Türkçe

Turkish


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!!!To read the Turkish characters be sure to select the Turkish Windows Font (Display menu). Ş should appear as an s with a cedille.

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1/ Introduction

Turkish is the official languge of Turkey, where it is the native language of more than 90% of the population, ie 60 million people. Modern standard Turkish represents a standardization of the Istanbul dialect of Anatolian.

The first Anatolian Turkish documents date from the 13th century. From the very beginning of its Anatolian period, Turkish was written in the Arabic script, until the Latin scrpt was adopted in the course of the writing reform of 1928.

Turkish is by far the largest language in the Turkic family. The main geographic locations of Turkic languages are:

-Turkey (Turkish);

-Former USSR and Iran (Azerbaidjani, Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmenian, Kirghiz, Tatar, Yakut…);

-Northwester China (Uighur, Kazakh).

It is widely accepted that the Turkic family is afiliated with the Mongolian languages and the Tungusic languages, to form the Altaic phylum. Bolder hypotheses would extend the Altaic phylum to include Korean and perhaps even Japanese.

 

2/ Alphabet

It is necessary to look at the alphabet and see the sounds first:

All sounds are read by adding "-e" (pron. as e in 'get') to the end of sound.

 

A a -as in French, Spanish papa (English bus )

B b - as in English, French

C c - as in " John "

Ç ç - as in "chair "

D d - as in English, French

E e - as in "get "

F f - as in English, French

G g - as in "game "

Ğ ğ -( pronounced as " yumuşak g " == " soft g " ) as in "yet" or mute

I ı - (called the "undotted i") as in " legend ", "nation"

İ i - (called the "dotted i") as in French "lit", Spanish "mi"

J j - as in French "jeune", English "pleasure"

K k - as in English, French

L l - as in English, French

M m - as in English, French

N n - as in English, French

O o - as in French "port" (pure open o)

Ö ö - as in French "peu", German "Köln"

P p - as in English, French

R r - as in Spanish "pero", Italian "però"

S s - as in "sand "

Ş ş - as in "shoe"

T t - as in French "tour", Spanish "torre"

U u - as in "pull"

Ü ü - as in French "voiture", German "Blümchen"

V v - as in English, French

Y y - as in "yellow "

Z z - as in English

In general stress has to be placed on the last syllable in a word.

 

Simple characteristics:

- All letters must be pronounced. Turkish spelling is phonetic.

- But some sounds are not said sometimes. These are not related to any rule…

yapacağım == ı will do , pronounced as " yapıcam "

gideceğim == i will go , pronouced as " gidicem "

- There's a significant numbers of vowels. They are pronounced as a simple sound.

Two kind of vowels are distinguished (and this is extremely important!):

Front vowels : e, i , ö, ü

Back vowels : a, ı, o, u

 

- No written accents on the letters.

- Nouns or verbs can be created by suffixes. Turkish is said to be an agglutinative language. No prefixes used.

3/ Basit sözcükler - Simple words

merhaba - hi, hello

günaydın - good morning

iyi akşamlar - good evening

hoşgeldin - welcome

hoşgeldiniz - welcome ( polite )

nasılsın? - how are you?

nasılsınız? - how are you? ( polite )

güle güle - bye

teşekkür ederim - thank you

çok teşekkür ederim - thank you very much

lütfen - please

özür dilerim - sorry

şerefe - cheers

memnun oldum - glad to see you

görüşürüz - see you

sabah - morning

öğle - noon

öğleden sonra - afternoon

akşam - evening

gece - night

dün - yesterday

bugün - today

yarın - tomorrow

evet - yes

hayır - no

ve - and

veya - or

ya da - or

 

Sayılar - Numbers

bir , 1 -- iki , 2 -- üç , 3 -- dört , 4 -- beş , 5 -- altı , 6 -- yedi , 7 -- sekiz , 8 -- dokuz , 9 -- on , 10

onbir , 11 -- oniki , 12 -- onüç , 13

yirmi , 20 -- yirmibir , 21 -- yirmiiki , 22 -- yirmiüç , 23

otuz , 30 -- otuzbir , 31 -- otuziki , 32

kırk , 40 -- elli , 50 -- altmış , 60 -- yetmiş , 70 -- seksen , 80 -- doksan , 90 -- yüz , 100

yüzbir , 101 -- yüziki , 102 -- yüzüç , 103

yüzon , 110 -- yüzonbir , 111 -- yüzoniki , 112

yüzyirmi , 120 -- yüzotuz , 130

bin , 100

binyüz , 1100

bin dokuz yüz doksan dokuz , 1999

ikibin , 2000

!!!: Cardinal numbers are followed by singular nouns. Bir ev= one house. Iki ev=two houses.

 

Günler - Days

pazartesi = monday

salı = tuesday

çarşamba = wednesday

perşembe = thursday

cuma = friday

cumartesi = saturday

pazar = Sunday

 

Aylar - Months

ocak = January

şubat = February

mart = March

nisan = April

mayıs = May

haziran = June

temmuz = July

ağustos = August

eylül = September

ekim = October

kasım = November

aralık = December

 

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