Some distinctive characteristics of the Turkish language arevowel harmony and extensiveagglutination. The basic word order of Turkish issubject–object–verb. Turkish has nonoun classes orgrammatical gender. The language makes usage ofhonorifics and has a strongT–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 can be used for referring to a single person out of respect.
Historically theTurkic family was seen as a branch of the largerAltaic family, includingJapanese,Korean,Mongolian andTungusic, with various other language families proposed for inclusion by linguists.[19]
Altaic theory has fallen out of favour since the 1960s, and a majority of linguists now consider Turkic languages to be unrelated to any other language family, though the Altaic hypothesis still has a small degree of support from individual linguists.[20] The nineteenth-centuryUral-Altaic theory, which grouped Turkish withFinnish,Hungarian andAltaic languages, is considered even less plausible in light of Altaic's rejection.[21] The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features:agglutination,vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender.[21]
Following the adoption ofIslam around the year 950 by theKara-Khanid Khanate and theSeljuq Turks, who are both regarded as the ethnic and cultural ancestors of theOttomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a large collection of loanwords fromArabic andPersian.Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularlyDivan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of Persian poetic meters and a great quantity of imported Persian words. The literary and official language during theOttoman Empire period (c. 1299–1922) is termedOttoman Turkish, which was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably from today's modern Turkish and was largely unintelligible to the period's everyday Turkish. The everyday Turkish, known askaba Türkçe or 'vulgar Turkish', spoken by the less-educated, lower and also rural members of Ottoman society, contained a higher percentage of native vocabulary and served as the basis for the modern Turkish language.[26]
While visiting the region betweenAdıyaman andAdana,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[27]
After the foundation of the modern state ofTurkey and thescript reform, theTurkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage ofMustafa Kemal Atatürk, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate alanguage reform to replaceloanwords of Arabic and Persian origins with Turkish equivalents.[d] 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.[29] In 1935, the TDK published a bilingualOttoman-Turkish/Pure Turkish dictionary that documents the results of the language reform.[30]
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 and Persian origins, the younger generations favor new expressions. It is considered particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, inhis lengthy speech to the newParliament in 1927, used the formal style of Ottoman Turkish that had been common at the time amongst statesmen and the educated strata of society in the setting of formal speeches and documents. After the language reform, the Turkish education system discontinued the teaching of literary Ottoman Turkish, and over time the speaking and writing ability of society atrophied to the point that later generations of Turkish speakers would perceive the speech as sounding so alien that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995.[e]
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 Turkicbölem to replace Arabicfırka, 'political party'—also failed to meet with popular approval (the Arabic loanwordfırka has been replaced by the French loanwordparti). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for examplebetik (originally meaning 'book') is now used to mean 'script' incomputer science while the Arabic loanwordkitap remains for 'book' in Turkish.[32]
Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are:
Ottoman Turkish
Modern Turkish
English translation
Ottoman etymology
Modern derivation
مثلث (müselles)
üçgen
triangle
Arabicمثلث (muthallath)
Compound of the nounüç ('three') and the suffix-gen
طیاره (tayyare)
uçak
aeroplane
Arabicطير (ṭayr), 'birds, flying'
Derived from the verbuçmak ('to fly'). The word was first proposed to mean 'airport'.
نسبت (nispet)
oran
ratio
Arabicنسبة (nisba(t))
The old word is still used in the language today together with the new one. The modern word is from the Old Turkic verbor- ('to cut').
شمال (şimal)
kuzey
north
Persianشمال (šomâl), 'north'
Derived from the Old Turkic nounkuz ('cold and dark place', 'shadow'). The word is restored fromMiddle Turkic usage.[33]
تشرینِ اول (teşrinievvel)
ekim
October
Arabicتشرين الأول (tišrīn al-'awwal), 'autumn' + 'the first [month of]'
The nounekim means 'sowing', referring to the planting of cereal seeds in autumn, which is widespread in Turkey
Turkish is natively spoken by theTurkish people in Turkey and by theTurkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. The Turkish language is mutually intelligible withAzerbaijani. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to theOttoman Empire, such as Iraq,[34] Bulgaria,Cyprus, Greece (primarily inWestern Thrace), theRepublic 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.[35] Due to thecultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic members of the diaspora speak the language with native fluency.[f]
An advertisement by theIKEA branch inBerlin written in the German and Turkish languages.
In 2005, 93% of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish,[37] about 67 million at the time, withKurdish languages making up most of the remainder.[35]
Azerbaijani language, official in Azerbaijan, ismutually intelligible with Turkish and speakers of both languages can understand them without noticeable difficulty, especially when discussion comes on ordinary, daily language. Turkey has very good relations with Azerbaijan, with a multitude of Turkish companies and authorities investing there, while the influence of Turkey in the country is very high. The rising presence of this very similar language in Azerbaijan and the fact that many children use Turkish words instead of Azerbaijani words due to satellite TV has caused concern that the distinctive features of the language will be eroded. Many bookstores sell books in Turkish language along Azerbaijani language ones, with Agalar Mahmadov, a leading intellectual, voicing his concern that Turkish language has "already started to take over the national and natural dialects of Azerbaijan". However, the presence of Turkish as foreign language is not as high as Russian.[38] In Uzbekistan, the second most populated Turkic country, a new TV channelForeign Languages TV was established in 2022. This channel has been broadcasting Turkish lessons along with English, French, German and Russian lessons.
Turkish is the official language ofTurkey and is one of the official languages ofCyprus. Turkish has official status in 38 municipalities inKosovo, including Mamusha,[39][40], two in theRepublic of North Macedonia and two inIraq.[41][8]Cyprus has requested theEuropean Union to add Turkish as an official language, as it is one of the two official languages of the country.[42]
In Turkey, the regulatory body for Turkish is theTurkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu or TDK), which was founded in 1932 under the nameTürk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for Research on the Turkish Language"). The Turkish Language Association was influenced by the ideology oflinguistic purism: indeed one of its primary tasks was the replacement of loanwords and of foreign grammatical constructions with equivalents of Turkish origin.[g] These changes, together with the adoption of the newTurkish alphabet in 1928, shaped themodern 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 theconstitution of 1982, following the militarycoup d'état of 1980.[29]
Modern Standard Turkish is based on the dialect ofIstanbul.[43] ThisIstanbul Turkish (İstanbul Türkçesi) constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish, as recommended byZiya Gökalp,Ömer Seyfettin and others.[44]
Dialectal variation persists, in spite of thelevelling influence of the standard used in mass media and in theTurkish education system since the 1930s.[45] Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects asağız orşive, leading to an ambiguity with the linguistic concept ofaccent, which is also covered with these words. Several universities, as well as a dedicated work-group of the Turkish Language Association, carry outprojects 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] Although the Ottoman alphabet, being more phonetically ambiguous than the Latin script, encoded for many of the dialectal variations between Turkish dialects, the modern Latin script fails to do this. Examples of this are the presence of the nasal velar sound [ŋ] in certain eastern dialects of Turkish which was represented by the Ottoman letter /ڭ/ but that was merged into /n/ in the Latin script. Additionally are letters such as /خ/, /ق/, /غ/ which make the sounds [ɣ], [q], and [x], respectively in certain eastern dialects but that are merged into [g], [k], and [h] in western dialects and are therefore defectively represented in the Latin alphabet for speakers of eastern dialects.
TheMeskhetian 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, Artvin, Diyarbakir and Erzurum and sharing similarities withAzerbaijani, the language of Azerbaijan.[49]
At least one source claims Turkish consonants are laryngeally-specified three-way fortis-lenis (aspirated/neutral/voiced) like Armenian, although only syllable-finally.[53]
The phoneme that is usually referred to asyumuşak g ("soft g"), written⟨ğ⟩ in Turkishorthography, 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.[52]
In native Turkic words, the sounds[c],[ɟ], and[l] are mainly incomplementary distribution with[k],[ɡ], and[ɫ]; the former set occurs adjacent to front vowels and the latter adjacent to back vowels. The distribution of thesephonemes is often unpredictable, however, in foreign borrowings and proper nouns. In such words,[c],[ɟ], and[l] often occur with back vowels:[54]: 93–4, 6 someexamples are given below. However, there areminimal pairs that distinguish between these sounds, such as kar [kɑɾ] "snow" vs kâr [cɑɾ] "profit".
Turkish orthography reflectsfinal-obstruent devoicing, a form ofconsonant mutation whereby a voiced obstruent, such as/bddʒɡ/, is devoiced to[pttʃk] 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/.[55][56]
Obstruent devoicing in nouns
Underlying consonant
Devoiced form
Underlying form
Dictionary form
Dative case / 1sg present
Meaning
b
p
*kitab
kitap
kitaba
book (loan)
c
ç
*uc
uç
uca
tip
d
t
*bud
but
buda
thigh
g
k
*reng
renk
renge
color (loan)
ğ
k
*ekmeğ
ekmek
ekmeğe
bread
This is analogous to languages such asGerman andRussian, 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 asad 'name' (dativeada), the underlying form is retained in the spelling (cf.at 'horse', dativeata). Other exceptions areod 'fire' vs.ot 'herb',sac 'sheet metal',saç 'hair'. Most loanwords, such askitap above, are spelled as pronounced, but a few such ashac 'hajj',şad 'happy', andyad '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/.[54]: 10
The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order,⟨a⟩,⟨e⟩,⟨ı⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨ö⟩,⟨u⟩,⟨ü⟩.[h] 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 andvowel height.[57] Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high].[58]
The onlydiphthongs in the language are found inloanwords and may be categorised as falling diphthongs usually analyzed as a sequence of /j/ and a vowel.[52]
The principle of vowel harmony, which permeates Turkish word-formation and suffixation, is due to the natural human tendency towards economy of muscular effort.[59] 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.[59]
If the first vowel is unrounded, so too are subsequent vowels.[59]
If the first vowel is rounded, subsequent vowels are either rounded and close or unrounded and open.[60]
The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech. More specifically, they are related to the phenomenon of labial assimilation:[61] if the lips arerounded (a process that requires muscular effort) for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels.[60] If they areunrounded for the first vowel, the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently.[59]
Grammaticalaffixes have "a chameleon-like quality",[62]: 21 and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony:
twofold (-e/-a):[i] 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]).[54]: 18 thelocative 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): thegenitive 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.[63] The following examples, based on thecopula-dir4 ("[it] is"), illustrate the principles of i-type vowel harmony in practice:Türkiye'dir ("it is Turkey"),[j]kapıdır ("it is the door"), butgündür ("it is the day"),paltodur ("it is the coat").[64]
Invariable suffixes:–daş (denoting common attachment to the concept expressed by the noun),–yor (denoting the present tense in the third person),–ane (turning adjectives or nouns into adverbs),–ken (meaning "while being"),–leyin (meaning "in/at/during"),–imtırak (weakening an adjective of color or taste in a way similar to the English suffix –ish as in blueish),–ki (making a pronoun or adjective out of an adverb or a noun in the locative case),–gil (meaning "the house or family of"),–gen (referring to the name of plane figures)
a native compound which does not obey vowel harmony:Orta+köy ("middle village"—a place name)
a loanword also violating vowel harmony:viyadük (< Frenchviaduc "viaduct")
the possessive suffix-i4 harmonizing with the final vowel (and softening thek by consonantalternation):viyadüğü[citation needed]
The rules of vowel harmony may vary by regional dialect. The dialect of Turkish spoken in theTrabzon region of northeastern Turkey follows the reduced vowel harmony ofOld Anatolian Turkish, with the additional complication of two missing vowels (ü and ı), thus there is nopalatal harmony. It is likely thatelün meant "your hand" in Old Anatolian. While the 2nd person singular possessive would vary between back and front vowel, -ün or -un, as inelün for "your hand" andkitabun for "your book", the lack of ü vowel in the Trabzon dialect means -un would be used in both of these cases —elun andkitabun.[16]
This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(August 2018)
Place-names are not oxytone:[59]Anádolu (Anatolia),İstánbul. Most place names are accented on their first syllable as inPáris. 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).
Foreign nouns usually retain their original accentuation,[59] e.g.,lokánta (< Italianlocanda "restaurant"),gazéte (< Italiangazzetta "newspaper")
Some words aboutfamily members[60] andliving creatures[60] have irregular accentuation:ánne (mother),görúmce (husband's sister),çekı̇́rge (grasshopper),karínca (ant),kokárca (skunk)
Adverbs[60] are usually accented on the first syllable, e.g.,şı̇́mdi (now),sónra (after),ánsızın (suddenly),gérçekten (really), (butgerçektén (from reality)),kíşın (during winter)
Compound words[61] are accented on the end of the first element, e.g.,çırílçıplak (stark naked),bakán (minister),báşbakan (prime minister)
Diminutives constructed by suffix –cik are accented on the first syllable, e.g.,úfacık (very tiny)
Words withenclitic suffixes,–le (meaning "with"),–ken (meaning "while"),–ce (creating an adverb),–leyin (meaning "in" or "during"),–me (negating the verbal stem),–yor (denoting the present tense)
Enclitic suffix
Turkish example
Meaning in English
–le
memnuniyétle
with pleasure
–ken
yazárken
while writing
–ce
hayvánca
bestially
–leyin
gecéleyin
by night
–me
anlámadı
he/she/it did not understand
–yor
gelı̇́yor
he/she/it is coming
Enclitic words, which shift the accentuation to the previous syllable, e.g.,ol- (meaning to be),mi (denoting a question),gibi (meaning similar to),için (for),ki (that),de (too)
Turkish has two groups of sentences:verbal andnominal 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 thecopulaol ory (variants of "be"). Examples of both are given below:[65]
The two groups of sentences have different ways of forming negation. A nominal sentence can be negated with the addition of the worddeğil. For example, the sentence above would becomeNecla 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').[66]
In the case of a verbal sentence, an interrogative cliticmi is added after the verb and stands alone, for exampleNecla okula gitti mi? ('Did Necla go to school?'). In the case of a nominal sentence, thenmi comes after the predicate but before the personal ending, so for exampleNecla, siz öğretmen misiniz? ('Necla, are you [formal, plural] a teacher?').[66]
Word order in simple Turkish sentences is generallysubject–object–verb, as in Korean andLatin, 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.[67]
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:[65]
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
There has been some debate among linguists whether Turkish is a subject-prominent (like English) ortopic-prominent (like Japanese and Korean) language, with recent scholarship implying that it is indeed both subject and topic-prominent.[69] This has direct implications for word order as it is possible for the subject to be included in theverb-phrase in Turkish. There can be S/O inversion in sentences where the topic is of greater importance than the subject.
Turkish is anagglutinative language and frequently usesaffixes, and specifically suffixes, or endings.[k] 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 onWord formation). Most affixes indicate the grammatical function of the word.[54]: Chapter XIV The only native prefixes arealliterative intensifying syllables used with adjectives or adverbs: for examplesımsıcak ("boiling hot" <sıcak) andmasmavi ("bright blue" <mavi).[l]
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").[m] 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 asine qua non of national unity").[70]
Turkish does not have grammatical gender and the sex of a person does not affect the forms of words. The third-person pronouno may refer to "he", "she" or "it." Despite this lack, Turkish still has ways of indicating gender in nouns:
Mostdomestic animals have male and female forms, e.g.,aygır (stallion),kısrak (mare),boğa (bull),inek (cow).
Forother animals, the sex may be indicated by adding the worderkek (male) ordişi (female) before the corresponding noun, e.g.,dişi kedi (female cat).
Forpeople, the female sex may be indicated by adding the wordkız (girl) orkadın (woman), e.g.,kadın kahraman (heroine) instead ofkahraman (hero).
Some foreign words ofFrench orArabic origin already have separate female forms, e.g.,aktris (actress).
TheSerbo-Croat feminine suffix –ica is used in three borrowings:kraliçe (queen),imparatoriçe (empress) andçariçe (tsarina). This suffix was used in the neologismtanrıça (< Old Turkictanrı "god").
There is nodefinite 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 sixnoun cases in Turkish, with all the endings following vowel harmony (shown in the table using the shorthandsuperscript notation). Since the postpositionile often gets suffixed onto the noun, some analyze it as aninstrumental case, although in formal speech it takes the genitive with personal pronouns, singular demonstratives, and interrogativekim. Theplural marker-ler ² immediately follows the noun before any case or other affixes (e.g.köylerin "of the villages").[citation needed]
The accusative case marker is used only for definite objects; compare(bir) ağaç gördük "we sawa tree" withağacı gördük "we sawthe tree".[n] 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 toağaçları gördük "we saw the trees [in question]".[citation needed]
The declension ofağaç illustrates two important features of Turkish phonology: consonantassimilation insuffixes (ağaçtan, ağaçta) andvoicing of final consonants before vowels (ağacın, ağaca, ağacı).[citation needed]
Additionally, nouns can take suffixes that assignperson: for example-imiz4, "our". With the addition of thecopula (for example-im4, "I am") complete sentences can be formed. Theinterrogative particlemi4 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
The Turkishpersonal pronouns in the nominative case areben (1s),sen (2s),o (3s),biz (1pl),siz (2pl, or 2h), andonlar (3pl). They are declined regularly with some exceptions:benim (1s gen.);bizim (1pl gen.);bana (1s dat.);sana (2s dat.); and the oblique forms ofo use the rooton. As mentioned before, all demonstrative singular and personal pronouns take the genitive whenile is affixed onto it:benimle (1s ins.),bizimle (1pl ins.); butonunla (3s ins.),onlarla (3pl ins.). All other pronouns (reflexivekendi and so on) are declined regularly.[citation needed]
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[o] = 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.[54]: 41–47 In some cases, the constituents of the compounds are themselves compounds; for clarity these subsidiary compounds are marked with [square brackets]. The suffixes involved in the linking are underlined. If the second noun group already had a possessive suffix (because it is a compound by itself), no further suffix is added.
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!"[r] 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.[s]
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,[71] e.g.Demir kapı (iron gate),elma yanak ("apple cheek", i.e. red cheek),kömür göz ("coal eye", i.e. black eye) :
Turkish adjectives are notdeclined. 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 adjectivesvar ("existent") andyok ("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-GENnoun 2-POSSvar/yok" can be translated "noun 1 has/doesn't havenoun 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]
(For the sake of simplicity the term "tense" is used here throughout, although for some forms "aspect" or "mood" might be more appropriate.) There are nine simple and 20 compound tenses in Turkish. The nine simple tenses are: simple past (di'li geçmiş), inferential past (miş'li geçmiş), present continuous, simple present (aorist), future, optative,subjunctive, necessitative ("must") and imperative.[74] There are three groups of compound forms. Story (hikaye) is the witnessed past of the above forms (except command), referral (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.[75] In the example below, the second person singular of the verbgitmek ("go"), stemgid-/git-, is shown.
English of the basic form
Basic tense
Story (hikâye)
Referral (rivayet)
Condition (koşul)
you went
gittin
gittiydin
–
gittiysen
you have gone
gitmişsin
gitmiştin
gitmişmişsin
gitmişsen
you are going
gidiyorsun
gidiyordun
gidiyormuşsun
gidiyorsan
you (are want 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 (likebil orver) 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 andyaz for the approach ("almost") mood.[76] Thus, whilegittin means "you went",gidebildin means "you could go" andgidiverdin means "you went swiftly". The tenses of the combined verbs are formed the same way as for simple verbs.
Turkish verbs haveattributive forms, including present,[t] similar to the Englishpresent participle (with the ending-en2); future (-ecek2); indirect/inferential past (-miş4); andaorist (-er2 or-ir4).
The most important function of some of these attributive verbs is to form modifying phrases equivalent to therelative 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.[u] These two forms take "personal endings," which have the same form as thepossessive suffixes but indicate the person and possibly number of the subject of the attributive verb; for example,yediğim means "whatI eat,"yediğin means "whatyou 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.[v]
Latest 2011 edition ofGüncel Türkçe Sözlük (Current Turkish Dictionary), the official dictionary of the Turkish language published by Turkish Language Association, contains 117,000 words organized into 93,000 entries.[77][78]
Around 86% of the Turkish vocabulary is ofTurkic origin. The majority of the core vocabulary and the most commonly used words in Turkish, including those first acquired by children as they learn to speak, derive from Turkic. Nevertheless, Turkish vocabulary contains a significant number of loanwords from other languages, in which around 14% of Turkish words are of foreign origin. According to theTurkish Language Association, 6,463 of these foreign words come fromArabic, 4,974 fromFrench, 1,374 fromPersian, 632 fromItalian, 538 fromEnglish, 399 fromGreek, and 147 fromLatin.[80]
In Turkish, there are many pairs ofsynonyms where one word is of foreign origin and the other of Turkic origin. These pairs are the result of the enrichment of the Turkish vocabulary with loanwords from Arabic, Persian and French, and of theTurkish language reform initiated in the early 20th century that aimed to restore foreign-origin words with Turkic equivalents.[28]
Turkish extensively usesagglutination toform 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.[81]
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 byclitics, 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 bycompounding 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 girlfriendkızarkadaş (kız+arkadaş) or black pepperkarabiber (kara+biber). A few examples of compound words are given below:
Turkish
English
Constituent words
Literal meaning
pazartesi
Monday
pazar ("Sunday") andertesi ("after")
after Sunday
bilgisayar
computer
bilgi ("information") andsay- ("to count")
information counter
gökdelen
skyscraper
gök ("sky") anddel- ("to pierce")
sky piercer
başparmak
thumb
baş ("prime") andparmak ("finger")
primary finger
önyargı
prejudice
ön ("before") andyargı ("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 (notevowel harmony):
Atatürk introducing the newTurkish alphabet to the people ofKayseri. September 20, 1928. (Cover of the FrenchL'Illustration magazine)
Turkish is written usinga version ofLatin script introduced in 1928 byAtatürk to replace theOttoman Turkish alphabet, a version ofPerso-Arabic script. The Ottoman alphabet marked only three different vowels—longā, ū andī—and included several redundant consonants, such as variants ofz (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 haseight vowels.[52]
The reform of the script was an important step in thecultural reforms of the period. The task of preparing the new alphabet and selecting the necessary modifications for sounds specific to Turkish was entrusted to aLanguage 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.[82] As a result, there was a dramatic increase in literacy from its original, pre-modern levels.[83][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 byFrang Bardhi, who also incorporated several sayings in the Turkish language, as an appendix to his work (e.g.alma agatsdan irak duschamas[y]—"An apple does not fall far from its tree").
Turkish now has an alphabet suited to the sounds of the language: the spelling is largelyphonemic, with one letter corresponding to eachphoneme.[84] 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. Acircumflex is written overback vowels following⟨k⟩ and⟨g⟩ when these consonants represent[c] and[ɟ]—almost exclusively in Arabic and Persianloans.[z][54]: 3–7
The Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters (q, w, x omitted and ç, ş, ğ, ı, ö, ü added); the complete list is:
a, b, c, ç, d, e, f, g, ğ, h, ı, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, ö, p, r, s, ş, t, u, ü, v, y, andz (Capital ofi isİ and lowercaseI isı.)
The specifically Turkish letters and spellings described above are illustrated in this table:
Bütün insanlar hür, haysiyet ve haklar bakımından eşit doğarlar. Akıl ve vicdana sahiptirler ve birbirlerine karşı kardeşlik zihniyeti ile hareket etmelidirler.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^Turkish language is official inKirkuk Governorate,Saladin Governorate, andKifri districts.[8] In addition, it is an official language in the administrative units in which they constitute density of population.
^See Lewis (2002) for a thorough treatment of the Turkish language reform.[28]
^See Lewis (2002), pages 2-3.[28] For the first two translations. For the third, see Bedi Yazıcı.[31]
^See for example citations given in Cindark, Ibrahim/Aslan, Sema (2004).[36]
^The name TDK itself exemplifies this process. The wordstetkik andcemiyet in the original name are both Arabic loanwords (the final-i ofcemiyeti being a Turkish possessive suffix);kurum is a native Turkish word based on the verbkurmak, "set up, found".[citation needed]
^The vowel represented by⟨ı⟩ is also commonly transcribed as ⟨ɨ⟩ in linguistic literature.
^For the termstwofold andfourfold, as well as the superscript notation, see Lewis (1953), pages 21-22.[62]
^In modern Turkish orthography, an apostrophe is used to separate proper names from any suffixes.
^This section draws heavily on Lewis (2001)[54] and, to a lesser extent, Lewis (1953).[62] Only the most important references are specifically flagged with footnotes.
^"The prefix, which is accented, is modelled on the first syllable of the simple adjective or adverb but with the substitution ofm, p, r, ors for the last consonant of that syllable.[54]: 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 ofBayram, the festival marking the end of themonth of fasting.[54]: 287
^Because it is also used for the indefinite accusative, Lewis uses the term "absolute case" in preference to "nominative".[54]: 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".[54]: 42
^For other possible permutations of this vehicle, see Lewis (2001):46.[54]
^"It is most important to note that the third-person suffix is not repeated though theoretically one might have expectedAnkara [Kız Lisesi]si.[54]: 45 footnote
^Note the similarity with the French phraseun m'as-tu-vu "a have-you-seen-me?", i.e., a vain and pretentious person.
^The termsubstantival sentence is Lewis's.[54]: 257
^The conventional translation of the film titleDünyayı 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.[54]
^For the termspersonal andrelative participle see Lewis (1958):98 and Lewis (2001):163 respectively. Most of the examples are taken from Lewis (2001).[54]
^This more complex example fromOrhan Pamuk'sKar (Snow) contains a nested structure: [which he knew [were approaching]].Maureen Freely's more succinct and idiomatic translation isthe days in prison he knew lay ahead. Pamuk uses the spellinghapisane.
^From the perspective of Turkish grammaryaklaştığını anladığı is exactly parallel tobabasını gördüğüm ("whose father I saw"), and could therefore be paraphrased as "whose approaching he understood".
^In modern Turkish spelling:elma ağaçtan ırak düşmez.
^In these cases the circumflex conveys information about the preceding consonant rather than the vowel over which it is written.
^Karcı, Durmuş (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.ISBN978-90-04-14476-7.
^"Bosnia and Herzegovina",The European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages: Collected Texts,Council of Europe, 2010, pp. 107–108,ISBN9789287166715
^Rehm, Georg; Uszkoreit, Hans, eds. (2012), "The Croatian Language in the European Information Society",The Croatian Language in the Digital Age,Springer, p. 51,ISBN9783642308826
^Franceschini, Rita (2014). "Italy and the Italian-Speaking Regions". In Fäcke, Christiane (ed.).Manual of Language Acquisition. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. p. 546.ISBN9783110394146.Archived from the original on 2023-01-15. Retrieved2021-08-25.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,ISBN3110199874
^abGüçlü, Yücel (2007)."Who Owns Kirkuk? The Turkoman Case".Middle East Quarterly:79–86. Archived fromthe original on 2019-09-10.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.
^abcdJohanson, Lars (2021),Turkic,Cambridge University Press,ISBN9781009038218,archived from the original on 2023-01-15, retrieved2021-09-07,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.
^"Municipal language compliance in Kosovo". OSCE Minsk Group.Archived from the original on 2021-03-05. Retrieved2019-11-30.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.
^abGandjeï, T. "Über die türkischen und mongolischen Elemente der persischen Dichtung der Ilchan-Zeit", in Ural-altaische Jahrbücher 30, 1958, pp. 229–31.
^Erdal, Marcel (March 2004).A Grammar Of Old Turkic.
^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.
^abcdeZimmer, 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.ISBN0-521-65236-7. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2018-07-25. Retrieved2015-04-12.
^Goksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005).Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. pp. 24–25.ISBN0-415-11494-2.
^Khalilzadeh, Amir (Winter 2010). "Vowel Harmony in Turkish".Karadeniz Araştırmaları: Balkan, Kafkas, Doğu Avrupa ve Anadolu İncelemeleri Dergisi.6 (24):141–150.
^abcdefMundy, C. (1957).Turkish Syntax as a System of Qualification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 279–305.
^abcdeDeny, J. (1921).Grammaire de la langue turque. Paris: Éditions E. Leroux.
^abGoksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005).Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge.ISBN0-415-11494-2.
^abUnderhill, Robert (1976).Turkish Grammar. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.ISBN0-262-21006-1.
^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.
^Erguvanlı, Eser Emine (1984).The Function of Word Order in Turkish Grammar. Linguistics Vol. 106. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN0-520-09955-9.
Bazin, Louis (1975). "Turcs et Sogdiens: Les Enseignements de L'Inscription de Bugut (Mongolie), Mélanges Linguistiques Offerts à Émile Benveniste".Collection Linguistique, Publiée Par la Société de Linguistique de Paris (in French) (LXX):37–45.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Expo 70 Edition Vol 12. William Benton. 1970.
Ergin, Muharrem (1980).Orhun Abideleri (in Turkish). Boğaziçi Yayınları.ISBN0-19-517726-6.
Ishjatms, N. (October 1996). "Nomads In Eastern Central Asia".History of civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. 2. UNESCO Publishing.ISBN92-3-102846-4.
Eyüboğlu, İsmet Zeki (1991).Türk Dilinin Etimoloji Sözlüğü [Etymological Dictionary of the Turkish Language] (in Turkish). Sosyal Yayınları, İstanbul.ISBN978975-7384-72-4.
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.OCLC18836678.
Püsküllüoğlu, Ali (2004).Arkadaş Türkçe Sözlük [Arkadaş Turkish Dictionary] (in Turkish). Arkadaş Yayınevi, Ankara.ISBN975-509-053-3.
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).
_(1881-1938)_in_westers_(3x4_close_cropped).jpg)
.jpg)
_en.jpg)
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg)
