About the Turkish Language

Manisa Turkish - The Turkish Language and its grammar explained for English Speakers, containing a few sound files for pronunciation examples.

A comment on Turkish grammar by Max Müller in the 1850's
"It is a real pleasure to read a Turkish grammar...The ingenious manner in which the numerous grammatical forms are brought out, the regularity which pervades the system of declension and conjugation, the transparency and intelligibility of the whole structure, must strike all who have a sense of that wonderful power of the human mind which has displayed itself in language."

The Origins of Turkish

The Turkish Language originated in The Altay Mountain Range in Northern Siberia centuries ago. For this reason it is called an Altaic Language. As the nomads expanded further into Asia Minor, they brought their language with them to Turkmenistan, Khazakstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and other countries.
Many of these languages are mutually intelligible although local usage and vocabulary, spelling and alphabet may differ - however they all exhibit the same grammatical structure of agglutination and vowel harmony.
Turkish being a language emanating from Central Asia, is spoken from the borders of Greece to the hinterland of Western China, there may also be some affinity with the Hungarian, Finnish, Korean and some of the indigenous American Indian languages.
The Ottoman Empire brought the language to the gates of Vienna and to Arabia, Egypt and Northern Africa as their empire flourished. It is because of this expansion that the language and vocabulary is peppered with words from Arabic, Persian and European languages. These imported words mostly (but not always) follow the basic grammar and vowel harmony of native Turkish.

The Structure of Turkish

Turkish is characterized by vowel harmony, consonant mutation and agglutination. Postpositions are used instead of prepositions. Thus suffixes added to the stem of the verb may indicate positive or negative forms of the passive, reflexive, causative, potential, subjunctive moods plus further additions for tense and person. Nouns are also suffixed with possessor and case (declension). Both the subject definite article and grammatical gender are lacking. Adjectives precede their noun and do not have to agree in number or case. The sentence form is SOV - Subject, Object, Verb.

The features of Turkish

1. The Consonants - Twenty-one letters represent the consonants.
2. The Adjectives - Adjectives and adjectival phrases predece their noun and do not agree in number.
3. Vowel Harmony - Turkish has eight vowels, four pairs (A-E, I-İ, O-Ö, U-Ü) with corresponding front/back, and rounded/unrounded sounds, which form the basis for vowel harmony. According to vowel harmony rules, vowels of suffixes must have the same properties as the vowel in the last syllable: either front/back or rounded/unrounded.
4. Agglutination - Agglutination in Turkish takes the form of suffixes attached to the end of a word, whether noun or verb. Suffixes add to the word's meaning and/or mark its grammatical function.
   [Affixed suffixes or suffix groups - words are composed of a sequence of word elements, each of representing only one grammatical category.]
5. The Absence of Gender - Turkish does not have a definite article, nor does it have gender pronouns (one word signifies - he, she, or it).
6. Verbs always come at the end of the sentence - Sentence construction follows the subject-object-verb pattern.

Turkish Grammar Described

The language differs from the Indo European Group - English, Spanish, etc. in both grammatical structure and vocabulary. It is also a phonetic language - each letter always retains it own sound, not as in English where the sound of the letters can change, as the letter a does in fat, fate, fare etc. - Also, changes are made to consonants in spelling - Consonant Mutation - in certain circumstances as discussed below.
Another all pervading facet of Turkish is the Rule of Vowel Harmony where subsequent vowels in a word or suffix will follow the vowel grouping of the previous vowel.

Turkish Noun Conditions

These six conditions are suffixed to the root word according to Vowel Harmony the vowels of the suffix match the final vowel of the root word.

• Title - (Nominative):
  - The root word, which carries no suffix. - el - hand, the hand
• Ownership - (Genitive): -in/-ın/-un/-ün
  - The Genitive is the Case of Belonging to.. - elin -[el-in] - the hand's..
• Specific Object - (Accusative): -i/-ı/-u/-ü
  - The Accusative is the Direct Object of a Verb - it equates to - the.. in English - eli - [el-i] - the hand (obj.)..
• Movement Towards - (Dative): -a/-e
  - The Dative is the Case of Movement Towards - it equates to - to., towards..in English. - ele - [el-e] - to/towards the hand..
• Static Position (Locative): -da/-de or -ta/-te - according to Consonant Mutation rules.
  - The Locative is the Case of Place - it equates to - in.. on.. at.. in English. - elde - [el-de] - in/on/at the hand..
• Movement Away from - (Ablative): -dan/-den or -tan/-ten - according to Consonant Mutation rules.
  - The Ablative is the Case of Movement Away - it equates to - from.. by.. via.. in English. - elden - [el-den] - from/by/via the hand..

Turkish Grammar is regular

Turkish Pronunciation is Phonetic - In Turkish each letter of the alphabet retains its basic pronunciation.
Turkish grammar is perfectly regular but differs in that it consists of post-positions which are suffixed directly to nouns or other parts of speech to modify their meaning. This use of suffixes is called agglutination - literally meaning - a gluing on - this is in contrast to English which uses individual prepositions for the same reasons. Agglutination is discussed below. Another peculiarity of Turkish is the - Rule of Vowel Harmony - where vowels can change in pronunciation and spelling to mirror the previous vowel in a word - this rule is discussed below.

Agglutination

Agglutination - "a sticking on to.."

In English we have many words which agglutinate (extend) to form other words. If we take the simple word - argue - then we can agglutinate it to - argument - by sticking on a -ment suffix. We can further agglutinate this word with other suffixes viz.: -ative giving argumentative - and even further to - argumentatively by adding a further -ly suffix. This then is the way of Turkish but even the little words like - in.. from.. at.. - are suffixed to their noun, thus producing an extended word. Then adding suffix -de - in.. on.. at.. and suffix -dan - from..
ev - house
evde - [ev-de] - in the house
evden - [ev-den] - from the house
Most suffixes follow the - Rule of Vowel Harmony - so there can be both an A-UnDotted Vowel Form - A I O U - and an E-Dotted Vowel Form - E İ Ö Ü - for the same suffix. Similarly adding suffix -da - in.. on.. at..
oda - room
odada - [oda-da]- in the room
odadan - [oda-dan] - from the room
All these suffixes and the rules of use are explained in the pages on this web site.

Consonant Mutation

Changes in pronunciation and spelling of consonants to preserve phonetics and euphony.

About Voicing of Consonants
A Voiced Consonant is one where the voice box is used to produce the sound - d, b - are in this category.
An Unvoiced Consonant is where the voice is silent and only air is expelled to produce the sound such as t, p.

The Main Consonants with Two Forms in Turkish
We do have a little consonant mutation in English, the terminal -y of lady changes to an -ie- in the plural - ladies, and the terminal -f of knife changes to a -v- in the plural - knives. This is similar to what happens in Turkish, but it is on a larger scale.

The main changes that occur in Turkish words is that a terminal -k may change to a -ğ - (soft g) - when a suffix with a vowel is added.

Also the first letter -d of a suffix may change to a -t when the suffix is added to a word ending in a Voiced Consonant.
- There are some changes to some other consonants which are minor - these Rules of Consonant Mutation are all discussed in detail in the web pages.

Vowel Harmony

4 Undotted Vowels

The Eight Vowels of Turkish - One very interesting feature of Turkish is that the eight vowels can be divided into two groups, the UnDotted and the Dotted vowels.

4 Dotted Vowels

Dotted vowels are pronounced at the front of the mouth (as the French Language) while their UnDotted counterparts are pronounced at the back of the mouth (more like English).

Turkish Vowels

This is the way that Turkish Grammar itself describes vowel production by the voice.
In Turkish voice sounds are separated into two main groups, consonants and vowels. When there is no obstacle to a voice then the sound is called a vowel. There are eight vowels in Turkish: a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü.

Vowels are classified thus

(A) According to the position of tongue and exit.

1. Thick vowels: a, ı, o, u.
2. Thin vowels: e, i, ö, ü

(B) According to the lips positioning.

1. Straight vowels: a, e, ı, i.
2. Rounded vowels: o, ö, u, ü

(C) According to the mouth opening.

1. Wide Vowels: a, e, o, ö.
2. Narrow vowels: ı, i, u, ü.

Turkish Vowel Qualities

Vowel Harmony Basics

The E-Dotted Group of four vowels are e, i, ö, ü
The A-UnDotted Group of four vowels are a, ı, o, u.
The harmony lies in the fact that all Turkish words of Altaic Turkic Origin are pronounced either entirely containing A-UnDotted Vowels, like kapılar - doors or bulmacaları - their crosswords, or entirely containing E-Dotted Vowels, like evlerinden - from their house - or köylüler - the villagers. Grammatical and verb suffixes also follow vowel harmony, being divided into two groups for front-vowel words and back-vowel words.

For example, the Undotted - back-vowel - plural suffix -lar would be added to kapı to form the word for - doors - ie. kapılar
whereas the Dotted - front-vowel - plural suffix -ler would be added to köylü to produce - villagers - ie köylüler.

Turkish has many imported foreign words from French, such as televizyon - télévision and müzisyen - musician, kuaför - coiffure that have been modified phonetically to the Turkish Alphabet and incorporated into the language. These are spelled according to Turkish phonetics and often have both front and back vowels within one word. Such is true for the numerous Turkish words of Arabic origin, such as mektup - letter and merhaba - hello, and of Persian origin as hane - office - where vowel harmony does not occur in the word itself. In these cases, consistent with the general rule for vowel harmony in Turkish, the final vowel of the word determines the vowel harmony for suffixation.

In short, UnDotted Vowels follow UnDotted Vowels and Dotted Vowels follow Dotted Vowels.

Turkish Verbs

There are no irregular verbs, and one single conjugation is used for all verbs. Turkish Verbs are also vowel harmonised. All verbs belong to one of two groups determined by their infinitive forms, those ending in -mak [The A-UnDotted Vowel Group] and those ending in -mek [The E-Dotted Vowel Group].
The suffixes for all -mak verbs have only A-UnDotted Back Vowels - bakmak - to look - becomes - bakacak - he will look. However only E-Dotted Front Vowels will be found in the suffixes of -mek verbs - gelmek - to come - becomes - gelecek - He will come. This means there is more than one form for the tense sign suffix and in this case the future suffix may be -acak or -ecek to follow Vowel Harmony Rules.

Turkish Gender and Articles

There is no subject definite article such as - "the.." - and there is no gender distinction, so no le and la problems like French, Italian etc. This borne out by the fact that Turkish only has one word for - he, she and it, namely - o.
There are ways to make a word definitive but it is in the form of a suffix and is used for objects - so there is an objective - "the.." - in Turkish - this is one of the difficulties for those learning Turkish as we do not distinguish between subject and object in English as we use the definite article for both.

An illustration of the Objective Definite Article - [In grammar - the Accusative Case.]
Fincan masada - The cup is on the table - [subject "the cup"]
Masadaki fincanı bana verin - Give me the cup which is on the table - [object "the cup"] -
Here we see that the object - the cup - fincan - has been made definitive (specific) by the addition of the objective suffix -ı to produce - fincanı - the way of saying - the cup - as an object.

Turkish Adjectives

Turkish is a Descriptive Language - Adjectives abound..

If Turkish can make something into an adjective - then it will do so...
Turkish is a very adjectival language. At a low level the adjective always preceded its noun, kara kedi - a black cat - as in English. However Turkish makes great use of Adjectival Phrases and Clauses.
In English we may say:
- The black cat with the long tail which is sitting on the mat looks hungry.
However the Turkish way will describe the cat not only as black but also where and upon what it is sitting together with any other attributes, such as its long tail - viz:
- On the mat which is sitting long tailed black cat hungry looks. - Minderin üstünde oturan uzun kuyruklu kara kedi aç görünüyor.
It pays to remember when learning Turkish that you describe adjectivally the subject and object with regards to place and disposition etc., make the sentence and then - BINGO! - once all the describing is done, then put the verb last in the sentence.

Structure of Turkish Words

The structure of Turkish words is vowel followed by a consonant by a vowel or vice versa. Let us say a vowel will always follow a consonant and a consonant will always follow a vowel. There are no diphthongs (two vowels occurring together) in Turkish words.(There are some imported foreign exceptions).
In order to preserve this rule certain consonants are inserted as "buffers" between vowels. These buffers are always Y, N or S.. Note that Y is considered as a consonant in Turkish.
The majority of Turkish Vowels are always pronounced quite short, there is no lengthening of vowels - this makes understanding sometimes difficult as perforce there is little and light stress in Turkish pronunciation.

Turkish Word Order

Word order is regular, but differs from English

1. Adjectival Descriptions of Subject.
2. The Subject.
3. Time Clauses.
4. Adjectival Descriptions of Object.
5. The Object
6. The Verb.

The verb is always last in a sentence. Turkish punctuation, normally puts a comma after the subject as with this sentence. It is good practice to do this especially if the subject is extended by a long Adjectival Description.
The man with the fishing rods in his hands, - a long described subject - will be at - the verb - your friend's 50th birthday party - a long described object - tomorrow night - time phrase
Lets put that into Turkish Structure:
Ellerinde oltası olan adam, yarın gece arkadaşının 50'ci doğum günü partisinde bulunacak.
Hands-his-in-which-are fishing-rods-the-with man, - a described and suffixed subject - tomorrow night - time phrase- friend-your-of 50th birthday party-his-at - a described and suffixed object - will be... - BINGO! - at last, the verb...........

I wish you Good Luck in your studies - İyi Şanslar Dilerim - but it's not that bad...!

A Bulgarian view of Turkish

Bulgarian sets himself alight over Turkish-Language News Daily News - Hurriyet - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 SOFIA - Daily News with wires The eccentric leader of the nationalist Party of Bulgarian Men set himself on fire Tuesday night in front of Bulgarian National Television, or BNT, station to protest the broadcasting of news in the Turkish language, local media reported. Rosen Markov, who is known for his weird and unconventional public initiatives, had set out a table on San Stefanov Street earlier Tuesday with a banner reading: "No to the news in Turkish on BNT. They are an outrage. Who needs them??" At one point in the evening, Markov set himself on fire in front of the main entrance of the state-owned TV station, the Sofia News Agency reported. He was saved by policemen on duty who immediately removed his coat and put the flames out with a fire extinguisher. After the incident, Markov reportedly returned to his table. See Turkish Grammar FAQ Page