Turkish alphabet

The Turkish alphabet is a Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which (Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş, and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language. This alphabet represents modern Turkish pronunciation with a high degree of accuracy and specificity. It is the current official alphabet and the latest in a series of distinct alphabets used in different eras. The invention of this alphabet and its adoption in the 20th century were cultural elements of the rise and victory of Turkish nationalism.

Letters

 

The letters of the Turkish alphabet are:

Capital letters

A

B

C

Ç

D

E

F

G

Ğ

H

I

İ

J

K

L

M

N

O

Ö

P

R

S

Ş

T

U

Ü

V

Y

Z

Lower case letters

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

z

Of these 29 letters, 8 are vowels (A, E, I, İ, O, Ö, U, Ü); the 21 others are consonants.
The letters Q, W, and X of the ISO basic Latin alphabet do not occur in the Turkish alphabet, while dotted and dotless I are distinct letters in Turkish so that "i" does not become "I" when capitalized.
Turkish also uses a, i and u with the circumflex:

• â for /aː/ and/or to indicate that the consonant before â is palatalized
• î for /iː/ (no palatalization implied)
• û for /uː/ and/or to indicate palatalization.

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 ğ ("yumuşak ge"; i.e. "soft g"):

a, be, ce, çe, de, e, fe, ge, yumuşak ge, he, ı, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, ö, pe, re, se, şe, te, u, ü, ve, ye, ze

Sounds

Turkish orthography is highly regular 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	Letter		IPA	English approximation
A	a	/a/	As a in father	M	m	/m/	As m in man
B	b	/b/	As b in boy	N	n	/n/	As n in nice
C	c	/d͡ʒ/	As j in joy	O	o	/o/	As o in more
Ç	ç	/t͡ʃ/	As ch in chair	Ö	ö	/ø/	As i in bird
D	d	/d/	As d in dog	P	p	/p/	As p in pin
E	e	/e/[1]	As e in red	R	r	/ɾ/[2]	As r in rat
F	f	/f/	As f in far	S	s	/s/	As s in song
G	g	/ɡ/, /ɟ/	As g in got	Ş	ş	/ʃ/	As sh in show
Ğ	ğ	/ː/, /‿/, /ʲ/	As gh in dough [3]	T	t	/t/	As t in tick
H	h	/h/	As h in hot	U	u	/u/	As u in zoo
I	ı	/ɯ/	As e in open	Ü	ü	/y/	As ue in cute
İ	i	/i/	As ee in feet	V	v	/ʋ/, /v/	As v in vacation
J	j	/ʒ/	As s in measure	Y	y	/j/	As y in yes
K	k	/k/, /c/	As k in kit	Z	z	/z/	As z in zigzag
L	l	/ɫ/, /l/	As l in love

1. ^ Turkish has a front/back vowel harmony. Vowel harmony states that endings must change their vowels to agree with the root words. Back vowels: a /a/, ı /ɯ/, o /o/, u /u/. Front vowels: e /e/, i /i/, ö /ø/, ü /y/. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Türkiye'de "in Turkey" but Almanya'da "in Germany". In vowel harmony /e/ is the opposite of /a/. For example kedi+ler /cedileɾ/ ( cats ); adamlar /adamɫar/ ( men ). /e/ can also be found in names without vowel harmony: Erdoğan ( a name ) /eɾdo‿an/.
2.  ^ 1 – Something between /ɹ/ and /ɾ/ but more close to /ɾ/; a fricative r. In the beginning and at the end of a word, always this one occurs. 2 – /ɾ/, like Italian madre but less stressed and softer. 3 – Some people use rarely /ɹ/, the sound of an American or English r.
3.  ^ 1 – Between vowels: ‿ or ʲ as sandhi for back vowels and front vowels respectively. That is Erdoğan /eɾdo‿an/ and değil /deʲil/. 2 – After a vowel: Lengthening of the preceding vowel. E.g. bağ /baː/. 3 – There is also a rare, dialectal occurrence of [ɰ].

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