Overview

The Turkish alphabet is the standard script used to write the modern Turkish language. It is a Latin-based alphabet adapted to represent Turkish phonology and orthography precisely. The modern form contains 29 letters and is used for education, publishing and official communication in Turkey. For general references see Turkish alphabet.

Letters and basic characteristics

The alphabet includes eight vowels and twenty-one consonants. Vowels play a central role in Turkish phonology and in the language's system of vowel harmony, which affects suffixes and word formation. The alphabet adds several letters with diacritics to represent sounds not found in standard English.

  • Vowels (8): A, E, I, İ, O, Ö, U, Ü
  • Consonants (21): B, C, Ç, D, F, G, Ğ, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, Ş, T, V, Y, Z

Notable items include Ç / ç (a voiceless postalveolar affricate), Ş / ş (a voiceless postalveolar fricative), Ö / ö and Ü / ü (front rounded vowels), and Ğ / ğ (the soft g, which lengthens the preceding vowel or palatalises depending on context).

Distinctive orthographic facts

Turkish distinguishes dotted and dotless forms of the letter I: uppercase of "i" is "İ" (with dot) and lowercase of "I" is "ı" (without dot). This distinction affects capitalization and computer processing. The alphabet does not include the English letters Q, W and X; these appear only in foreign names or loanwords and are generally treated as nonstandard in Turkish orthography, see absent letters.

History and reform

Until the early 20th century Ottoman Turkish was written in a version of the Arabic script. As part of a series of language and cultural reforms, the Republic of Turkey adopted a Latin-based alphabet in 1928 to increase literacy and better match Turkish phonology. The modern alphabet is a modified form of the Latin script designed to represent Turkish sounds more directly; see the discussion on the modified Latin script.

Uses, implications and examples

The alphabet underpins modern Turkish education, media and administration. Its regular spelling rules make pronunciation largely predictable from writing, which aids literacy. Vowel harmony, the dotted/dotless I distinction, and letters like Ğ are often highlighted in language instruction. Examples of common letters in use include words like "İstanbul" (note the dotted capital I) and "çocuk" (child), illustrating diacritics in ordinary vocabulary. For official charts and ordering conventions used in Turkey consult materials at Turkish alphabet of Turkey.

Notable distinctions

When comparing Turkish to other Latin-alphabet languages, its small set of added diacritics and its omission of Q, W and X are the clearest differences. The orthography's close correspondence between letters and sounds is one reason it is considered a relatively phonetic writing system, though pronunciation details and regional accents remain important for learners.