Turkish language

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.

Turkish people in Istanbul, Turkey.

Turkish alphabet

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

Simple phrases

• Merhaba = Hello (formal)
• Selam = Hello
• Nasılsın? = How are you?
• İyiyim = I'm fine
• Teşekkür ederim = Thank you (formal)
• Teşekkürler = Thanks
• Sağ ol = Thank you
• Benim adım ... = My name is ...
• Türkçe bilmiyorum. = I don't speak Turkish.
• İngilizce biliyor musunuz? = Do you speak English?
• Tekrarlar mısınız? = Can you repeat it?
• Evet = Yes
• Hayır = No
• Belki = Maybe
• Biraz = A little
• Acıktım. = I'm hungry.
• Dur! = Stop!
• Yapma! = Don't do it!
• İstemiyorum. = I don't want it.
• Tabii = Sure
• Bekledim. = I waited.

See also

• Altaic languages