The Turkish Alphabet
The Turkish Alphabet consists of twenty-one consonants and eight vowels.
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
The alphabet is phonetic as each letter retains its individual pronunciation at all times.
There are no diphthongs - except in a few foreign loan words.
About the Turkish Alphabet
Mustafa Kemal Publicly Teaching the Roman Alphabet in 1928
The Turkish Alphabet was changed from Ottoman script to a Latin based script soon after the Turkish Republic was declared. Ottoman script was based on the Arabic alphabetic script but this did not adequately cover the phonetics of Turkish. Kemal Atatürk intoduced the new latin alphabet almost overnight.
Turkish does not as a rule allow two vowels to occur together - there are exceptions of course - but mostly in foreign imported words. Therefore as there are no diphthongs then whenever two vowels occur together, they are each pronounced as a separate sound.
The letter -Y- is considered as a consonant in Turkish, and it is widely used as a buffer consonant to keep vowels apart during word building.
The actual Law No:1353 dated 1st November 1928 which changed the Turkish Alphabet to Roman letters is shown in the right-hand panel.
Main Differences from English Pronunciation
Please note that all pronunciation examples shown below are given British English.
The Eight Vowels are divided into two groups for Vowel Harmony purposes
The Undotted-A Vowel Group
1. A - is as u in English lucky or mutter.
2. I - Undotted I - is the er sound in porter or water - without any r sound.
3. O - is as the o sound in lottery or bottom.
4. U - is as the oo sound in loot or boot
The Dotted-E Vowel Group
1. E - is as e in letter or set or met
2. İ - Dotted İ - is as ee in meet or ea in seat.
3. Ö - is as ir in bird or shirt - without any r sound.
4. Ü - is as ew sound few or stew
Some Consonants
The Pronunciation of these Consonants differs from English Pronunciation.
1. C - is always a j sound as in jam jar.
2. Ç - is the ch sound as in church
3. G - is always hard as in gate. - It is never soft as in general.
4. Ğ - lengthens the preceding vowel. It has no sound and never begins a word.
The Turkish soft - ğ - can be likened to the silent gh sound in the English words such as - weight, light, fought - etc
1. H - is always aspirated as in Henry. It is never silent as in Heir.
2. R - is always strongly rolled even on the end of words.
3. S - is always hissed as in safe. - It is never a z sound as in these or those.
4. Ş - is the sh sound as in sharp or bash.
More details and pronunciation files can be seen and heard on the:
The Turkish Alphabet Identification
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The Turkish Alphabet Sound Names
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A - Adana
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G - Giresun
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L - Lüleburgas
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S - Sinop
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B - Bolu
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Ğ - Yumuşak ge
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M - Muş
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Ş - Şırnak
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C - Ceyhan
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H - Hatay
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N - Niğde
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T - Tokat
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Ç - Çanakkale
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İ - İzmir
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O - Ordu
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U - Uşak
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D - Denizli
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I - Isparta
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Ö - Ödemiş
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Ü - Ünye
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E - Edirne
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J - Jandarma
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P - Polatlı
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V - Van
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F - Fatsa
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K - Kars
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R - Rize
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Y- Yozgat
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Z - Zonguldak
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Turkish Characters - Computers, Keyboards and the Internet
Turkish Q-Keyboard Layout
Installation
- To install multilanguage support for Windows
- Open the Add/Remove Programs dialog box.
- At the Windows Setup tab, Click Multilanguage Support, and then click Details.
- Make sure a check mark appears beside the language or languages you want to use.
- Click OK, and then click OK again.
- The changes take effect after your computer restarts.
Note: You can use Windows to create documents in many different languages. However, to create documents in a Central European, Cyrillic, Baltic, Greek, or Turkish-based language, your must install multilanguage support.
Keyboard
- To change the keyboard layout for an installed keyboard language
- Go to control panel and open the Keyboard Properties dialog box.
- Click the Language tab.
- Click the Add button to select the keyboard layout you want to use, and then click OK.
- YOU MUST SELECT TURKISH-Q LAYOUT
There is also a selection box on the language keyboard dialog box that lets you choose to switch between keyboard language settings. This is very handy!!
Q-Type Turkish Keyboard Layout Map
Once you have done this, when you switch to your Turkish keyboard layout the keys are set up basically the same but now......
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[ = ğ
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{ = Ğ
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] = ü
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} = Ü
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; = ş
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: = Ş
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' = i
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" = İ
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, = ö
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< = Ö
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. = ç
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> = Ç
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Turkish Un-dotted ı is on the normal "i-key"
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Here is the resuting Q-Turkish Keyboard layout, you can stick small labels on these keys if you wish, to remind yourself of the positions of the Turkish letters.
Note:
The Turkish Un-dotted letter I is to be found at the normal letter I position on the English QWERTY keyboard layout.
To Install Turkish Language Capability in Windows
These notes are taken from Wikipedia Website
Using these keyboard layouts on your computer
Turkish-Q is a more QWERTY-based layout, and therefore it is recommended that you use the QWERTY keyboard rather than Turkish-F, as it is more "foreigner friendly" and less keys are re-mapped.
You do not have to buy a new keyboard to be able to use these layouts. Below you can find instructions on how to implement these layouts on a PC. Unfortunately information on how to do this on a Mac, Linux, or any other computer system is currently unavailable.
- (1) Click on Start
- (2) When the Start menu opens up, click on Control Panel
- (3)*If you are on Category View, click on Date, Time, Language and Regional Options, then Regional and Language Options.
* If you are on Classic View, click on Regional and Language Options.
- (4) Click on the Languages tab.
- (5) Under Text services and input languages, click on the Details button.
- (6) Click on the Add button.
- (7) Here you will find a large list of languages. Choose Turkish, then tick the Keyboard layout/IME tick box. This will enable you to choose from a wide range of different keyboard layouts. Choose either Turkish-F or Turkish-Q (preferably the latter). Then click OK.
- (8) The Turkish language (and your chosen keyboard layout) has just been added to your list of Installed services. To easily switch between English and Turkish, click on the Language bar... button under Preferences.
- (9) When that window pops up, tick the following tick boxes:
* Show the Language bar on the desktop.
* Show text labels on the Language bar.
Then click OK.
- (10) Now that you've done that, click on the OK or Apply buttons to have your changes saved.
Here another picture Q-Turkish Keyboard layout which shows all key re-mapping, you can stick small labels on these keys if you wish, to remind yourself of the positions of the Turkish letters.
Note:
The Turkish Un-dotted letter I is to be found at the normal letter I position on the English QWERTY keyboard layout.
Turkish Language Encoding
The Languge encodings used for the Turkish Character set on computers, E-Mail programmes and web browsers are usually as follows:
Turkish encodings are:
Windows-1254
ISO-9959-9
Latin-9
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These are the entity codes for Turkish alphabetical letters used in E-mail and HTML Pages.
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â = â
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 = Â
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ç = ç
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Ç =Ç
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ğ = ğ
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Ğ = Ğ
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ı = ı
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İ = İ
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ö = ö
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Ö = Ö
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ş = ş
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Ş = Ş
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ü = ü
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Ü =Ü
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The following letters can also be found in older writings
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î = î
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Î = Î
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û = û
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Û = Û
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Manisa Turkish web page have been written using the entity codes as shown above.
Entering Turkish from the Keyboard
Turkish Characters can also sometime be accessed directly from the keyboard if you computer has them installed. (Many modern computers have provision for this). You must have Turkish Language set up as Multi-Language support (see section above). BUt it is NOT necessary to have an actual Turkish keyboard installed. My own keyboard is New Zealand type and this method works correctly as long as Multi-Language Support is installed and loaded AND that the programme you are using will accept this input form. MS-Word for Windows will accept this method.
Do not forget to switch NUM-LOCK to "ON" (on the Numerical key Pad..)
Instuctions:
1. Select Keyboard Language as Turkish
2. Turn NUM-LOCK to ON
3. Hold down ALT key and enter the numerical code as below with the NUMERICAL PAD KEYS
4. Release the ALT key, and the chosen letter will be printed on the screen
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These are ALT KEY - NUMDER PAD codes to produce Turkish alphabetical letters for screen and printer.
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â = Alt 0226
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 = Alt 0194
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ç = Alt 0231
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Ç = Alt 0199
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ğ = ALT 0240
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Ğ = Alt 0208
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ı = Alt 0253
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İ = Alt 0221
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ö = Alt 0246
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Ö = Alt 0214
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ş = Alt 0254
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Ş = Alt 0222
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ü = Alt 0252
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Ü = Alt 0220
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The following letters can also be found in older writings
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î = ALT 0238
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Î = ALT 0206
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û = ALT 0251
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Û = ALT 0249
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