Talk:Turkish phonology

message: Thanks for creating this article. Atilim Gunes Baydin 22:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: The section Turkish phonology describes ,  and  as separate phonemes next to ,  and  – at least that is the impression I get from reading the text and the use of the notation "/.../". Would it not to be better to describe  and  as complementary allophones of a single phoneme , and so on?  --Lambiam 15:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As the article states, they're in complementary distribution in native words but contrast in loanwords. So they're marginal phonemes, maybe but still differentiated. AlexanderKaras (talk) 22:46, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have put these sounds in parentheses, as they only contrast in loanwords. Jɑυмe (xarrades) 19:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different phonemes, or allophones? 

message: The consonant chart uses kʲ, gʲ, while some examples use c, ɟ.  For consistency's sake, I'm going to change the latter to the former.  I don't think there's any reason for these to be inconsistent, but should the latter or the former be used?  (Personally I prefer the former because it shows the relationship between the two k variants. ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ spik ʌp! 10:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I'm going with the latter since WP:IPA for Turkish supports it.  ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ spik ʌp! 10:33, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Either is fine, but you're right. We should be consistent. — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 15:54, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phoneme consistency 

message: According to the article, 
"Some Arabic loanwords pronounced with a velarized /tˠ/ in Turkish[citation needed] do not conform to vowel harmony either. For example saat-e ('to the clock/hour'), seyahat-e ('to the trip'), istirahat-e ('to rest')."
I'm skeptical about this. These words in Arabic have plain /t/; they are not velarized. Why would they be in Turkish? Unless I see a source, I might go ahead and delete it. Thoughts? AlexanderKaras (talk) 20:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I was the one who wrote "velarization" and was not sure of it myself, feel free to correct it. As mentioned in the text, some Arabic-origin words ending in -t that do not conform to vowel harmony in Turkish are: saat (ساعة), seyahat (سياحة), istirahat (إستراحة), hakikat (حقيقة) (you can confirm this with the Turkish Language Institute dictionary, for example ). Some other Arabic-origin words ending in -t that do conform to vowel harmony are hattat (خطّاط), sakat (سقط), vasat (وسط). Arabic words ending with -d have been imported with a -t into Turkish and they also conform to vowel harmony, such as fesat (فساد), cellat (جلّاد), hasat (حصد). It appears from the Nisanyan etymological dictionary that most Arabic words that do not obey the vowel harmony words end with ة, (Tāʾ marbūṭa). There are exceptions though, such as hayat (حياة) and rahat (راحة), I am not sure why. Words ending with the Arabic letter ط (Ṭāʾ) appear to be imported as a normal T sound in Turkish. These are my observations, I cannot provide a source that explains all this, although there are Turkish texts that mention that foreign words that tend to be pronounced with a "light" T are followed by a front vowel (for example here, at the end of the section titled "Büyük Ünlü Uyumunun Özel Durumları"). I am not a linguist, so if you could use this information appropriately to improve the text, it will be great! --İnfoCan (talk) 18:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: /tˠ/ is palatalized, not velarized. And if there are two different pronunciations of the letter ‹t›, this should be mentioned (with sources) first in the section on Consonants. CapnPrep (talk) 22:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: In Arabic, emphatic  is velarized/pharyngealized, not palatalized.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 23:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess you mean ط‎ /tˤ/, but as İnfoCan said, this one gives rise to a normal /t/ in Turkish, with no effect on VH. The question is whether the Turkish ‹t› (corresponding to ة) that triggers front vowel harmony should be analyzed as palatalized /tˠ/. As ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ says below, this does not appear to be phonetically motivated. CapnPrep (talk) 00:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

text:  I don't think there are two different pronunciations of <t> in Turkish.  Also, it seems that the palatalized /tˠ/ in Arabic, when borrowed into Turkish actually follows VH, while the plain dental/alveolar /t/ sometimes doesn't.  We need some good sources on this.  Does Geoffrey Lewis say anything on this? ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ spik ʌp! 22:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  There was a discussion among the old Arabic grammarians on how to pronounce the ta-marbuta. Some said it should be pronounced with the normal sound of any "a" in the language, others said it should have a fronted sound (probably something like [æ] or [ɛ]). Some dialects of Arabic, notably Syrian/Lebanese use such a pronunciation still today (though only in the dialect, and not in all environments). It's just a guess, but this could theoretically be the reason why the Turks felt that ta-marbuta should trigger front vowels. This would also explain the exception "hayat", though not "rahat". A fronted pronunciation (indeed [e]) is also used in Persian, but this seems to be a relatively young development.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.206.139.188 (talk) 00:27, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Velarization 

message: :Proper names (of both places and foreign people) follow a different stress pattern, known in the linguistics literature as Sezer stress (after the discoverer of the pattern, Engin Sezer). In this lexical domain, stress occurs on the antepenult if the penult is light and the antepenult is heavy, and otherwise on the penult. The weight of the final syllable is irrelevant.
Okay, cool. Newbie crit coming.
a) Do Turkish names not follow Sezer stress? i.e. are they always word-final?
b) Now I've unravelled - I think - the description, wouldn't it be clearer to split the rule description into two halves: first, that two-syllable words have word-initial stress; second, that three-syllable words obey the rule specified.  Afraid I can't come up with a more elegant way of stating that rule. 
:: Turkish proper names are very complex. Some initial, some Sezer pattern, some final. Local dialects even show a reversed Sezer pattern. 78.162.115.186 (talk) 14:24, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sezer stress 

message: It seems like there is a debate on whether this phoneme has a sound or not. While many sources claim that it has no sound and used only for determining the vowel length, I think it does have a sound, but not a velar approximant  as it is said in the article. I think it's a sound articulated far back in the mouth, something like a uvular approximant . Since it's a very slight sound, it might be realized as having no sound, but I think it does. I'm not a linguist or anything, but I (at least) know that the sound is not articulated anywhere near the velum. — amateur (talk) 20:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Local dialects do articulate as in Language of Azerbaijan. TRT accent do not. 78.162.115.186 (talk) 14:27, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound of Ğ (Soft g) 

message: [I am copying the following from Wikipedia:Reference_desk as it is relevant to this article and may inspire further development. --İnfoCan (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Take another look. It's covered in the Consonants section by the first subnote of the fourth note under "Phonetic notes". Largoplazo (talk) 15:40, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Turkish terminal "-r" sounding like "-rzh" or "-rsh" 

message: Before editing (and probably enhancing) the article, I have a question. Is the pronunciation of düğün really ['dü:jün] or do some Turkish dialects have the ğ all silent (['dü:n])? To me the latter would be dubious, especially in respect to frequent misunderstandings likely to be expected in fast speech. dün = "yesterday" !! Hence, düğün ought to be one of the few "ğ-words" which apparently do not have an alternative pronunciation. (unlike soğuk (either ['so:uk] or (more rarely, but used) ['so:ωuk]) -andy 77.190.18.144 (talk) 00:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It's definitely not ['dü:jün]. It's silent (and lengthens the vowel) in the standard dialect. — Lfdder (talk) 00:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is /dʏ.'ʏn/. Erkin Alp Güney 09:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

text: The stress in these words is on the ultimate syllable: /so(:)ˈuk/, /dy(:)ˈyn/. I think that in standard (Istanbul) speech there is no perceptible lengthening of the vowel, except perhaps when reciting a poem. The article states that the insertion of a [j] glide in düğün is mandatory in fast speech to distinguish it from dün, but I think this claim is bogus. To start, the second syllable of /dyˈyn/ has (tonal) stress, so you can hear the tone going up. Even in very fast speech in which the two syllables are contracted to one, there is still an audible contrast between /dy:n/ (< /dyˈyn/) and /dyn/.  --Lambiam 11:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  düğün (wedding) 

message: The Section "Rhythm" contains these three sentences "Turkish is usually considered a syllable-timed languages. Stressed syllabled and unstressed are not different so much. Pitch and stress are very important in Turkish."
The meaning of the embolded sentence is not clear.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boaby (talk • contribs) 14:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Some nouns may be distinguished by their stresses only. But unstressed sylllables do not get shortened nor a vowel reduction occurs (at least in Anatolian Turkish). Hence syllable-timed (actually mora-timed as long vowels trigger an extra timing unit). Erkinalp9035 (talk) 06:20, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

text: The difference is small (phonetically). And yet it is important (semantically).  --Lambiam 12:00, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rhythm Section has very confusing sentence 

message: /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/ are affricates, not plosives. They have nevertheless been placed in the table in that manner to save space.
Haha, what? This isn't a printed encyclopedia, you know. You don't have to "save space" on the Internet :D  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.30.144.127 (talk) 21:24, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: An affricate is essentially a stop with a fricative release, so it does make sense to "save space" in that manner. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:17, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps "plosive" could be changed to "oral occlusive". Votedaisy (talk) 01:17, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "saving space" 

message: The phonotactics section states: Turkish only allows complex onsets in a few recent English, French and Italian loanwords; such as Fransa, plan, program, propaganda, strateji, stres, steril and tren. Even in these words, the complex onsets are only pronounced as such in very careful speech. How are these onsets articulated in non-careful speech? Are consonants dropped, or are epenthetic vowels inserted? And what are the rules for what and where the consonants or epenthetic vowels are dropped or inserted? At the very least, it would be good to have IPA for the example words in non-careful speech. --Votedaisy (talk) 00:57, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Epenthesis of something between schwa and "ı", as in TRT accent. We never drop consonants. But complex clusters are increasingly pronounced without simplification in private broadcasters. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 14:47, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

text: The word kral ("king") is an old loan, and thus an exception to the recency of loanwords with complex onsets. It is pronounced as if it is spelled kıral, a spelling one may even occasionally encounter in print (and in the surname of Turkish filmmaker Erden Kıral). Which vowel plays the epenthetic role is not easily predictable, as seen in Turkish kulüp from French club and pilaki from Greek πλακί (plakí).  --Lambiam 12:21, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonotactics: complex onsets in not very careful speech 

message: When they mean 'final ', do they mean at the end of syllables or words? — AWESOME meeos ！  *  ([ˈjæb.ə ət məɪ])) 01:40, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you checked the source yourself? I can't do that right now. Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final {{IPA|/h/}} 

message: Kılıç and Öğüt describe  as having a huge allophonic variation in the  area.
:: I have read the whole article, the huge variation is for perception. For pronunciation, exact formant values are given, which corresponds to []. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 20:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  ə~ɯ or ɪ̈? 

message: In the consonant phonemes table there are some consonants listed with superscript numbers, e.g. Fricative voiceless f3, voiced	ʒ3. What do these numbers signify?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuluqaruk (talk • contribs) 10:37, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Found it myself, it refers to the footnotes dirctly beneath the table. --Tuluqaruk (talk) 10:43, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Superscript numbers 

message: The article says that some accents of Turkish are non-rhotic much in the same way as English or German, i.e. that /r/ is dropped or vocalized syllable-finally. However, I'm not sure about this. Might this be restricted to the ending -iyor (and perhaps some other individual cases)? Or is it really a general phenomenon in some accents? Anyway, this should either be added to the present article or the other article should be corrected.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.201.0.62 (talk) 23:34, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It is definitely also heard in bir, realized as [bi:]. I don't know if this can be generalized to all word-final or even syllable-final /ɾ/s.  --Lambiam 12:27, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims made in article [[rhotic consonant]] 

message: According to our article, preconsonantal /v/ in words like "sevda" or "evlilik" would have to be an actual fricative [v]. Clearly it is usually not a fricative, but "sevda" is pronounced something like [seʋda] or [seβda] or perhaps even [seʊ̯da]. At any rate, [sevda] is not the only pronunciation, nor probably a common one.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.201.0.62 (talk) 23:54, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Preconsonantal /v/ 

message: Merge because most scientifice articles on Oghuz language phonologies cover Istanbul Turkish and Azerbaijani and Gagauz have very similar phonologies. We have better have all it in one place and note the differences rather than scattering across three. Erkin Alp Güney 08:14, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not a good reason to merge phonology pages. Plus, there are no separate phonology pages for Azerbaijani and Gagauz. — Æµ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 00:26, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I too see no compelling reason for a merger. Nardog (talk) 00:35, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

text: Azerbaijani and Gagauz have no separate phonology pages, but they do have page-length phonology sections.Erkin Alp Güney 08:07, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: As they should. — Æµ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:27, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

text: Azerbaijani and Gagauz are both Oghuz Turkic languages, and have similiar phonological inventories, but they are also two different languages. There is no way that they should be merged into one page that is strictly, by definition, a sub-branch of the Turkic language family, not a "language". If that is the case, then therefore you might as well merge Norwegian with Swedish and Danish as "North Germanic phonology". It just does not make any logical sense. Fdom5997 (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge Turkish, Azerbaijani and Gagauz phonology pages into [[Oghuz Turkic phonology]] 

message: "If in Turkish any accent on the non-initial component is lost it is quite different from English."
:: Not lost, but severely weakened. Much weaker than e.g. secondary stress in English, but not indifferent to neighboring syllables. Erkin Alp Güney 09:13, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compound word stress