Ottoman Turkish Alphabet
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Ottoman Turkish alphabet The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (Ottoman Turkish: , elifbâ) Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet used to write Ottoman Turkish until 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin-based Type Abjad modern Turkish alphabet. Languages Ottoman Turkish Though Ottoman Turkish was primarily written in this script, non- Time 1500–1928 period Muslim Ottoman subjects sometimes wrote it in other scripts, including the Armenian, Greek, Latin and Hebrew alphabets. Parent Egyptian hieroglyphs systems Proto-Sinaitic Contents Phoenician History Aramaic Origins Syriac Replacement Nabataean Alphabet Notes Arabic Sound–letter correspondence Perso- Other scripts Arabic Numerals Ottoman References Turkish External links alphabet History Direction Right-to-left ISO 15924 Arab, 160 Unicode Arabic Origins alias Unicode U+0600 .. U+06FF (http range The earliest known Turkic alphabet is the Orkhon script. The s://www.unicode.org/cha various Turkic languages have been written in a number of rts/PDF/U0600.pdf) different alphabets, including Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Latin and some other Asiatic writing systems. U+FB50 .. U+FDFF (http s://www.unicode.org/cha The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a Turkish form of the Perso- rts/PDF/UFB50.pdf) Arabic script. Well suited to writing Arabic and Persian U+FE70 .. U+FEFF (http borrowings, it was poorly suited to native Turkish words. When it s://www.unicode.org/cha came to consonants, Arabic has several consonants that do not exist in Turkish, making several Arabic letters superfluous except rts/PDF/UFE70.pdf) for Arabic loanwords; conversely, a few letters had to be invented to write letters in Persian and Turkish that Arabic did not have (such as g or p). In the case of vowels, Turkish contains eight different short vowels and no long ones, whereas Arabic (and Persian) have three short and three long vowels; further complicating matters was that in the Arabic script, only long vowels are usually expressed. Still, Turkic languages such as Azerbaijani and Uzbek continue to be written using Arabic script in Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The introduction of the telegraph and the printing press in the 19th century exposed further weaknesses in the Arabic script.[1] Some Turkish reformers promoted the Latin script well before Atatürk's reforms. In 1862, during an earlier period of reform, the statesman Münuf Pasha advocated a reform of the alphabet. At the start of the 20th century, similar proposals were made by several writers associated with the Young Turk movement, including Hüseyin Cahit, Abdullah Cevdet and Celâl Nuri.[1] The issue was raised again in 1923 during the İzmir Economic First page of Siyer-i Nebi (1832) in A calendar page for November Congress of the new Turkish printed Ottoman Turkish. 1, 1895 (October 20 OS) in Republic, sparking a public cosmopolitan Thessaloniki. The debate that was to continue for first 3 lines in Ottoman Turkish several years. A move away from the Arabic script was strongly opposed Arabic script give the date in the by conservative and religious elements. It was argued that Romanization Rumi, 20 Teşrin-i Evvel 1311, and Islamic, 14 Jumādā al-Ūlā of the script would detach Turkey from the wider Islamic world, 1313, calendars; the Julian and substituting a foreign (European) concept of national identity for the Gregorian (in French) dates confessional community. appear below. Others opposed Romanization on practical grounds, as was no suitable adaptation of the Latin script that could be used for Turkish phonemes. Some suggested that a better alternative might be to modify the Arabic script to introduce extra characters for better representing Turkish vowels.[2] In 1926, the Turkic republics of the Soviet Union adopted the Latin script, giving a major boost to reformers in Turkey.[1] Replacement Ottoman Turkish script was replaced by the Latin-based new Turkish alphabet. Its use became compulsory in all public communications in 1929.[3][4] The change was formalized by the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet,[5] passed on November 1, 1928, and effective on January 1, 1929.[6] Alphabet As with Arabic and Persian, texts in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet are written right to left. The appearance of a letter changes depending on its position in a word: isolated (in a one-letter word); final (in which case it is joined on the right to the preceding letter); medial (joined on both sides); and initial (joined on the left to the following letter). Some letters cannot be joined to the left and so do not possess separate medial and initial forms. In medial position, the final form is used. In initial position, the isolated form is used. Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Kayseri, September 20, 1928 Modern Isolated Final Medial Initial Name ALA-LC[7] IPA[8] Turkish (elif a, e —, ā, ' æ, e, —, (ʔ — ـ ا [hemze —, ' —, ' —, [ʔ — ء (be b (p) b b (p ـ ــ ـ ب pe p p p ـ ــ ـ پ te t t t ـ ــ ـ ت se s s̠ s ـ ــ ـ ث cim c c d͡ʒ ـ ــ ـ ج çim ç ç t͡ʃ ـ ــ ـ چ ha h ḥ h ـ ــ ـ ح hı h ḫ x ـ ــ ـ خ dal d d d — ـ د zel z z̠ z — ـ ذ re r r ɾ — ـ ر ze z z z — ـ ز je j j ʒ — ـ ژ sin s s s ـ ــ ـ س şın ş ș ʃ ـ ــ ـ ش sad s ṣ s ـ ــ ـ ص (dad d, z ż z (d ـ ــ ـ ض tı t ṭ t, d ـ ــ ـ ط zı z ẓ z ـ ــ ـ ظ ayn ', — ‘ —, ʔ ـ ــ ـ ع [ɣ → g], ◌ː, gayn g, ğ, (v) ġ ,(v) ـ ــ ـ غ fe f f f ـ ــ ـ ف [qaf k q k, [q ـ ــ ـ ق kef k k k ـ ــ ـ ك (gef (1), kāf-ı fārsī g, ğ, (v) g [g → ɟ], j, (v ـ ــ ـ گ (1) nef, ñef, sağır kef , kāf-ı n ñ n, [ŋ] nūnī ـ ــ ـ ڭ lam l l l ـ ــ ـ ل mim m m m ـ ــ ـ م nun n n n ـ ــ ـ ن v, ū, aw, avv, — vav v, o, ö, u, ü v, o, œ, u, y ūv ـ و (he (3) h, e, a h (2) h, æ, e, (t ـ ــ ـ ه ye y, ı, i y, ī, ay, á, īy j, ɯ, i ـ ــ ـ ی Notes 1. In most texts, kef, gef, and sağır kef are written identically[8] although one Ottoman variant of /In general, /g/ and /ŋ .گ as well as the doubled upper stroke of ﻙ gef has a "mini-kaf" of [9] .ك sounds are represented by kef in a word in the construct state to be ( ـ) The Library of Congress recommends for he .2 romanised t and when a word ending in he is used adverbially, it should be romanised tan. 3. Persian and Ottoman use the order vāv, he, ye, though in Arabic, they are he, vāv, ye.[9] 4. One further sign, which is not considered an actual letter, is the so-called te merbūṭa ('connected t'), which can indicate the Arabic feminine singular ending and which is often also ه written in Ottoman texts. Te merbūṭa is always at the end of a word and takes the form of [although in Ottoman texts the dots are often omitted).[9) ـﺔ or ة :he) with two dots above, thus) 5. Ghayn and gef were known to make a /v/ sound in words with considerable Azeri and Turkmen influence. Sound–letter correspondence The orthography of Ottoman Turkish is complex, as many Turkish sounds can be written with several Conversely, some .⟨ص⟩ or ,⟨ث⟩, ⟨س⟩ different letters. For example, the phoneme /s/ can be written as ;k may be /k/, /ɡ/, /n/, /j/, or /ː/ (lengthening the preceding vowel ⟨ك⟩ :letters have more than one value kwrk can be read ⟨ﻛﻮرك⟩ modern ğ), and vowels are written ambiguously or not at all. For example, the text as /ɡevrek/ 'biscuit', /kyrk/ 'fur', /kyrek/ 'shovel', /kœryk/ 'bellows', /ɡœrek/ 'view', which in modern orthography are written gevrek, kürk, kürek, körük, görek.[8][10] ,s̱’bt ⟨ﺛﺎﺑﺖ⟩ Arabic and Persian borrowings are written in their original orthography: sabit 'firm' is written as representing /aː/ as in Arabic but with no indication of ’ ⟨ا⟩ s̱ representing /s/ (in Arabic /θ/), and ⟨ث⟩ with is only in borrowings ژ ;are found only in borrowings from Arabic ث ح ذ ض ظ ع the short /i/. The letters s̱a’bit, they are ⟨ﺛَﺎﺑِﺖ⟩ from Persian and French. Although the Arabic vowel points (harakat) can be used generally found only in dictionaries and didactic works, as in Arabic and Persian,[8] and they still do not identify vowel sounds unambiguously. Consonant letters are classified in three series, based on vowel harmony: soft, hard, and neutral. The soft in ,ح خ ص ض ط ظ ع غ ق ,are found in front vowel contexts; the hard ,ت س ك گ ه ,consonant letters in either. In Perso-Arabic ,ب پ ث ج چ د ذ ر ز ژ ش ف ل م ن ,back vowel contexts; and the neutral 'klb 'dog ⟨ﻛﻠﺐ⟩ ,borrowings, the vowel used in Turkish depends on the softness of the consonant. Thus ḳlb 'heart' (Arabic /qalb/) is /kalb/. Conversely, in Turkish words, the ⟨ﻗﻠﺐ⟩ Arabic /kalb/) is /kelb/, while) choice of consonant reflects the native vowel.[8] Phoneme /t/ /d/ /s/ /z/ /k/ /ɡ/ /∅/ /h/ ه ء گ ك س ت (Soft (front ذ ز ث د Neutral ح خ ع غ ق ض ظ ص ط ض ط (Hard (back (All other sounds are only written with neutral consonant letters.) In Turkish words, vowels are sometimes written using the vowel letters as the second letter of a syllable: elif for /a/, /e/.