ÜNİTE 0 – ABC

0A – ABC / ALFABE (THE ALPHABET)

• Türkçe ABC (The Turkish Alphabet)

The Turkish alphabet can be seen as a variant of the Latin alphabet. Turkey has produced
its own alphabet by adding its own sounds to the Latin alphabet and removing the ones that
doesn’t exist in Turkish; such as adding ‘ç’ and ’ş’ sounds and removing ‘x’ sound. In addition
to the Latin alphabet, there are letters unique to Turkish.

Unique letters in the Turkish Alphabet:

ç–ş–ğ–ö–ü–ı

In conclusion, Turkish alphabet consists

Consonants: b, c, ç, d, f, g, ğ, h, j, of 29 letters, including 21 consonants and 8
k, l, m, n, p, r, s, ş, t, v, y, z. vowels.
Vowels: a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü Vowels in Turkish are categorized according to
where the sounds are produced in our mouth.
They can be front (e, i, ü, ö) or back vowels (a,
ı, o, u) and round (ü, ö, u, o). The roundness is determined by whether the lips are rounded
while producing the sounds. In this case, you’ll certainly feel your lips are rounded when you
try to produce the ‘o’ sound.

Turkish Vowels Chart

Unround Round

Back a, ı o, u
Front e, i ö, ü

You can also remember them as soft and hard vowels

IMPORTANT
as we categorize them in the Turkish language. This will be
useful in the next chapters when we learn the vowel harmony. Ğ,ğ (Soft G) does not
So, keep that in mind: have a sound. It
lengthens the
Hard vowels: a, ı, o, u
preceding vowel. No
Soft vowels: e, i, ö, ü
word in Turkish
begins with the soft G
(Ğ).
 • Uluslararası Fonetik Alfabe (International Phonetic Alphabet)

International Phonetic Alphabet is the standard alphabet created to display sounds on

paper. It is a system of signs and symbols created to encode speech sounds in all languages
in a uniform manner. Below you will see the equivalents of Turkish letters according to the
International Phonetic Alphabet and the English Approximations.1

Turkish Letters IPA English Turkish Example

Approximation
Aa [ɑ] father at
Bb [b] about baba
Cc [dʒ] jump cam
Çç [ʈʃʰ], [ʈʃ] church, cheap çiçek, saçma
Dd [d] day dün
Ee [e], [ɛ] may, fat el, ben
Ff [f], [ɸ] food, pfft kafa, ufuk
Gg [g], [ɟ] good, argue gazete, rüzgar
Ğğ [:], [j] - yağmur, değil
Hh [h], [x], [ç] help hayır, sabah, hiç
Iı [ɯ] roses arı
İi [i] greek yeni
Jj [ʒ] leisure jeton
Kk [k], [cʰ], [kʰ] score, -, - akşam, hikaye, kol
Ll [l], [ɫ] late, tail limon, bul
Mm [m] much masa
Nn [n], [ŋ] not, sing neden, yenge
Oo [o] story on
Öö [ø] bird ön
Pp [p], [pʰ] -, pack iplik, para
Rr [r], [ɹ], [ɾ̥] three, red, - ara, renk, bir
Ss [s] send su
Şş [ʃ] shoe şişe
Tt [t], [tʰ] tin, potato etki, top
Uu [u] soup kutu
Üü [y] cue üç
Vv [v], [β], [ʋ] vase, upvote, - ver, vücut, kavun
Yy [j] yes yol
Zz [z] zone zor

1
“Erguvanlı Taylan, E. (2015). The Phonology and Morphology of Turkish. İstanbul: Boğaziçi University
Press.” was used as a source for this chart.
 ***You can listen to the pronunciation of words for better understanding.

• How to Spell Your Name in Turkish

In Turkish, the ‘e’ sound comes after the consonants such as BE, CE, ÇE, DE, GE.. For
this reason, do not forget to add the ‘e’ sound when spelling your name:

J - Ü - L - İ - D – E → (JE – Ü – LE – İ –DE- E)