Turkish language alphabet. Turkish writing. Now specific examples

The modern Turkish alphabet was introduced into use only in 1928. It comes from Latin. Before this, Turkey used a different writing system, reminiscent of Arabic script. Undoubtedly, the new alphabet greatly simplifies our learning of the Turkish language.


 Turkish alphabet

Today you can find a lot of resources online for learning Turkish online. On many sites you will find how the letters of the Turkish alphabet are written and pronounced. You will even find special lessons for children, which adults can easily study because they are very interesting and easy to learn.

Letters of the Turkish alphabet	Letters of the Russian alphabet denoting approximately the same sounds	Transcription	Brief characteristics of the sounds of the Turkish language
A a	A	[A]	More open, wider than Russian
B b	B	[Bae]	Less sonorous than corresponding Russian
C c	*	[Jae]	A sound that can be conveyed by a combination of Russian letters "j"
Ç ç	H	[Chae]
D d	D	[De]
E e	E, E	[E, E]	Not noted in the original, but "e" can sound like: - English /æ/ before l, m, n, r er, em, en, el there is no vowel. The sound can be heard in cetvel, ders in the lesson dictionary below, in güzel, etc. this sound is also heard. /e/ - in the final position e, pencere voiced below. But not always, compare, for example, with aile, güle güle. /e/ - in all other cases
F f	F	[Fe]
G g	G	[Ge]
Ğ ğ	*		This letter is not readable in words; it lengthens the previous consonant and gives it a guttural sound.
H h	X	[He]
I	Y	[s]	More posterior than the corresponding Russian "y"
i	AND	[AND]
Jj	AND	[Zhe]	Occurs in words of foreign origin
K k	TO	[Ke]	At the end of a syllable or word there is a characteristic softening, which is not observed in the Russian language
Ll	L	[Le]
Mm	M	[Me]
Nn	N	[Not]
O o	ABOUT	[ABOUT]
Ö ö	*		This sound can be conveyed by merging the Russian “o” and “e”
P p	P	[Pe]
R r	R	[D]	At the end of words it can be pronounced as "zh/sh"
Ss	WITH	[Xie]
Ş ş	Sh	[She]
T t	T	[Te]	There is some aspiration at the beginning of words
U u	U	[U]
Ü ü	*	This sound can be conveyed by merging the Russian “u” and “yu”
V v	IN	[Ve]
Y y	*	[Ye]
Z z	Z	[Ze]

How many letters are in the Turkish alphabet

The Turkish alphabet contains both vowels and consonants. It is noteworthy that the new alphabet has 8 vowels, whereas the old one had only three, which significantly complicated the Turkish language. There are also 21 consonant letters in the Turkish alphabet. The letters of the Turkish alphabet are quite easy to learn. Pronouncing them will not be difficult. By the way, you won’t have any particular difficulties reading it. Basically, all words are read as they are written.


 Turkish alphabet with transcription

Many letters of the Turkish alphabet are very similar to Russian letters. Here is a table that presents the Turkish alphabet with pronunciation in Russian, as well as information about which Turkish letters have analogues in Russian.

The Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters. Of these, 21 letters are consonants, 8 are vowels.

The modern Turkish alphabet provides a one-to-one correspondence between letters and characters; Each sound has a different letter, and each letter represents a different sound.

This is why Turkish words are read the way they are written and written the way they are read.

№	capital letter	small letter	In Russian	Reading a letter
1	A	a	A	A	A
2	B	b	B	Be	Be
3	C	c	(1)	Ce	(1)
4	Ç	ç	H	Çe	Che
5	D	d	D	De	De
6	E	e	(2)	E	(2)
7	F	f	F	Fe	Fe
8	G	g	G(*)	Ge	Ge
9	Ğ	ğ	(3)	Yumusak "g"	(3)
10	H	h	X	He	Heh
11	I	ı	Y	I	Y
12	İ	i	AND	i	AND
13	J	j	AND	Je	Same
14	K	k	TO(*)	Ke	Ke
15	L	l	L(*)	Le	Le
16	M	m	M	Me	Meh
17	N	n	N	Ne	Not
18	O	o	ABOUT	O	ABOUT
19	Ö	ö	(4)	Ö	(4)
20	P	p	P	Pe	Pe
21	R	r	R	Re	Re
22	S	s	WITH	Se	Xie
23	Ş	ş	Sh	Şe	She
24	T	t	T	Te	Those
25	U	u	U	U	U
26	Ü	ü	(5)	Ü	(5)
27	V	v	IN	Ve	Ve
28	Y	y	(6)	Yes	(6)
29	Z	z	Z	Ze	Ze

1) C - c: The name of this letter is "Ce" (je).

For example: Cam, cevap, cıvcıv, cımbız, coşku, cuma, cömert, cüzdan; sac, gece.

2) E - e: The name of this letter is "E". This letter at the beginning of a word is read as “E”, and in the middle and at the end of the word as “E”.

For example: Emir, dev, ne, ekmek, sevgi, ders, kemer, elma, ekin, erik.

3) Ğ - ğ: This letter is called "Yumuşak G" (ge soft). In most cases, this letter is not read, but only adds length to the preceding vowel. Sometimes it is read very soft, almost like the letter Y. In Turkish there are no words starting with this letter.

For example: Ağ, değer, iğne, ığdır, oğul, öğle, uğur, düğme.

Despite the fact that this letter is practically unreadable, you need to pay attention to it. Incorrect reading may result in an error.

For example: Dağ (mountain) - da (and, too); ağrı (pain) - arı (bee); eğlenmek (to have fun) - elenmek (to drop out.).

4) Ö - ö: This letter denotes a sound that is intermediate between our sounds “o” and “e”. The lips are rounded and stretched forward in a tube (slightly narrower than when pronouncing the letter “o”), while the tongue is motionless. This letter never appears at the end of words.

For example: Örnek, öpmek, özlem, Ömer, ötmek, övmek, ölmek; göz, ​​göl, börek, bölmek

5) Ü - ü: When pronouncing this sound, the lips are also extended forward in a tube (even narrower than when pronouncing “ö”; the tongue is also motionless). The main differences when pronouncing the sounds “ö” and “ü” are that when pronouncing “ü” the lips move further forward and are almost closed. This sound is also pronounced as a cross between the Russian "u" and "yu".

For example: Üç, ün, ülke, ümit, üst, üye, üstat; gül, tül, kül, Betül, güven, ütü, üzüm, gürültü

6) Y - y: This letter is called "Ye" (e). It is read differently depending on the letters surrounding it. Y is a consonant.

1) ...y (...th): bay, bey, tay, rey, ney, çay, köy, toy, duy.
2) Ya... (I...): yatak, yan, yalan, yanın, yastık, yanş.
3) Ye... (e...): yemek, yem, yelek, yetenek, yer, yeşil.
4) Yı... (yy...): yılan, yırtık, yıkık, yıldırım, yıldız, yıkamak.
5) Yi... (yi...): yine, yirmi, yiyecek, yiğit.
6) Yo... (yo...): yol, yok, yorgun, yorgan, yoksul, yokuş.
7) YÖ... (yo...): yön, yöntem, yöre, yönetmen, yörünge.
8) Yu... (yu...): yurt, yuva, yukan, yulaf, yumruk, yumurta
9) YÜ... (yu...): yün, yüzük, yük, yüksek, yürek, yüz.

In addition, in Turkish, each of the letters “g”, “k” and “l” corresponds to two sounds: soft and hard. However, in writing they do not differ.

What do you know about the Turkish language? Did you know that its origin Turkish alphabet takes from the Latin writing system? This language was created after the introduction of a reform on writing rules in 1928. This reform was proposed and created by the first President of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Before this reform was signed and officially published, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was considered national in the Republic of Turkey. This alphabet was based on the Arabic script, which was widely used at that time in other languages. But if you remember the times before the fifteenth century, you immediately remember that historical fact that the Anatolian Turks used the Uyghur script.

This will be a surprise to many, but in the speech and writing of the Ottoman Empire at that time, only three vowel sounds were used, in writing, designated as ā, ū, ī. These sounds were long. Also Turkish alphabet included other vowels that served as a kind of background to habitual speech. There were letters that had redundant features, one of which was the letter “z”. The peculiarity of these letters was that they existed only in Arabic, but in colloquial speech and there were no written languages ​​of the Turkish Republic. Arabic writing at that time did not contain any vowel sounds; this made speaking more difficult, but was quite satisfactory for those who used this language. But the Ottoman Empire was dissatisfied with the lack of vowels; this condition made it impossible to use Arabic writing in the Turkish language. After all, at that time there were as many as eight vowels in the Turkish alphabet.

The written reform made significant changes in the development of culture Ottoman Empire generally. This was undoubtedly a step forward in the development of the then state. After the official proclamation of this reform, employees of educational and cultural institutions of the Turkish Republic were given a task, the essence of which was as follows. It was necessary to prepare a new, or rather updated, Turkish alphabet and make the necessary changes to the main characters Latin alphabet(Latin). Linguists, academics, poets took part in the process of creating a new Turkish alphabet... All educational institutions of the state supported the creation of a new script, and, accordingly, speech. The country quickly began to open cultural institutions of various kinds, educational centers, etc. Publishing companies worked at full capacity to distribute new language among the population of the state. The result of the language change exceeded all expectations; the population not only joyfully accepted the news of the change linguistic speech, but also became much more educated, conscientiously studying new letters and sounds. The level of the “third world” country was left behind, now the population was much more intelligent, the development of people went up. Today it is possible to study Turkish alphabet online.. After all, the Turkish language is very popular, so we rather learn lowercase and capital letters Turkish alphabet and let's go traveling. Our site offers to learn Turkish alphabet for children online. This is very convenient, since letters for children are sometimes difficult to learn, and learning online expands the possibilities and holds the child’s attention with bright and interesting graphics.

Learn Turkish alphabet online. Turkish alphabet for children. Learning the letters of the Turkish language.

• A a [a]
• B b [b]
• C c [j]
• Ç ç [h]
• D d [d]
• E e [uh]
• F f [f]
• G g [g]
• Ğ ğ [th]
• H h [x]
• I ı [s]
• I i [and]
• J j [f]
• K k [k]
• L l [l]
• M m [m]
• N n [n]
• O o [o]
• Ö ö [o, ё]
• P p [p]
• R r [r]
• S s [s]
• Ş ş [ş]
• T t [t]
• U u [y]
• Ü ü [y,yu]
• V v [v]
• Y y [th]
• Z z [z]

The writing of the Turkish language is based on the Latin writing system. The Romanization of the Turkish alphabet occurred as part of the writing reform of 1928 by decree of the first President of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Until this point, the Turkish language used the Ottoman Turkish alphabet, based on the Arabic script. And until the 15th century, the Anatolian Turks used the Uyghur script.

The Ottoman alphabet reflected only three vowel sounds: long ā, ū, ī — and included several consonants with redundant features, such as z variants (which varied in Arabic but were absent in Turkish). The lack of short vowels in the Arabic script made it unsuitable for Turkish, which has eight vowels.

The reform of writing was an important step in the cultural reform of that period. The task was to prepare a new alphabet and select the necessary changes to the basic Latin characters to indicate the specific sounds of the Turkish language. This was entrusted to the Turkish Language Commission, which included leading linguists, academics and writers. The introduction of the new Turkish alphabet was supported by public educational centers that opened throughout the country, through cooperation with publishing firms, and by Atatürk himself, who traveled throughout the country, bringing the new letters to the masses. As a result, the country experienced a significant increase in literacy and a break from the original level of a “third world” country.

Today, the Turkish language has an alphabet adjusted to the specific sounds of the language: spelling is based primarily on the phonetic principle, in which each phoneme corresponds to one letter, and vice versa. Most letters are used approximately the same as in English, but there are some exceptions. The letter c is pronounced like . The letter j, used for the phoneme [ʒ], is found in loanwords from Persian and European languages. The letter ı (without a dot) denotes the phoneme [ɯ]. As in German, the letters ö and ü correspond to [œ] and [y]. The letter ğ, denoting the sound [ɣ], has the peculiarity of lengthening the preceding vowel and assimilating the subsequent one. The letters ş and ç represent the phonemes [ʃ] and respectively. The circumflex is placed over back vowels that are located after k, g or l, when these consonants represent the sounds [c], [ɟ] and [l], and mainly in Persian and Arabic borrowings. An apostrophe usually acts as a separator in proper names before suffixes, for example: Istanbul"da(in Istanbul).

Below are explanations of the letters characteristic of the Turkish language and their transcription:

Cağaloğlu[ˈdʒaːɫoːɫu] (name of Istanbul district)
Çalıştığı- where/who does she/he work/worked for?
müjde- good news
lazım- necessary
mahkum- convicted

The Turkish language uses an alphabet based on Latin. There are 29 letters in total, of which 21 are consonants and 8 are vowels.

Aa	[A]	Ff	[f]	Jj	[and]	Öö	*	Uu	[y]
Bb	[b]	Gg	[G]	Kk	[To]	Pp	[n]	Üü	*
Cc	[j]	Ğğ	—	Ll	[l]	Rr	[r]	Vv	[V*]
Çç	[h]	Hh	[X]	mm	[m]	Ss	[With]	Yy	[th]
Dd	[d]	Iı	[s]	Nn	[n]	Şş	[w], [sch]	Zz	[h]
Ee	[e], [e]	İi	[And]	Oo	[O]	Tt	[T]

Hover your mouse over a letter to find out its name in the Turkish alphabet.
The sounds corresponding to the letters are indicated in square brackets.
The sign * indicates the absence of a similar sound in the Russian language. See below for a description of this sound.

Reading rules

Let us dwell separately on the pronunciation of some letters.

C– as in the word “adzhika”, sometimes softer:

can.mp3 can - soul

Ç – like Russian Ch:

gercek.mp3 gerçek - real

E– can be pronounced softly, almost like “I”:

gel.mp3 gel - come

Or hard, like “e”:

ev.mp3 ev - home

Ğ - a letter that does not have a sound. There is not a single word starting with this letter. When located between two vowels it is not pronounced:

yogurt.mp3 yoğurt - yogurt

Between a vowel and a consonant – lengthens the vowel sound that precedes it:

dag.mp3 dağ [d’aa] - mountain

H– pronounced like Russian X:

hamam.mp3 hamam – Turkish bath

Sometimes it's almost unpronounced

anahtar.mp3 anahtar – key

I– like Russian Y

findik.mp3 fındık - hazelnut

İ – like Russian I

iyi.mp3 iyi – good, good

J- like a Russian woman, only perhaps a little softer:

jeton.mp3 jeton – token

K– like Russian K,

tabak.mp3 tabak - plate

But if it is preceded by the letters i, e, ö, ü (“soft” vowels, see below), then it sounds soft:

ekmek.mp3 ekmek – bread

L- like Russian L - sounds hard in combination with “hard” vowels (ı, a, o, u)

bal.mp3 bal - honey

And softly - with “soft” (i, e, ö, ü):

otel.mp3 otel – hotel

O- like Russian o, but pronounced with greater articulation. It is important to remember that in Turkish the letters are read the way they are written, unlike the Russian language, where the unstressed “o” sounds like “a”.

orada.mp3 orada - there

Ö - a sound intermediate between “o” and “e”, or like “e” without iotation, for example in the word “village”:

boyle.mp3 boyle – yes

borek.mp3 börek - pie

Important: the letter Ö is not always stressed, like the letter Ё in Russian.

R- very soft, almost like in English, sometimes similar to “w” at the end of words:

resim.mp3 resim – photo, picture

var.mp3 var – yes (to be available)

Ş – sometimes as “sch”:

seker.mp3 şeker – sugar

Sometimes as "sh":

simdi.mp3 şimdi - now

Ü - a sound intermediate between “u” and “yu”, or like “yu” without iotation in the word “bureau”:

uzum.mp3 üzüm – grapes

V– as in, only softer, almost like the English w:

hava.mp3 hava – weather, air

Y– like Russian th:

ay.mp3 ay – moon, month

After a consonant sound it also softens it:

papatya.mp3 papatya – chamomile.

Z– like Russian s:

zeytin.mp3 zeytin – olive, olives

Please note that at the end of words Z does not become unvoiced, as in Russian:

tuz.mp3 tuz – salt.

There is another letter of the Turkish alphabet, already abolished in our time - â . However, it can be found in dictionaries and its pronunciation differs from the letter a. This letter softens the consonants g, k, l preceding it, for example, in the words

kar.mp3 kâr - profit

In other cases it is long. Here is an example of a word in which both cases of pronunciation of this vowel are present:

hala.mp3 hâlâ - still

There are also words kar (snow) and hala - aunt. It is read [kar] and [ha'la] respectively.

The remaining letters are read in the same way as the corresponding letters of the Latin alphabet. By learning the sounds of Turkish letters, you will be able to read both known and unknown words.

Pronunciation

Pronouncing Turkish words is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. There are not even words in Turkish where two voiced consonants stand next to each other. Turks pronounce words such as “stress” and “stretch” as “sitres” and “sitrech”. Voiced consonants are necessarily separated from each other by a vowel, which is why the Turkish language is so melodious.

Each region of Turkey has its own pronunciation. However, there are several general rules pronunciations of Turkish words that you want to pay attention to. Russians who speak Turkish are usually given away incorrect pronunciation the following sounds:

Letter " WITH", giving the sound "j", should be pronounced softly:

ceket.mp3 ceket – jacket, jacket

« E" - Russians pronounce this sound softly, as in Russian, but in Turkish it sounds mainly like “e”:

telefon.mp3 telefon - telephone

Soft " K“at the end of words is a sound that is generally absent in the Russian language. Present in words with “soft” vowels i, e, ö, ü:

borek.mp3 börek – pie

For comparison:

Unstressed " O" does not sound like "a":

kolonya.mp3 kolonya - cologne

« R" - very soft, almost like in English:

rica.mp3 rica - request

With sounds " Ö " And " Ü "usually there are no problems, but nevertheless, once again:

opmek.mp3 öpmek – kiss

3.mp3 üç – three

For comparison:

uc.mp3 uç – edge

The main thing is not to try to idlely put emphasis on the letter ö by analogy with е.

Vowel harmony

Turkish has 8 vowels, which are divided into two groups: “hard” and “soft”.
"Hard" ones include a, ı, o, u, to “soft”, or softening - e, i, ö, ü.

Word formation in Turkish occurs by “gluing” affixes, selected according to the rules of vowel harmony, to the root of the word.

Words of Turkish origin, as well as words formed by “gluing together” affixes, contain vowels from the same group.
For example:

kelime – word (only “soft” vowels)
anlaşacağız – let’s agree (only “hard” vowels)

In words borrowed from Arabic, Persian, French and other languages, letters from different groups may be found:

Misafir – guest
merhaba - hello
telefon - telephone

Vowel harmony is that affixes are chosen according to the rules of vowel alternation depending on what vowel stands in this word last. Thus, word formation involving words of foreign origin as a root still occurs according to the rule of vowel harmony. There are a number of exceptions, which I will give later.

There are only two rules for vowel alternation in Turkish.

Vowel Alternation Rule type "e":

i, e, ö, ü → e
ı, a, o, u → a

Vowel Alternation Rule type "i":

a, ı → ı
e, i → i
o, u → u
ö, ü → ü

According to the first rule (we will call it e-type), if the last vowel in the word is i, e, ö or ü (“soft” vowel), then “e” should be used in the affix, and if ı, a, o or u (“hard” vowel), then you need to use “a” in the affix.

According to the second rule (let's call it i-type), the vowel letter of the affix is ​​selected from four options depending on the last vowel letter of the word.

Later we will look at the rules of vowel harmony in detail and with examples, but for now we will limit ourselves to simply considering them, so that in the future you can use this page as a reference and refer to it if necessary.

Accent

Accents in Turkish words can be quite difficult to catch. Firstly, they are very light and unnoticeable, secondly, words formed with the help of several affixes can be very long, thirdly, several syllables can be stressed in one word. But in most cases, the stress in words falls on the last syllable.

The exceptions are:

• In the names of geographical places, the stress is placed mainly on the penultimate syllable: for example, L o ndra (London), Ist a nbul (Istanbul), A nkara (Ankara)
• Adverbs: for example, s o nra (after, later), ş i mdi (now)
• Some words borrowed from foreign languages
• Another case that is too early to explain here :)