Türkçe Alfabe

The Turkish alphabet consists of 29 letters, with 8 vowels and 21 consonants. In Turkish, vowel harmony is crucial, especially when adding suffixes to words. Vowel harmony ensures that the vowels in a word are compatible with each other, which affects the choice of suffix.

The 8 vowels in Turkish are:

• A, I, O, U – these are back vowels.
• E, İ, Ö, Ü – these are front vowels.

Vowel Harmony and Suffixes:

In Turkish, the suffix that follows a word changes depending on the last vowel of the word. This is called vowel harmony and can be divided into two main types:

1. Major Vowel Harmony (Büyük Ünlü Uyumu):

• Words with back vowels (A, I, O, U) take suffixes with back vowels.
• Words with front vowels (E, İ, Ö, Ü) take suffixes with front vowels.

Examples:

1) Kapı kapalı. (The door is closed.)

Question: Kapı kapalı mı? (Is the door closed?)

Why “mı”? The last vowel in “kapalı” is ı, a back vowel, so we use “mı”.

2) Pencere açık. (The window is open.)

Question: Pencere açık mı? (Is the window open?)

Why “mı”? The last vowel in “açık” is ı, a back vowel, so we use “mı”.

3) Şişe dolu. (The bottle is full.)

Question: Şişe dolu mu? (Is the bottle full?)

Why “mu”? The last vowel in “dolu” is u, a back vowel, so we use “mu”.

Suffixes Based on Vowel Harmony: