Turkish sentence has a free form, ie the places of words can change without breaking the structure. Let's see an example:
Sam loves Juddy.
Juddy loves Sam.
These two sentences have different meanings since the word orders are different. The word before the verb is the subject and the other one coming after the verb is the object. In Turkish, the identifier of the function of a member of the sentence is not the place of that member in the sentence. Every word is inflected according to it's function in the sentence.
We will see the cases of words ie suffixes a word can take later, but now I will translate the two sentences above into Turkish:
Sam loves Juddy : Sam Juddy'i seviyor.
As you guess, seviyor means loves. It is inflected according to the time and the owner of the action and we won't look at it deeply now. At the moment, our focus is on the sentence. Let's look at these rewrites of our sentence:
Sam Juddy'i seviyor.
Sam seviyor Juddy'i.
Juddy'i Sam seviyor.
Juddy'i seviyor Sam.
Seviyor Juddy'i Sam.
Seviyor Sam Juddy'i.
All of these have the same meaning: Sam loves Juddy. But there is a little difference of emphasis and we will talk about emphasis again later.
The only thing we should learn from this title is summarized in this one sentence:
In Turkish, the function of the words is determined by suffixes and the places of words in the sentence may freely change to alter the emphasis of the sentence.
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Friday, 16 February 2007
Alphabet and Pronunciation
Currently, Latin Alphabet with some differences is used in Turkey. Turkish Alphabet is composed of 29 letters:
The good news is, in Turkish, every letter has an invariable sound. So, reading Turkish texts is really easy. I will try to make every letter as clear as possible for you. To manage this, it would be a better practice to write English words in Turkish Alphabet instead of introducing you to Turkish words. The list below shows how in Turkish these would be written if they would be Turkish words. There is nothing concerned with the meaning here. Only aim of this list is to show how Turkish letters are pronounced.
English Words : Turkish Representation
I am : Ay em
The sound of i is written as ay in Turkish. A is pronounced as u in cut, and this never changes. Y is, as you see, pronounced as the second sound of I and first sound of you in English. The sound of e is the same as the one in egg. So, Turkish letters a-y-e-m is pronounced as we pronounce I am in English.
You are : Yû ar
We have learned how the letter y is pronounced and now it is clearer. Other letters are easy to understand. The sound r is slightly more stressed in Turkish. û is pronounced as u but a little longer.
He is : Hi iz
Cut : Kat
Put : Put
Shut : Şat
The letter ş corresponds to sh here. We have another letter like this: ç. As you guess, it is pronounced like ch in china.
Part : Part
Hard : Hard
Soft : Soft
Cutton : Katın
Japan : Capên
C is as the sound J in the word Japan or Job.
It is very easy, isn't it? If anything is unclear for you, you are encouraged to ask questions as comments.
Lastly, we see 6 letters in Turkish alphabet which are not in the English one. We have already learned two of them: ş and ç. The third one is ı. Yes a dottless i. There are two letters for i in Turkish. The first one, I ı is pronounced as e in ticket and it is always dotless. The other one, İ i is pronounced as i in the same word, ticket and always has it's dot. I mean indicating the small and capital letter by a dot is not valid in Turkish. I-ı and İ-i are two different letters corresponding to two different sounds.
Two letters with double dots are easy to pronounce too. Ö is like the u in burn and ü is like the u in amusement.
The hardest one for me to describe is the letter Ğ ğ. It is never seen as the first letter of any word. It has a very light sound. When you say bought, you give voice ğ before the sound t. From a Turkish speaker, you may only hear it when it drops between two wovels as in boğa. Even here, it is really hard to distinguish it from the speakers voice.
Pronouncing Turkish is really simple according to many Western Languages. I hope you will enjoy trying to read the example sentences below. None of them are in Turkish as you may supposed in first look. They are all in English and I hope it will be interesting to read English sentences with a different spelling... Also please note that Turkish has no fricative sounds like th in the. So, the is spelled as dı and thing as ting below.
Ay biliiv yû şuld liv iiç dey ez if it is yor last, viç is vay ay dont hev eni kıliin laundri bikâz (or bikôz), kam on, (w)hu vants tu voş klots on dı last dey ov deyır layf? -- Eyc 15
Giv mii dı strength (strength is hard to spell in Turkish) tu çeync dı tings ay ken, dı greys tu eksept dı tings ay kennat, ent e griit big beg ov mani. -- Eyc 13
İt şûr vuld bii nays if vii gat e dey of for dı prezidınt's börtdey, layk dey du for dı kuiin. Of kôrs, den vi vuld hev e lat ov piipıl vôting for e kendidıt born on Culay 3 or Disembır 26, cast for dı long viikends. -- Eyc 8
[You may see the original sentences at this page where I have taken them.]
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
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
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
The good news is, in Turkish, every letter has an invariable sound. So, reading Turkish texts is really easy. I will try to make every letter as clear as possible for you. To manage this, it would be a better practice to write English words in Turkish Alphabet instead of introducing you to Turkish words. The list below shows how in Turkish these would be written if they would be Turkish words. There is nothing concerned with the meaning here. Only aim of this list is to show how Turkish letters are pronounced.
English Words : Turkish Representation
I am : Ay em
The sound of i is written as ay in Turkish. A is pronounced as u in cut, and this never changes. Y is, as you see, pronounced as the second sound of I and first sound of you in English. The sound of e is the same as the one in egg. So, Turkish letters a-y-e-m is pronounced as we pronounce I am in English.
You are : Yû ar
We have learned how the letter y is pronounced and now it is clearer. Other letters are easy to understand. The sound r is slightly more stressed in Turkish. û is pronounced as u but a little longer.
He is : Hi iz
Cut : Kat
Put : Put
Shut : Şat
The letter ş corresponds to sh here. We have another letter like this: ç. As you guess, it is pronounced like ch in china.
Part : Part
Hard : Hard
Soft : Soft
Cutton : Katın
Japan : Capên
C is as the sound J in the word Japan or Job.
It is very easy, isn't it? If anything is unclear for you, you are encouraged to ask questions as comments.
Lastly, we see 6 letters in Turkish alphabet which are not in the English one. We have already learned two of them: ş and ç. The third one is ı. Yes a dottless i. There are two letters for i in Turkish. The first one, I ı is pronounced as e in ticket and it is always dotless. The other one, İ i is pronounced as i in the same word, ticket and always has it's dot. I mean indicating the small and capital letter by a dot is not valid in Turkish. I-ı and İ-i are two different letters corresponding to two different sounds.
Two letters with double dots are easy to pronounce too. Ö is like the u in burn and ü is like the u in amusement.
The hardest one for me to describe is the letter Ğ ğ. It is never seen as the first letter of any word. It has a very light sound. When you say bought, you give voice ğ before the sound t. From a Turkish speaker, you may only hear it when it drops between two wovels as in boğa. Even here, it is really hard to distinguish it from the speakers voice.
Pronouncing Turkish is really simple according to many Western Languages. I hope you will enjoy trying to read the example sentences below. None of them are in Turkish as you may supposed in first look. They are all in English and I hope it will be interesting to read English sentences with a different spelling... Also please note that Turkish has no fricative sounds like th in the. So, the is spelled as dı and thing as ting below.
Ay biliiv yû şuld liv iiç dey ez if it is yor last, viç is vay ay dont hev eni kıliin laundri bikâz (or bikôz), kam on, (w)hu vants tu voş klots on dı last dey ov deyır layf? -- Eyc 15
Giv mii dı strength (strength is hard to spell in Turkish) tu çeync dı tings ay ken, dı greys tu eksept dı tings ay kennat, ent e griit big beg ov mani. -- Eyc 13
İt şûr vuld bii nays if vii gat e dey of for dı prezidınt's börtdey, layk dey du for dı kuiin. Of kôrs, den vi vuld hev e lat ov piipıl vôting for e kendidıt born on Culay 3 or Disembır 26, cast for dı long viikends. -- Eyc 8
[You may see the original sentences at this page where I have taken them.]
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