Basic Turkish Logic
1. Turkish uses suffixes and prefixes to add meaning to a sentence.
Let’s take a look at the Turkish alphabet first.
● 29 letters in the alphabet.
● 21 of them are consonants
● 8 of them are vowels
● We don’t have Q, W, X in Turkish. We use letters and letter combinations to make
the same sounds. (e.g ‘ekseriyetle’ (usually) ks sounds like ‘X’)
● Consonants and vowels are divided into hard and soft.
hard vowels a, ı, o, u
soft vowels e, i, ö, ü
hard consonants ç, f, h, k, s, ş, h, p
soft consonants b, c, d, g, j, l, m, n, r, v, y, z
2. Vowel Harmony
If the preceding vowel is e, i, ö, or ü, the vowel of the suffix harmonizes to e.
If the preceding vowel is a, ı, o, or u, the vowel of the suffix harmonizes to a.
Let’s use the locative case -de/-da to understand:
araba - arabada (the word has ‘a’ in its last syllable, so I use -da)
ezgi - ezgide (the word has ‘i’ in its last syllable, so I use -de)
3. Hard and Soft Consonants
If the word ends with a hard consonant letter the suffix will change into the hard consonant
as well. So:
kitap - kitapta
➡️(the last vowel is ‘a’ so I use ‘-da’, the last consonant is ‘p’ so I change -da to -ta.)
resim - resimde
➡️(the last vowel is ‘i’ so I use ‘-de’, the last consonant is ‘m’ so I use -de)
1923’te - bin dokuz yüz yirmi üç’te
Gaziantep’te
dolap - dolapta
öykü - öyküde
Soft vowels but hard consonants
If a word ends in a soft vowel, we use ‘-de’ as the locative case (in, on, at in English)
however like ‘iş’ which is a one syllable word since it ends with a hard consonant we use ‘-te’
as the locative case. So:
iş - işte
üç - üçte
klip - klipte
Same rule applies for ‘-den, -dan, -ten, -tan’ as well.
So if the last vowel of the word is a hard vowel use ‘-da, -dan’, if it’s soft use ‘-de, -den’.
If the word ends with a hard consonant, convert these suffixes into ‘-te, -ta, -tan, -ten’.
👻This rule actually takes us to ‘ünsüz benzeşmesi (or sertleşmesi)’ and ‘ünsüz
yumuşaması’ in the Turkish language.
If you ask, ‘what are these?’ The answer is so obvious!
‘Benzeşme’ means assimilation, ‘sertleşme’ means stiffening. So, basically you
assimilate the soft consonant by making it stiff. (that sounds harsh)
‘Yumuşama’ means softening, so in this case you assimilate the hard consonant by
making it soft.
When a word ends in a hard consonant and it gets a suffix starting with a soft
consonant, the hard consonant eats the soft one 🫢
‘Dolapta’ for example:
Dolap ends with ‘p’ and you add the suffix ‘-da’, so it turns into ‘-ta’.
So any suffix starting with the letters ‘b,c,d,g’ turns into ‘p,ç,t,k’ when it is added to a
hard consonant ending word.
b-p c-ç d-t g-k
When suffixes are added to Turkish or foreign words ending with one of the "p, ç, t, k"
sounds, the hard consonant at the end of the word softens and turns into "b, c, d, g,
ğ". It can even be seen that “g” turns into “ğ”:
● ağaç>ağaca,
● çocuk>çocuğu,
● senet>senedin
● dolap>dolabın,
● ekmek>ekmeği,
● kitap>kitabım
● tüfek>tüfeği,
● diyalog>diyaloğu
This is mostly the result of the hard consonant being stuck between two vowels, but
softening is also seen when two consonants are found at the end of the word. So
softening is all about the vowel that comes after the hard consonant.
● borç>borcum,
● kalp>kalbi,
● kurt>kurdun,
● denk>dengim,
● renk>rengi,
● kepenk>kepengi
There is no softening in some foreign words like ‘sanat, millet, devlet, ahlâk,
cumhuriyet, evrak, hukuk’.
● ahlâkım, merakımı, anketin, sanatı, millete, devletin, sürati, hakikatin, tazyiki,
hukukun…
The softening that occurs in proper nouns ending in a hard consonant is not shown in
the writing, sometimes it can be shown in the pronunciation. Even if the hard
consonants at the end of proper nouns take a suffix that begins with a vowel, there is
no consonant softening in these words. The spellings of these words are as special
as themselves and do not change in any way. In other words, these words are
contrary to consonant softening.
Zonguldak-ı > Zonguldak’ı Edremit-e > Edremit’e
Atatürk'ün > Atatürk’ün Polat'ın > Polat’ın
Sevtap-ı > Sevtap’ı Uluç-un > Uluç’un
But for instance, you don’t say ‘Zonguldak’a’. You pronounce it like ‘Zonguldağa’.
But you say Atatürk’e.
Hard consonants at the end of monosyllabic words are most likely not softened when
a suffix that starts with a vowel is added.
ot-u > otu kat-ı > katı
at-ı > atı ok-u > oku suç-u > suçu
tek-i > teki alt-ı > altı ak-ı > akı
When monosyllabic words undergo consonant softening, the possibility of mixing
with another word in a very different sense arises. For this reason, monosyllabic
words are contrary to consonant softening, with exceptions. For example, when we
add the suffix "-a" to the word "at", it does not become "ada". Because a new word
emerges. Ada means island.
NOTE: Some monosyllabic words can exceptionally undergo consonant softening as
mentioned above. For example, "çok" can be "çoğu". This is seen in a very limited
number of words.
Consonant softening is also inconsistent in some Turkish origin words that would be
considered an exception. The reason for this is that our language, which is a living
being, has such a tendency in both spoken and written language.
kanıt-ı > kanıtı yanıt-a > yanıta
yakıt-a > yakıta anıt-ı > anıtı
yaşıt-ı > yaşıtı kesit-i > kesiti
