The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, a certain number of which (Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş, and Ü) have been adapted or modified for the phonetic requirements of the language. The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Turkish (, ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, predominantly in Turkey, with smaller communities of speakers in Cyprus, Greece and Eastern Europe, as well as by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly Germany, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... A cedilla is a hook (¸) added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic mark to modify their pronunciation. ... Äž, or ÄŸ, is a letter, known as g-breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani and Tatar languages. ... Two distinct versions of the letter I, dotted and dotless, are used in the Turkish alphabet, which is a variant of the Latin alphabet. ... Ö, or ö, is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut or diaeresis. ... Åž ÅŸ (S-cedilla) is a letter used in Turkish, Azeri, Tatar, Kurdish and Turkmenian languages. ... Ãœ, or ü, is a glyph which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, the letter U with umlaut, or a letter U with diaeresis. ...

These letters are, in the upper case:

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

and in the lower case: This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Look up B, b in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up C, c in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A cedilla is a hook (¸) added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic mark to modify their pronunciation. ... Look up D, d in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up E, e in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up F, f in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The letter G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. ... Ğ, or ğ, is a letter, known as g-breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani and Tatar languages. ... Look up H, h in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Two distinct versions of the letter I, dotted and dotless, are used in the Turkish alphabet, which is a variant of the Latin alphabet. ... J# redirects here for technical reasons; see J Sharp. ... Look up K, k in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up L, l in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up M, m in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up N, n in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up O, o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ö, or ö, is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut or diaeresis. ... Look up P, p in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up S, s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ş ş (S-cedilla) is a letter used in Turkish, Azeri, Tatar, Kurdish and Turkmenian languages. ... Its name in English is tee . ... Look up U, u in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ü, or ü, is a glyph which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, the letter U with umlaut, or a letter U with diaeresis. ... Look up V, v in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Look up Z, z in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

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.

This translates to 8 vowels (A, E, I, İ, O, Ö, U, Ü) and 21 consonants. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Look up B, b in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up C, c in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A cedilla is a hook (¸) added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic mark to modify their pronunciation. ... Look up D, d in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up E, e in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up F, f in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The letter G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. ... Äž, or ÄŸ, is a letter, known as g-breve in English, used in the Turkish, Azerbaijani and Tatar languages. ... Look up H, h in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Two distinct versions of the letter I, dotted and dotless, are used in the Turkish alphabet, which is a variant of the Latin alphabet. ... J# redirects here for technical reasons; see J Sharp. ... Look up K, k in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up L, l in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up M, m in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up N, n in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up O, o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ö, or ö, is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut or diaeresis. ... Look up P, p in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up S, s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Åž ÅŸ (S-cedilla) is a letter used in Turkish, Azeri, Tatar, Kurdish and Turkmenian languages. ... Its name in English is tee . ... Look up U, u in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ãœ, or ü, is a glyph which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, the letter U with umlaut, or a letter U with diaeresis. ... Look up V, v in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Look up Z, z in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Look up E, e in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Two distinct versions of the letter I, dotted and dotless, are used in the Turkish alphabet, which is a variant of the Latin alphabet. ... Look up O, o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ö, or ö, is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut or diaeresis. ... Look up U, u in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ãœ, or ü, is a glyph which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, the letter U with umlaut, or a letter U with diaeresis. ...

Sounds

See also: Turkish phonology

Turkish orthography is highly phonetic 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. A pronunciation spelling of a word is a spelling intentionally different from the standard spelling, used to emphasis a particular pronunciation of the word. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Vowels See also: IPA, Consonants Near‑close Close‑mid Mid Open‑mid Near‑open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... The bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... The voiceless palato-alveolar affricate or domed postalveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... The voiced dental plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... The alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiceless alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. ... The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... In phonetics, length or quantity is a feature of sounds that are distinctively longer than other sounds. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Voiceless alveolar plosive. ... The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a fricative, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior. ... Vowels See also: IPA, Consonants Near‑close Close‑mid Mid Open‑mid Near‑open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... The close back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Vowels See also: IPA, Consonants Near‑close Close‑mid Mid Open‑mid Near‑open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Vowels See also: IPA, Consonants Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... The voiceless velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. ... The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. ... The alveolar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. ...

History

Early history

The earliest known Turkish alphabet is the Orkhon script. In general, Turkic languages have been written in a number of different alphabets including Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Latin and some other Asiatic writing systems. Orkhon tablet Inscription in Kyzyl using Orkhon script Orkhon script The Orkhon script (also spelled Orhon script, also Orkhon-Yenisey script, Old Turkic script, Göktürk script, Turkish: Orhon Yazıtları) is the alphabet used by the Göktürk from the 8th century to record the Old Turkic... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Modern Turkish alphabet

Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Sivas. September 20, 1928

The current 29-letter Turkish alphabet, used for the Turkish language, was established by the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, numbered 1353,^[1] in Turkey on November 1, 1928, as a vital step in the cultural part of Atatürk's Reforms.^[2] Replacing the earlier Ottoman Turkish script, the script was created as an extended version of the Latin alphabet at the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Image File history File links Ataturk_Alfabe. ... Image File history File links Ataturk_Alfabe. ... Sivas is the provincial capital of Sivas Province in Turkey. ... Turkish (, ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, predominantly in Turkey, with smaller communities of speakers in Cyprus, Greece and Eastern Europe, as well as by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly Germany, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... November 1 is the 305th day of the year (306th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 60 days remaining. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ), refers to the version of the Arabic alphabet that was once used for the Ottoman Turkish language, during the time of the Ottoman Empire. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – November 10, 1938) was a veteran military officer serving in World War I and a primary commander in the Turkish War of Independence. ...

The alphabet reform, combined later with the foundation of Turkish Language Association in 1932, campaigns by the Ministry of Education including the opening of Public Education Centers throughout the country, and the active encouragement of people by Atatürk with many trips to the countryside often involving him teaching the new alphabet, succeeded in achieving a substantial increase in the literacy rate of the population from a figure around 20% to over 90%.^[3] The reforms were also backed up by the Law on Copyrights, issued in 1934, encouraging and strengthening the private publishing sector.^[4] In 1939, The First Turkish Publications Congress was organized in Ankara, for discussing the issues like copyright, printing, the progress on improving the literacy rate and scientific publications, with the attendance of 186 deputies. Logo of the Turkish Language Association The Turkish Language Association (Turkish: Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK) is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1932 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–November 10, 1938), Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and anti-imperialist statesman, was the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the countrys second largest city after Ä°stanbul. ...

Participants of the conference on the Turkish alphabet, including Atatürk. August 29, 1929

The work of preparing the new alphabet based on the Latin letters and incorporating necessary modifications to account for sounds specific to Turkish language, was undertaken by the Language Commission (Dil Encümeni) consisting of the following members: Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–November 10, 1938), Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and anti-imperialist statesman, was the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. ...

Linguists

Ragıp Hulûsi Özdem,

Ahmet Cevat Emre,

İbrahim Grandi Grantay,

Educators

Mehmet Emin Erişirgil,

İhsan Sungu,

Fazıl Ahmet Aykaç,

Writers and members of parliament

Falih Rıfkı Atay,

Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın,

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu.

The commission started the work on the new alphabet on June 26, 1928. The letter Ö was adopted from the Swedish alphabet by suggestion from the Swedish interpreter of the Dragoman House (ambassador house) present at the commission for discussing the new alphabet^{[citation needed]}. Ç was adopted from the Albanian alphabet, Ş was from the S-comma of the Romanian alphabet, and Ü is from the German alphabet. Turkish poet, novelist and diplomat (then senator). ... is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ö, or ö, is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut or diaeresis. ... The Swedish alphabet consists of the following 28 letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö The main feature separating it from the Latin alphabet are the three additional vowels, Å, Ä and Ö. The... A cedilla is a hook (¸) added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic mark to modify their pronunciation. ... This article is about the alphabet of the Albanian language. ... Ş ş (S-cedilla) is a letter used in Turkish, Azeri, Tatar, Kurdish and Turkmenian languages. ... A cedilla is a hook (¸) added under certain consonant letters as a diacritic mark to modify their pronunciation. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Ãœ, or ü, is a glyph which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, the letter U with umlaut, or a letter U with diaeresis. ... The German alphabet consists of the same 26 letters as the modern Latin alphabet: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J...

Distinctive features

Note that dotted and dotless I are separate letters, each with its own uppercase and lowercase form. I is the capital form of ı, and İ is the capital form of i. (In the original law establishing the alphabet, the dotted İ came before the undotted I; now their places are reversed [Yazım Kılavuzu].) The letter J, however, uses a tittle in the same way English does, with a dotted lowercase version, and a dotless uppercase version. Two distinct versions of the letter I, dotted and dotless, are used in the Turkish alphabet, which is a variant of the Latin alphabet. ... i j A tittle is a small distinguishing mark, such as a diacritic or the dot over an i. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Optional circumflex accents can be used with "â", "î" and "û" to disambiguate words with different meanings but otherwise the same spelling, or to indicate palatalization of a preceding consonant (for example, while "kar" /kar/ means "snow", "kâr" /car/ means "profit"), or long vowels in loanwords, particularly from Arabic. These are seen as variants of "a", "i", and "u" and are becoming quite rare in modern usage. The circumflex ( ˆ ) (often called a caret, a hat or an uppen) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Dutch, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, Afrikaans and other languages, and formerly in Turkish [citation needed]. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus (bent... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ...

Status of Q, W, X

The Turkish alphabet has no Q, W or X. Instead, these are transliterated into Turkish as K, V, and KS, respectively. The 1928 Law 1353 enforced usage of only the Turkish letters on official documents like birth certificates, marriage documents, and land registers;^[1] the 1982 Constitution explicitly retains this law.^[5] In practice, the requirement of using the Turkish alphabet in state registers has made it impossible to register some Kurdish names exactly as they are rendered in Kurdish orthography, which includes q, w, and x. The families can give their children Kurdish names, but these names cannot include these letters and are required to use the aforementioned transliterations. Many Kurds have applied to the courts seeking to change their names to specifically include the letters q, w, and x.^[6] A similar situation exists in Europe where many people with Turkish names reside.^[7] Many Turkish names include ğ, ü, ş, ı, ö, ç, and İ, some of which are unavailable in local official alphabets, depending on the country of residence. Look up Q, q in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up W, w in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up X, x in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Languages Kurdish Religions Predominantly Sunni Muslim also some Shia, Yazidism, Yarsan, Judaism, Christianity Related ethnic groups other Iranian peoples (Talysh Baluch Gilak Bakhtiari Persians) The Kurds are an ethnic group who consider themselves to be indigenous to a region often referred to as Kurdistan, an area which includes adjacent parts... Kurdish alphabet is a writing system for the Kurdish language. ...

In popular culture

• In Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow, there are several fictional scenes relating to the various committees supposedly assigned to create the New Turkish Alphabet, each one for a different letter, each one advocating their letter at the expense of other alternative transliterations of the sound in question.

Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. ... Gravitys Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973. ...

See also

• Turkish phonology
• Turkish language
• Uniform Turkic Alphabet
• Official script

The phonology of the Turkish language describes the set of sounds and their relationships with one another in spoken Turkish. ... Turkish (, ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, predominantly in Turkey, with smaller communities of speakers in Cyprus, Greece and Eastern Europe, as well as by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly Germany, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... Uniform Turkic Alphabet was a Latin based alphabet used by the most of non-Slavic peoples of USSR in 1930s, common for all peoples. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

References

For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Diyarbakır (Ottoman Turkish: دیاربکر land of the Bekr as derived from Persian; Kurdish Amed; Syriac ; Greek Amida; Armenian Ամիդ Amid) is a major city in the Southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey. ... Microsoft Office Word is Microsofts flagship word processing software. ... United Nations Commission on Human Rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Turkish Army (Turkish: Türk Kara Kuvvetleri) is a branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. ... Show TV is a nation-wide television channel in Turkey. ...

External links

• Turkish alphabet and pronunciation guide
• The Turkish Alphabet
• Online Turkish