Turkish Vowels & their Types

 

What are the Turkish Vowels?

While English has 5 vowels, Turkish has 8 vowels which help to form syllables. The Turkish vowels are:

Aa, Ee, Iı, İi, Oo, Öö, Uu, Üü

The new vowels that are found in Turkish and not found in English are:

ö, ı, ü

Turkish alphabets are divided into 2 types:

Kalın Ünlüler (Thick vowels): a, ı, o, u

İnce Ünlüler (Thin vowels): e, i, ö, ü

 Features of the Turkish Vowels

 The vowels are classified into:

1- Thick vowels, with the tongue, pulled back; thin vowels are formed by pushing the tongue forward.

2- The flag vowels come out while the lips are straight, the round vowels come out while the lips are round.

3- The wide vowels come out when the lower jaw is open and the oral cavity is wide; The vowels that come out when the lower jaw is less open and the oral cavity is narrow are the narrow vowels.

 Rules of the Turkish Vowels

- No two vowels are found side by side in Turkish. The words that have two vowels side by side are definitely not Turkish

Example: saat, fiil

- Words with Turkish origin do not have long vowels. The Turkish words that have long vowels are of Arabic and Persian origin. 

Example: şair, iman

- Long vowels are not displayed except in certain circumstances.

Example: âdet, hâlâ

To listen to how these letters are pronounced watch this video.