The development and
characteristics of
Turkish in comparison
to English
Banu Bostan, Figen Kahraman
Hauptstudium, LN
Overview
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10.
General overview of Turkish
Historical background
Borrowings
Vowels
Consonants
Word classes
Word formation process
Case
Tense
Kinship and colour terms
General overview of Turkish
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Main geographic locations of Turkish
languages
Turkey (Turkish)
Azerbaidjan (Azerbaidjani)
The formerly Soviet Central Asia, Kazakhstan,
Southern Siberia (Uzbek, Kazakh,
Turkmenian, Kirghiz)
On the Volga (Tatar)
In northwestern China (Uighur)
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The Altaic language families:
the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages,
Tungusic languages, Korean and the Japonic
languages.
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The Turkic languages include Chuvash, Turkish,
Azeri, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Urum, Qashqai,
Khorasani, Salar, Gagauz, Khalaj, Tatar, Bashkir,
Baraba, Urum, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk,
Karaim, Krymchak, Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogay,
Uzbek, Uyghur, Lop, Kyrgyz, Altay,Yakut,Tuvan,
Khakas, Shor, Fuyü Gïrgïs, Chulym, Tofa,
Dolgan, Western Yugur, and Northern Altay
Common features
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Ural - Altaic languages:
principle of vowel harmony
are agglutinative
SOV word order
no grammatical gender
Regions Turkish is spoken in:
Turkey, Caucasus, Cyprus, Balkans
Historical background
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10th century: the Turks had begun to convert to
Islam and to adopt the Arabo – Persian alphabet
11th century: under the leadership of the Seljuk
dynasty they overran Persia, Persian became the
language of administration and literary culture
(Persian borrowed many words from Arabic)
This hybrid language became the official
language of the Ottoman dynasty
Until 1922 the language of Turkey was known as
Osmanlıca or Ottoman Turkish
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The downfall of the Ottoman dynasty made it
necessary to find a new name to distinguish this
language from all other members of the same
linguistic family
Formally the language is called Türkiye Türkçesi
(Turkey -Turkish)
The language-reform movement:
 With the establishment of the Republic Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk wanted his people to turn their
backs on their Asian past
 In 1928 he introduced the Latin alphabet in
place of the Arabo – Persian
 The Turkish Language Society (Türk Dil
Kurumu –TDK) made up a list of pure Turkish
words (Öztürkçe)
 The language reform reached the Press the
schools and the general public
Main points
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11th century Turkish speakers arrived in Turkey
Turkish history (three periods):
Old Anatolian Turkish (Eski Anadolu
Türkçesi)
Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlıca)
Modern Turkish (Yeni Türkçe)
1928 introduction of the Latin alphabet
Borrowings
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Words from Arabic, Persian, French, Italian,
German and English
Example:
Ask for your bill (hesap) in a restoran (restoran)
and the odds are that what the garson
(garson) brings you will be headed adisiyon
(adisiyon).
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Arabic:
haqq- right – hak
afw - pardon – af
tamass - contact temas
ism - name – isim
adl - justice - adil
qism - part - kısım
aql - intelligence – akıl
matn- text – metin
umr - life – ömür
fıkr - thought - fikir
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French:
station - station istasyon
statisque -statisticsistatistik
sport - sports - spor
club - club - klüp
groupe - group - grup
principe - principle prensip
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Italian:
scala - quay - iskele
sgombro - mackerel uskumru
spirito - alcohol –
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English:
screw - uskur
steam – istim or islim
train – tren
ispirto
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German:
Schlepp - cargo- boat –
şilep
Groschen - kuruş
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Persian:
shahr - city – şehir
zahr - poison – zehir
tukhm - seed - tohum
Vowels
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Turkish has 8 vowels
The vowels
 4 front vowels (e, i, ö, ü)
 4 back vowels (a, ı, o, u)
 4 high vowels (i, ı, u, ü)
 4 low vowels (e, a, o, ö)
 4 rounded vowels (o, ö, u , ü)
 4 unrounded vowels (a, e, i, ı)
examples:
akıl, okul, öpücük, elli
Vowel harmony rules
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Front vowel must be followed by a front vowel
(dolap – cupboard)
First vowel is unrounded so the other once are
also unrounded
First vowel is rounded, the following vowels
are rounded and close or unrounded and open
(erik - plum, uzak – far away)
Exceptions
Foreign words
tiyatro- theatre, edebiyat- literature
2. Words which changed during the time into
standard Turkish
ana - anne (mother), alma – elma (apple)
3. Compound words
Karadeniz - Black Sea, bugün – today
4. Five invariable suffixes
(I)yor, -ki, - ken, - leyin, - (I)mtrak
1.
Consonants
Bilabial
Labiodental
Dental
Plosives
p b
t d
Nasals
m
n
Fricatives
f v
Alveolar
Postalveolar
c ɟ
ʃ ʒ
s z
ɾ
Tap
Approximant
approximants
j
ɫ
l
Velar
Glottal
k g
ɣ
ʧ ʤ
Affricatives
Lateral
Palatal
h
Consonants
 b, f, m, p, s, z, y are pronounced as in English
The consonant k stands for two sounds in Turkish
 A front k (key)
 A back k (cool)
example:
ek affix (front k)
ak white (back k)
The consonant l stands for two sounds
 A front l bal (honey)
 A back l bel (waist)
The consonant v
 At the beginning it is pronounced as in English,
in the middle and at the end it is weaker than the
English v, after a vowel or before a consonant it
is pronounced as bilabial fricative
tavşan (rabbit), yavru (young animal)
The Turkish consonant g
 two sounds /g/ and /ğ/ (called the soft g)
 /ğ/ is not found at the beginning of a word
 /g/ does not occur after or between vowels,
except words of European origin ( sigara cigarette, sigorta - insurance)
 If /ğ/ is between back vowels it is not
pronounced ( ağaç- tree, ağır - heavy)
 After a back vowel, before a consonant or at the
end of a word ğ is dropped and the preceding
vowel is lengthened ( dağ – mountain, doğru right)
In some dialects ğ is pronounced as [y]
( diğer - other, değirmen - mill )
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Consonant assimilation in suffixes:
 When a suffix beginning with c, d or g is added to
a word ending in one of the unvoiced
consonants ç,f,h,k,p,s,ş,t the initial consonant of
the suffix is unvoiced to ç, t or k
 example: kitap + cı = kitapçı, elektrikçi
Syllable final plosives and affricatives are
devoiced
example:
şarap (wine)
şarap + -I (Acc.) = şarab-ı
kitap – kitab- ı
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Word classes
Nouns
 Turkish nouns can take endings indicating
 the person of a possessor
 case-endings
 Plural endings
Example:
ev -house
evler - the houses
evin - your house
evimde - at my house
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Verbs
 Turkish verbs indicate person
 can be made negative or im/-potential
 can be progressive, future, present, past,
conditional, imperative
example:
gel- (to)come
gelme- not (to) come
geleme- not (to) be able to come
gelebil- (to) be able to come
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Adjectives
 Most adjectives can be used as nouns and
adverbs
example:
ihtiyar - old (adj.) -the old one (noun)
bir ihtiyar – an old one, an old person
ihtiyarlar – old ones, old people
Hasan yavaş yürüdü (adverb)
Hasan walked slowly
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Pronouns
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Personal pronouns
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Possessive pronoun
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ben ( I )
sen ( you )
o ( he, she, it )
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ben-im ( my )
sen-in ( your )
on- un ( his, her, its )
biz ( we )
siz ( you )
onlar ( they )
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biz-im ( our )
siz-in ( your )
on-lar-ın ( their )
Word formation process
Nouns:
göz
eye
gözlük
eyeglasses
gözlükçü someone who sells eyeglasses
gözlükçülük the business of selling eyeglasses
Verbs:
yatlie down
yatır- lay down [that is, cause to lie down]
yatırım instance of laying down: deposit,
investment
yatırımcı depositor, investor
Case
Türkiye'de modayı gazete sayfalarına taşıyan,gazetemiz
yazarlarından N. S. yaşamını yitirdi. “ One of the writers of our
newspaper, N. S., who brought fashion to newspaper pages in
Turkey, lost her life."
Türkiye'de "in Turkey“ (locative) modayı "fashion"
(accusative of moda) gazete "newspaper" (nominative)
sayfalarına "to its pages" (dative; sayfa "page", sayfalar
"pages", sayfaları "its pages")taşıyan, "carrying" (present
participle of taşı-)gazetemiz "our newspaper" (nominative)
gazete "newspaper"yazarlarından "from its writers" (ablative;
yazar "writer") N. S. [person's name] (nominative) yaşamını
"her/his life" (accusative; yaşam "life") yitirdi. "lost" (past
tense of yitir- "lose“ from yit- "be lost")
The Turkish language has got 6 cases:
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Nominative/absolute -Ø (Ahmet)
Accusative/objective - (y)I (gazete-yi, the
newspaper)
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Dative - (y)A (konser-e, to the concert)
Locative - DA (büro-da, in the office)
Ablative - DAn (iş-ten, from work)
Genitive - nIn (Ali`-nin, Ali`s)
Tense
Most tense markers in Turkish have aspectual
functions or function as mood markers
 Present
 The so- called broad tense ( -(I)r biçimbirim,
geniş zaman) the general present tense,
expresses habitual actions and general events
example:
Hasan her sabah kahvaltı ed –er
Hasan has breakfat every morning
Bil know, bil –ir she knows
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Present (Progressive)
 -(I)-yor
example:
Hasan tenis oy-n -uyor (Pr. Prog.)
Hasan is playing tenis
Hasan tenis oy-n –uyor (habitual action)
Hasan plays tenis
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Past
Two simple past tenses
Definite past -DI
Reported past -mIş
example:
Hasan dün operaya git-ti (past)
Hasan went to the opera yesterday
Hasan dün operaya git-miş (rep. past)
Hasan reportedly went to the opera yesterday
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Future
-(AcAK)
example:
Yarın sana uğra-y-acağ- ım
Tomorrow I will drop by at your place
Kinship and colour terms
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Kinship terms by
blood
anne- mother
baba -father
nine -grandmother
dede -grandfather
anneanne -maternal
grandmother
babaanne- paternal
grandmother
çocuk, evlat – child
kız – daughter
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oğul – son
torun – grandchild
kardeş – sibling
erkek kardeş – brother
kızkardeş – sister
abla – elder sister
ağabey – elder brother
dayı – maternal uncle
amca – paternal uncle
teyze – maternal aunt
hala – paternal aunt
yeğen – niece or nephew,
cousin
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Kinship terms by marriage
bacanak -the husband of one`s wife`s sister
baldız -sister- in- law
damat - son-in-law
dünür - the father and mother -in –law of one`s
child
elti - sister -in -law
enişte - brother -in -law
gelin - daughter- in- law, bride
görümce - sister- in- law, husband`s sister
Colour terms
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black siyah, kara
white beyaz, ak
red kırmızı, kızıl, al
yellow sarı
green yeşil
blue mavi
brown kahverengi
pink pembe
orange- turuncu, portakal rengi (the colour of the
orange)
Gray-boz, gri, kurşuni, kül rengi
mor
References
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Lewis, Geoffrey 2001. Turkish Grammar. Oxford
University Press.
Kornfilt, Jaklin 1997. Turkish. London: Routledge.
Slobin, D. I., Zimmer, K. (ed.) 1986. Typological
Studies in Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins Publishing Company.
Underhill, R. 1993. Turkish Grammar.
Cambridge/Massachusetts/London: MIT Press.
www.wikipedia.de
www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/asia.html
Thanks for attention!
Teşekkürler!