Tuz	salt	Erkek kardeş	brother
Ekmek	bread	O	he , she, it, that
Tereyagı	butter	Bu	this
Peynir	cheese	Arkadaş	friend, colleague
Meze	appetizers	Amerika Birleşik Devletleri	United StatesOf America
Et	meat	Soguk	cold
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti	Republic of Turkey	Tavuk	chicken
Balık	fish	Pilav	pilaf
Salata	salad, lettuce	Meyva	fruit
Sebze	vegetable	Çorba	soup
Sandviç	Sandwich	Tatlı	dessert
Dondurma	ice cream, sorbet	Çatal	fork
Kaşık	spoon	Pahalı	expensive