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Turkish Language & Usage

Proposed Q&A site for enthusiasts, students, teachers, and linguists to cover all aspects of the Turkish language including word usage and etymology, spelling and grammar, as well as details like formatting and punctuation.
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Lütfen bu sayfadaki örnek sorunlara cevap vermeyin. Bu dönemde ne gibi soruları görmek istediğimizi çözmeye çalışıyoruz. Site açılınca cevap verin! – Caleb Nov 20 '11 at 20:37
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Area51 Sıkça Sorulan Sorular için lütfen buraya bakınız. (TR translation of Area51 FAQ.) – Caleb Mar 19 at 18:15

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Should Ottoman Turkish be on-topic?

mar 18 at 23:10 canpolat 51
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Name options for language specific site proposals

feb 16 at 20:17 Tomas 231

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23 Example Questions (1 closed)

active oldest votes
up vote 11 down vote
How are emphatic adjectives (pekiştirme sıfatları) formed and is it possible to make up new ones or is there a fixed list of them?
added by Caleb Apr 11 '11 at 11:23
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They are formed intuitively. For example, "kaskara" doesn't look wrong but "kas" looks reserved for "kaskatı" and "kapkara" sounds better. – sevenkul Nov 20 '11 at 20:25
@sevenkul: Thanks for participating here, but please keep in mind that this is a site proposal and these are example questions. Comments should be reserved for discussion about the merits of questions to a future site. This is not a space to forward any form of answers. Let's talk about whether or not these questions would make constructive contributions to a site if it were to go live. Thanks! – Caleb Apr 24 at 9:37
up vote 10 down vote
How do you know when to make compound words like "herşey" and when to keep them separate like "bir şey"?
added by Caleb Apr 2 '11 at 18:46
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Actually, "her şey" should be written separately bit.ly/xrQcaj I guess that you wanted to give an example like "hiçbir". Note that "şey" is always written separately in Turkish and this is one of the most frequent mistakes. – petrichor Jan 11 at 18:11
up vote 10 down vote
What would be the difference between the suffix "-miş" and "-mektedir"?
added by Peter Patzt May 14 '11 at 19:17
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This is a reasonable example, but since these grammar forms are significantly different (indefinite past tense vs. present continuous tense) could I recommend editing this question to the difference between "-iyor" ve "-mekte" (alternate forms of present continuos) so that this is specialty question? – Caleb May 15 '11 at 12:20
I would ask such a question because it both appears in situation where an information is told about, that the teller wasnt witnessing himself. – Peter Patzt May 15 '11 at 12:54
there is no difference between -iyor and -mekte. -iyor is more common but -mekte is more used to tell a situation. Still, I like -mekte more than -iyor because it's a better alternative for present continous. – PythEch Sep 21 '11 at 21:10
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@PythEch: This site is just an area to propose SAMPLE questions and vote on how viable they would be if the site were to be launched. Please don't try to answer questions here as it just distracts from the focus of defining a site to launch. Also, please add yourself to the 'followers' of the site proposal so that it might some day be launched as a real site! – Caleb Sep 30 '11 at 11:22
up vote 10 down vote
What is the difference between "başka", "diğer", "öteki", and "öbür"; which can all translate to English "other"?
added by hippietrail Jun 27 '11 at 18:03
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up vote 10 down vote
Since there is no definite article (like "the") in Turkish, is it not possible to say "Give me the book" and "Give me a book" differently?
added by musa, edited by Caleb Oct 25 '11 at 8:57
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It is possible to say but you do not have to use any article. If we look at the definition of the "Definite article": A definite article indicates that its noun is a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the listener. It may be something that the speaker has already mentioned, or it may be something uniquely specified. So in order to give the meaning of sentence with "the" article it is enough that the thing we used in sentence has mentioned before. "Give me the book." = "Kitabı bana ver." (I want the book we talked before. "Give me a book." = "Bana bir kitap ver." – Olcay Ertaş Oct 25 '11 at 12:51
1  
@Olcay Area51'e hoşgeldiniz! Thanks for following this proposal. I hope the site goes live some day. For now keep in mind that this page is a site proposal and these questions are samples or the kinds of things we would like to ask. Please don't try to answer questions here, only work out what kinds of things would be good or bad questions someday when the site actually makes it into production. – Caleb Oct 25 '11 at 13:33
up vote 9 down vote
When adding suffixes, sometimes a 't' turns into a 'd' as in git+in=gidin Sometimes it does not change: süt+ü=sütü What is the rule for that?
added by musa Aug 29 '11 at 2:35
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1  
In your example, 't' isn't turning into 'd'; it's the other way around. The stem for 'go' is in reality 'gid-', which turns into 'git-' when it is not followed by a vowel. 'Süt' on the other hand has a final 't' so it never changes. – SigueSigueBen Dec 2 '11 at 17:01
1  
@SigueSiguBen , you are incorrect. Last consonant alteration rule does not apply to single syllable nouns. This rule also does not apply to borrowed words like psikopat etc. It also applies to some verbs: et→ed-ecek. For verb roots, only ‘t’ endings are voiced. And most suffixes: elma-cık→elma-cığ-ı, yap-acak→yap-acağ-ım – mdakin Mar 30 at 10:00
@SigueSigueBen: As mdakin pointed out, your explanation is wrong. The official verb stem for "to go" really is "git-mek". More importantly, this is not the place to even try to answer these questions. Please keep your comments to the value of the example questions and their relevance to a potential site and don't clutter up the comment space here with answers. Save those contributions for when we have a site on our hands. Thank you. – Caleb Apr 24 at 9:34
@Caleb When I first joined, I didn't realise the intention of this (i.e. not a place to actually answer questions). I figured this out and stopped answering a long time ago. On the subject of git-/gid-, see Robert Underhill's grammar for why it is better to think of the stem being gid- rather than the official dictionary git-. – SigueSigueBen Apr 26 at 17:27
@SigueSigueBen: Ya öyle bir şey olur mu? Gerçek fiil kökü 'git' iken niye hatalı bir grameri sunalım ortaya? Türkçenin en iyi taraflarından bir tanesi bu zaten kuralların hepsini uyguluyor. Kök kelimeleri bir öğrendiysen kurallara dayanarak düzgün bir şekilde kulanabilirsin. – Caleb Apr 26 at 21:33
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up vote 5 down vote
When would it be appropriate to use 'olmaksızın' instead of '-siz' or 'olmadan' or some other variant of 'without'?
added by Caleb Apr 2 '11 at 16:42
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'Olmaksızın' is poetic way of saying 'without'. – sevenkul Nov 20 '11 at 20:11
up vote 4 down vote
Besides using a different script, what are the main differences between Ottoman Turkish and Modern Turkish?
added by Jaime Soto Jun 23 '11 at 17:49
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up vote 4 down vote
Does a sentence with multiple subjects end with a plural predicate? Which one is correct: "Yusuf ve Ayşe geliyor." or "Yusuf ve Ayşe geliyorlar." ?
added by musa Aug 29 '11 at 2:41
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up vote 3 down vote
"ğ" is explained as having no sound but lengthening the previous vowel, so would "aa" and "ağ" sound alike? What about "ağa" and "â"?
added by hippietrail Jun 29 '11 at 14:35
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1  
Now to your questions: the sequence 'aa' does not appear in Turkish words and is only found in Arabic words, where almost always represents two 'a' sounds back-to-back: 'cemaat'. Specifically, 'ağ' sounds very similar to 'â' and 'ağa' sounds like 'âa'. – SigueSigueBen Dec 2 '11 at 17:12
I accidentally delete the first half of my answer: It is not entirely correct to state that 'ğ' lengthens the previous vowel. It does so only after 'a', 'ı','o' and 'u' (except in some dialects, where it is audible). After 'e', 'i', 'ö' and 'ü', however, it is pronounced like the letter 'y'. – SigueSigueBen Dec 2 '11 at 17:13
In [Â] sound, it is a palatal sound while /a/ sound is back and low one. Actually, we can say that the former one is fronted. Actually, they are different sounds. – Serpil Karabüklü Jan 11 at 19:17
up vote 2 down vote
Can Turks understand Azeri, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, etc people talking amongst themselves?
added by hippietrail Jun 27 '11 at 2:46
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They can understand Azeri but missing some words and pronunciation sounds weird. – sevenkul Nov 20 '11 at 20:04
A normal Turkish speaker will understand very little of spoken Turkmen of Iraq and will be entirely unable to read it as it is written in the Arabic alphabet. Turkmen of Turkmenistan is written in the Latin alphabet and will be somewhat intelligible. A Turkish speaker will understand virtually nothing of Kyrgyz or Kazakh, but in all these cases a Turkish speaker will be able to learn these languages quite quickly. – SigueSigueBen Dec 2 '11 at 16:59
The question specifies "talking" amongst themselves, so writing is not relevant but hey it's just an example question. – hippietrail Dec 2 '11 at 23:18
Picky... the question was answered and a little extra info was given. – SigueSigueBen Dec 3 '11 at 19:08
Please take Caleb's announcement into consideration which tells that these are example questions that shape the proposal. So, please add comments to improve the questions, but do not answer them yet. If the site gets mature enough and launches some day, answering will be available. – petrichor Jan 11 at 18:16
up vote 2 down vote
Can I use multiple adjectives in any order? Are both "kırmızı küçük kitap" and "küçük kırmızı kitap" valid clauses?
added by musa Aug 29 '11 at 2:29
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Both are perfectly valid. – mdakin Mar 30 at 10:03
@mdakin: Thanks for participating here, but please keep in mind that this is a site proposal and these are example questions. Comments should be reserved for discussion about the merits of questions to a future site. This is not a space to forward any form of answers. Let's talk about whether or not these questions would make constructive contributions to a site if it were to go live. Thanks! – Caleb Apr 24 at 9:36
up vote 1 down vote
Can an elderly man who is a stranger address an adolescent girl "kizim!" on a street in Turkey to ask for, say, an address? Or is it offensive?
added by user38893 Jun 7 '11 at 9:26
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I've decided not to vote for this as "on topic" yet because of how cultural it is and the fact that the answer will vary widely based on other factors besides language. Can you edit it to be more language specific? Such as, "what connotations can addressing someone as [word] have?" – Caleb Jun 13 '11 at 12:58
I think this question is fine as it is. Remember as a proposal we don't have the luxury of having space for a question body as well as a question title that an actual SE site has. This seems comparable to many questions we get on Japanese SE. – hippietrail Jul 25 '11 at 12:21
If the age difference is obvious, it is not offensive. Kizim, hanim kizim, evladim (my child) is also common. – mdakin Mar 30 at 10:09
up vote 1 down vote
Are there different words for the plain round pide common during ramazan versus the boat-shaped pide with fillings?
added by hippietrail Jun 27 '11 at 1:52
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up vote 1 down vote
What are the major dialects of Turkish within Turkey today?
added by hippietrail Jun 27 '11 at 2:47
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up vote 1 down vote
What is the rule for capital letters in month and weekday names? "30 Ocak 2011 Pazartesi günü geldim." "Bu yıl temmuz ayı bereketli geçti."
added by musa Aug 29 '11 at 2:51
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Belli bir tarih bildiren ay ve gün adları büyük harfle başlar: 29 Mayıs 1453 Salı günü, 1919 senesi Mayısının 19'uncu günü Samsun'a çıktım, 29 Ekim 1923, 28 Aralık 1982'de göreve başladı. Ancak belli bir tarihi belirtmeyen ay ve gün adları küçük harfle başlar: Okullar genellikle eylülün ikinci haftasında öğretime başlar. Yürütme Kurulu toplantılarını perşembe günleri yaparız. (dilimiz.com/dil/imlakilavuzu/TDK/KUR04.HTM) – mdakin Mar 30 at 9:57
up vote 1 down vote
A vowel drops when some words take a suffix: alın/alnı, gönül/gönlü. But some similar looking words do not obey it: gelin/gelini. Is there a rule?
added by petrichor Jan 11 at 18:33
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This is called vowel deletion or vowel ellipsis. There are several exceptions and rules associated for this rule, some are explained in this document I co-authored: docs.google.com/document/d/… Search for vowel ellipsis. – mdakin Mar 30 at 9:53
Please take Caleb's announcement into consideration which tells that these are example questions that shape the proposal. So, please add comments to improve the questions, but do not answer them yet. If the site gets mature enough and launches some day, answering will be available. – petrichor Mar 30 at 10:51
up vote 1 down vote
What are the rules for merging "şey"? For example, it is frequently written together in "birşey" vs separately in "her şey". Why?
added by Ege Özcan Apr 12 at 7:12
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up vote 0 down vote
Besides historians, is there a trade or region where Ottoman Turkish is actively used?
added by Jaime Soto Jun 23 '11 at 17:51
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up vote 0 down vote
What is the difference between burası and burada? [closed]
added by Yasin Okumus Jul 27 '11 at 8:29
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closed as duplicate of What is the difference between “başka”, “diğer”, “öteki”, and “öbür”; which can all translate to English “other”? by Caleb, Dori Oct 3 '11 at 2:57

This question covers exactly the same ground as another question in this proposal.

This would be a good on topic question but it is conceptually nearly identical this one so I am using my vote to rally support behind that question. – Caleb Aug 5 '11 at 12:10
up vote 0 down vote
Can ungrammaticality of "Kimin Ali okuduğu kitabı sevmedi?" show that there is unseen relative pronoun in Turkish as in English?
added by Serpil Karabüklü Jan 12 at 8:37
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up vote 0 down vote
Which emphatic adjective usage is correct for "doğru": "dopdoğru" or "dosdoğru"? Or are they both correct and used in different contexts?
added by petrichor Apr 22 at 17:46
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up vote -3 down vote
How can I correctly handle dotted and dotless i's for case-insensitive string comparisons in [programming language]?
added by Jaime Soto Jul 28 '11 at 21:00
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2  
Programming related, see msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/…. – Jaime Soto Jul 28 '11 at 21:02

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