The Language

Turkish is the language of 90% of the population of Turkey. The Caucasian and Kurdish dialects, Greek, Ladino and Armenian are among the other 70 languages and dialects spoken in the country. The Turkish spoken in Turkey is an agglutinative language similar to other Ural-Altaic languages and is the modern form of Otoman Turkish which had borrowed, until the beginning of the 20th century, many words from the Arabic and Persian languages. Modern Turkish is derived from the Oghuz dialect that has been spoken since the 11th century. The communities, which speak Ural-Altaic tongues spread from Central Asia towards the east, west and northwest. After the adoption of Islam, the influences of Arabic and Persian on the Turkish language were quite significant. Turkish is the 7th most spoken and widespread language among the approximately 4.000 languages spoken in the world today. More than 200 million people speak Turkish.

The Turks, who used many written languages from the 8th century up until the present, mostly used the Göktürk, Uigur, Arabic and Latin alphabets. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, believed that it was necessary to benefit from western culture in order to attain a contemporary level of civilization in the modern Republic of Turkey. With this aim in 1928, he saw to it that the Latin alphabet was adopted. The new alphabet was prepared according to the vocal harmony of the Turkish alphabet rather than the Arabic.

The second major step in the Language Reform was the founding by Atatürk of the Turkish Language Research Association in 1932. The activities of the Association, which later became the Turkish Linguistic Society, produced positive results and important steps were taken to simplify the Turkish language by deleting Arabic and Persian words. Today, the Turkish Linguistic Society continues its activities with a reorganized statute within the structure of the Atatürk Cultural, Linguistic and Historical Supreme Council established in 1983. The most important result of the constructive studies related to the Turkish language is the fact that the ratio of use of Turkish words in the written language, which was 35-40% prior to 1932, is now 75-80%. This fact is the most important proof that the people who it has reached have embraced the Language Reform made by Atatürk.

Basic Turkish Phrases

English Turkish How to Pronounce It Yes Evet E-vet No Hayir Higher Thank You Tesekkuler Teshekuler Thank You (Informal) Sagol Sowl Thank you very much Cok Tesekkur Ederim Chock Tesh-ek-ur Ederim Your welcome Bir Sey Degil Beer Shay Deal Please Lutfen Loot-fen Excuse me Ozur Dilerim or Pardon Er-zur Delirim or Pardon Hello Merhaba Merr-ha-ba Goodbye Gule Gule Goo-lay Goo-lay See You Later Gorusuruz Gur-shoes Good Morning Gunaydin Goon-eye-din Good afternoon IyÝ Gunler Eeee Goon-lair Good evening Iyi Aksamlar Eeee Ak-sham-larr Good night Iyi Geceler Eager-jel-air I do not understand Anlamiyorum Anla-me-your-um Do you speak English? Ingilizce Biliyorumusun? Engi-lez-jay billy-or-ma-sun English Ingilizce Engi-lez-jay I Ben Ben We Biz Biz You Sen Sen Them Onlar Onlar What is your name? Isimin Ne? Is-im-in Nay? Nice to meet you Memnum Oldum Mem-num Old-um How are you? Nasilsin? Nassle-sin (I'm) Good Iyi(yim) Ee-umm Bad Kotu Ker-too So so Soyle Boyle Sherly Berly Where is ... ? ... Nerede? Near-de? Where is the toilet? Tuvalet Nerede? Too-va-let Near-de? How much does it cost? Kac Para? Cartch Para? Friend Arkadas Ar-ka-dash Big Brother (Mate) Abi Ah-bee       Numbers: Zero Sifir Siff-er One Bir Beer Two Iki Icky Three Uc Oooch Four Dort Dirt Five Bes Besh Six Alti Alta Seven Yedi Yay-dee Eight Sekiz Sek-ease Nine Dokuz Dok-ooze Ten On On Eleven On Bir On Beer Twelve On Iki On Icky Hundred Yuz Use Thousand Bin Bin Million Milyon Million Billion Milyar Mil-yar