Linguata
Turkish words and phrases
Pronunciation
The Turkish alphabet was officially romanized in 1928. It is a phonetic alphabet, i.e. letters are generally linked to specific sounds. It contains some letters not present in the English alphabet: Ç ç Ğ ğ I ı Ö ö Ş ş Ü ü (notice the ‘dotless’ ı).
Consonants
These are mostly pronounced as in English, except:
c like the ‘j’ in ‘jam’ and ‘judge’
ç like the ‘ch’ in ‘church’, ‘cherry’
ğ (‘soft’ g) is usually not sounded, but lengthens the preceding vowel. It never occurs at the beginning of a word. When it follows a front vowel (see vowel harmony), it sounds like ‘y’.
r more emphasized between vowels and at the end of words than in English.
ş like ‘sh’ in ‘sheep’, ‘shut’
The ‘unvoiced’ consonants p t k ç s ş f h change the ‘voiced’ consonants d g c to unvoiced t k ç respectively when a root with a voiceless ending meets a suffix with a voiced beginning:
ev →evde (in the house), but sokak → sokakta (in the street)
Conversely a voiceless consonant ending a word is ‘voiced’ by a suffix starting with a vowel:
hesap → hesabim (my bill) (Food and drink. General phrases)
and it retains its unvoiced consonant before a suffix beginning with a consonant:
hesap → hesaplar (bills)
Vowels
In general vowels are short except when followed by ğ. Vowels retain their individual sound, even when lengthened by ğ.
Stress
Stress is not prominent, tending to be on the last syllable.