Turkish Alphabet

About the Turkish Alphabet




Mustafa Kemal Publicly Teaching the Roman Alphabet in 1928

The Turkish Alphabet was changed from
Ottoman script to a Latin based script soon after the Turkish Republic
was declared. Ottoman script was based on the Arabic alphabetic script
but this did not adequately cover the phonetics of Turkish. Kemal
****** intoduced the new latin alphabet almost overnight.
Turkish does not as a rule allow two vowels to occur together -
there are exceptions of course - but mostly in foreign imported words.
Therefore as there are no diphthongs then whenever two vowels occur
together, they are each pronounced as a separate sound.
The letter -Y- is considered as a consonant in Turkish, and it is widely used as a buffer consonant to keep vowels apart during word building.

The actual Law No:1353 dated 1st November 1928 which changed the Turkish Alphabet to Roman letters is shown in the right-hand panel.

Main Differences from English Pronunciation

Bullet Pencil 1kbPlease note that all pronunciation examples shown below are given British English.

The Eight Vowels are divided into two groups for Vowel Harmony purposes
The Undotted-A Vowel Group

1. A - is as u in English lucky or mutter.
2. I - Undotted I - is the er sound in porter or water - without any r sound.
3. O - is as the o sound in lottery or bottom.
4. U - is as the oo sound in loot or boot

The Dotted-E Vowel Group

1. E - is as e in letter or set or met
2. İ - Dotted İ - is as ee in meet or ea in seat.
3. Ö - is as ir in bird or shirt - without any r sound.
4. Ü - is as ew sound few or stew

Some Consonants

The Pronunciation of these Consonants differs from English Pronunciation.

1. C - is always a j sound as in jam jar.
2. Ç - is the ch sound as in church
3. G - is always hard as in gate. - It is never soft as in general.
4. Ğ - lengthens the preceding vowel. It has no sound and never begins a word.

Bullet Pencil 1kbThe Turkish soft - ğ - can be likened to the silent gh sound in the English words such as - weight, light, fought - etc

1. H - is always aspirated as in Henry. It is never silent as in Heir.
2. R - is always strongly rolled even on the end of words.
3. S - is always hissed as in safe. - It is never a z sound as in these or those.
4. Ş - is the sh sound as in sharp or bash.

More details and pronunciation files can be seen and heard on the:

Alphabet Sounds (MP3) Web Page.
The Turkish Alphabet Identification
The Turkish Alphabet Sound Names
A - Adana G - Giresun L - Lüleburgas S - Sinop
B - Bolu Ğ - Yumuşak ge M - Muş Ş - Şırnak
C - Ceyhan H - Hatay N - Niğde T - Tokat
Ç - Çanakkale İ - İzmir O - Ordu U - Uşak
D - Denizli I - Isparta Ö - Ödemiş Ü - Ünye
E - Edirne J - Jandarma P - Polatlı V - Van
F - Fatsa K - Kars R - Rize Y- Yozgat
Z - Zonguldak
Turkish Characters - Computers, Keyboards and the Internet
Turkish Q-Keyboard Layout
Installation

* To install multilanguage support for Windows
* Open the Add/Remove Programs dialog box.
* At the Windows Setup tab, Click Multilanguage Support, and then click Details.
* Make sure a check mark appears beside the language or languages you want to use.
* Click OK, and then click OK again.
* The changes take effect after your computer restarts.

Note: You can use Windows to create documents in many different languages. However, to create documents in a Central European, Cyrillic, Baltic, Greek, or Turkish-based language, your must install multilanguage support.
Keyboard

* To change the keyboard layout for an installed keyboard language
* Go to control panel and open the Keyboard Properties dialog box.
* Click the Language tab.
* Click the Add button to select the keyboard layout you want to use, and then click OK.
* YOU MUST SELECT TURKISH-Q LAYOUT

There is also a selection box on the language keyboard dialog box that lets you choose to switch between keyboard language settings. This is very handy!!
Q-Type Turkish Keyboard Layout Map

Once you have done this, when you switch to your Turkish keyboard layout the keys are set up basically the same but now......
[ = ğ { = Ğ ] = ü } = Ü ; = ş : = Ş
' = i " = İ , = ö < = Ö . = ç > = Ç
Turkish Un-dotted ı is on the normal "i-key"



Note:
The Turkish Un-dotted letter I is to be found at the normal letter I position on the English QWERTY keyboard layout.