Turkish (Türkçe) is an Altaic language of the Turkic subgroup. It is spoken by the entirety of the country of Turkey and by a number of Turks living around the world.
Until Kemal Atatürk became the first President of Turkey, Turkish was written in the Arabic alphabet. Atatürk changed the script to the Latin alphabet, in an effort to increase literacy. However, Turkish still has a lot of Arabic loanwords, alongside of French and Persian loanwords.
Letter | IPA | English approximation |
Letter | IPA | English approximation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | a | /a/ | As a in father | M | m | /m/ | As m in man |
B | b | /b/ | As b in bat | N | n | /n/ | As n in nay |
C | c | /dʒ/ | As j in job | O | o | /o/ | As o in not |
Ç | ç | /tʃ/ | As ch in chat | Ö | ö | /œ/ | As u in fur |
D | d | /d/ | As d in dog | P | p | /p/ | As p in put |
E | e | /e/ | As e in red | R | r | /ɾ/ | As the r in rent |
F | f | /f/ | As f in far | S | s | /s/ | As s in sand |
G | g | /g/ or /ɟ/ | As g in gap | Ş | ş | /ʃ/ | As sh in she |
Ğ | ğ | /ɣ/ | No English equivalent | T | t | /t/ | As t in top |
H | h | /h/ | As h in hot | U | u | /u/ | As u in put |
I | ı | /ɯ/ | As e in open | Ü | ü | /y/ | As u in lute |
İ | i | /i/ | As i in fit | V | v | /v/ | As v in valve |
J | j | /ʒ/ | As g in montage | Y | y | /j/ | As y in you |
K | k | /k/ or /c/ | As c in cat | Z | z | /z/ | As z in zip |
L | l | /ɫ/ or /l/ | As l in let |
Categories: [Altaic languages]