Turkish

Turkish is spoken by about 50 million speakers; the majority in Turkey and the remainder in Cryprus and the areas surrounding Turkey. Turkish used to be written in the Arabic script but this changed in 1927 when Turkey chose the parliamentary republican system under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ( 1881- 1938 ). Since 1927 a modified Roman alphabet has been used. The alphabet is made up of 21 consonants and 8 vowels.

The alphabet

In Turkish there are 8 vowels : Aa Ee Ii Oo Öö Uu Üü and 21 consonants, making the total 29 letters.

Two consonants are never together in a word, a vowel is always between them e.g.:

• okul = school
• bicak = knife
• catal = fork

Pronouns

• I = ben
• you = sen, siz
• he, she, it = o ( In Turkish only one word is used for these three pronouns)
• we = biz
• they= onlar

Adjectives

An adjective is used in exactly the same way as in English e.g.:

• yellow Mercedes = sari mersedes
• white rose = beyaz gul
• happy man = mutlu adam

Conjunctions

The conjunctions (and, but, yet, or, nor, although, unless, if, because etc.) are used in the same way as in English.

Sounds

The letters in Turkish always have the same sound unlike English e.g. c can have the sound s or k depending upon the letters which follow. In Turkish no letters are silent, every letter is sounded. The sign over g softens the sound.

Sentence structure

English	I	will go	to school	tomorrow
	1	2	3	4
Turkish	Yarm	ben	okula	gidecegim
	4	1	3	2