Written Turkish Language

Turkish:.

• Uses Latin script

• Same language group (Uralo-Altaic) as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian

• Kurdish speaking area (light blue area)

Spoken Turkish

Some letters featuring diacritical marks (see below) which to a non-native speaker can take years to master.

Especially the difference between i and ı is rather important (but used rarely). The Turkish i is pronounced [ ee ], the ı is a "schwa".

The ğ is not pronounced as the normal g but simply lenghtens the vowel before. Therefore, [ dag ] (=mountain) is not pronounced [dug] or something but [ daa ]. Another diacritical mark is the ş (sh), which can be seen everywhere. Umlauts (ö and ö) are extensively used as well.

Modern Turkish

Written Turkish is written with a variant of the Latin alphabet having changed in 1928 from Arabic and Persian loanwords.

German as a second language is used more than English.

Kurdish language in Turkey (South East Turkey)

Kurdish is spoken in the South East (light blue area of the map above).

Kurdish written language

In Turkey Kurdish is written with the Latin alphabet, where as elsewhere in parts of the former Soviet Union it is written with the Cyrillic alphabet and Iran and Iraq with the Arabic script.

Turkish Alphabet

There are 29 letters in the Turkish alphabet.

The Turkish Latin script does not use Q, W or X.

It does use accents, see below:

Additions to Latin Alphabet (accents)

To type accents with ALT codes, hold down the ALT key, then on the numeric keypad type the three or four digits listed here. However not with laptops, ALT codes only work with the numeric keypad, NOT the row of numbers across the top of your keyboard, as on laptops.

Full Turkish alphabet

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