2 - TURKISH LANGUAGE [Language]

2.1) What is the origin of Turkish (Türkçe)?

Turkish (Türkçe) is an Ural-Altaic language, which is spoken in different forms from Balkans in the west to China and Siberia in the east. Approximately 150 million people speak Turkish in the world.

There are four main dialects of Turkish (Türkçe) (according to Colloquial Turkish - Y. Mardin):

2.2) Is Turkish a hard-to-learn language?

Yusuf Mardin answers this question as follows:

[maintainer's note: we need to refine this section, please e-mail any suggestions.]

2.3) Which alphabet do people use in Türkiye?

Latin alphabet with some modifications. There are 6 extra letters:

q, w, x does not exist in Turkish alphabet.

[maintainer's note: Recently, a new Turkic alphabet was agreed upon, and there are new letters which contradict the statement above. An update will follow.]

2.4) How can I use Turkish alphabet in Wordperfect/Mac/TeX?

Wordperfect has a Turkish keyboard file which can be used to generate Turkish letters by the help of Cntrl-Alt keys.

For Mac, there is a Turkish Mac System and Turkish fonts. All of those can be found at ftp.cs.umn.edu under the directory /pub/users/cosar for anonymous ftp (Username ftp).

There is also a Tex style file, easyturkish.sty which generates Turkish letters for Tex document preparing system. You may contact akgul@trbilun.bitnet for Turkish Tex and easyturkish.sty. Turkish fonts also do exist in several sites for ftp; you may try, host:kth.se directory:kth/tex/stuttgart/fonts/metafont or host: utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp directory:TeX/fonts for anonymous ftp.

Additional font info for DOS/Windows. (by Mustafa Soysal)

Other than the above mentioned Turkish fonts provided for ftp by Ahmet CoSar at the University of Minnesota.

Bora Baysal at the Catholic University of America provided general information on a commercialy distributed font package he can provide you with. The information about the packages is included below. For detailed information about the current package contents, please contact the provided contact e-mail addresses.

Font info by Bora Baysal:

TurkFontPack is a Turkish font pack which currently includes 10 Turkish fonts (including all Turkish characters and English characters), Mac version of the package for system 6 or 7, and a freeware Windows program in order to type Turkish characters on standard non-Turkish keyboards, using two-key sequences. The fonts are in various font formats which are PostScript Type 1, TrueType, bitmap, Unix, and Encapsulated PostScript.

For additional info, please contact Bora Baysal via e-mail at bora@universe.digex.net

* This part, marked with * and as bold, is not included in Turkish FAQ text version:

* Additional font info for DOS/Windows and QWERTY keyboard driver for Turkish. (by Egemen Metin TURAN). TrueType Turkish fonts are prepared by Egemen Metin TURAN and available at ftp.metu.edu.tr under the directory of pub/mirrors/knidos/PC/windows/turkish.zip for anonymous ftp.

* For additional info, please contact Egemen Metin TURAN via e-mail at metin@knidos.cc.metu.edu.tr

2.6) Are there any books to learn Turkish?

Yes, we even have an online tutor. The online tutor/teacher (for pc) is available at wuarchive.wustl.edu or other simtel20 mirrors under the directory /mirrors/msdos/langtutor/turkish1.lzh. We did not try it, so we do not have any idea about its completeness, usefulness etc. The books that might be used to learn Turkish are:

The following books include Turkish stories and poems:

And about dictionaries: (by Jack Campin)

By FAR the best portable dictionary is one you can only get in TR - the Berlitz/ABC Kitabevi "Ingilizce- Turkce/Turkce-Ingilizce Sozluk", 1988 (ISBN 975 09 0150 9). It suffers from the usual problem in Berlitz materials of not giving you any even remotely naughty words - god help you if you have to explain a gynaecological problem with it - but it's wonderful on food terms. About A6-sized, bright red. If it's out of print, the Redhouse Elsozlugu is a reasonable substitute.[It is not out of print, I checked it-- ahmet]

For a big dictionary, the Oxford two-volume one (also published cheaper by ABC in TR, in an edition that may only be sold there) is hard to beat, though the Redhouse Cagdas Turkce-Ingilizce Sozluk is just as good (one way only). You may have problems getting that in the US. The Oxford is also available in a one-volume abridgment.

2.7) Is there a list of colleges offering Turkish classes?

(by Ahmet Toprak)

There seems to be at least 4 colleges/schools that offer Turkish classes.

Egemen Metin TURAN (metin@knidos.cc.metu.edu.tr) - Metu CC - September 2, 1994