Loan Words:
Turkish has may loan words from Arabic and Persian, many of which have been consciously “Turk-ified.” Kütüphane (library)=Kipab (Arabic, book) + Hane (Persian, house). It also has taken several French and English words. The French and English words are often simply transliterated. These often break the rules that govern the grammar and phonology of the
Agglutination:
The Turkish language builds meaning like a wall, brick by brick. Evlidim (I was married) = Ev (house or household) + li (with) + di (was) + m (I). This is, in a sense, similar to English. Americanness=America+n+ness. However, Turkish can go on, almost infinitely, adding suffixes. Most parts of speech can be agglutinated.
Vowel Harmony:
The with the exception of most loan words (Kütüphane is a perfect example), of which there are many, the vowels in Turkish operate systematically so as to make the language less choppy in sound. They depend on the last vowel of the base-word. There are two catagories of vowels, those employed in two-way vowel harmony (A, E) and those used in four-way vowel harmony (I,İ,U,Ü). Suffixes use one or the other form of vowel harmony. If I meet one of my fellow leftists, I would say to her, Merhaba (from Arabic’s Marhaban, hello), yoldaşım (comrade). Because Yol’s last vowel is an O, I must use an A in the next suffix, and since I just used an A in that suffix, I must use an I in the next suffix.
Consonant Shift:
A particular group of consonants, for the same reason as there is vowel harmony, change to softer consonants if a vowel begins the suffix that follows it. Kitablik (bookshelf) changes to Kitabliğim if I want to express that the book-self is mine.
Consonant Matching:
Depending on the last consonant of a verb-stem or if the verb-stem ends in a vowel, particular suffixes will begin with a corresponding letter. Whereas yürüdüm (I walked) takes the D because it follows a vowel, Gittim (I came) takes the T because it follows a member of a particular type of consonant group.
Syntax:
The syntax of Turkish differs from English. Whereas in English one says, I killed the bug, one would say in Turkish, (Ben-I) Böceği-bug the öldürdüm-made dead, killed. The verb is usually at the end (unless it is in a poem, in which case, chaos rules). The subject is first, then the direct object, then the verb. However, if the subject is simply a pronoun, the personal ending on the verb suffices and the pronoun can be elided.
Case:
Certain verbs make their object a particular corresponding case. The accusative, however, is often a sign of definiteness. Bir böcek or simply böcek (one or a bug) is indefinite. Böceği, böcek + i means the bug, possibly the bug that caused you to run into the other room.
Gender:
There is no grammatical gender in the Turkish language (!). Turkish culture is a whole other thing, however.
For me, the history of the language helps to explain the things that annoy me about it. It makes these peculiarities more palatable, even enjoyable. I feel as though I am participating in the history by employing the language which it has helped create. Philology and linguistics help to understand the various systems at play in the language and provide a vocabulary to use to identify them. However, I am not a language scholar. I am working with my experience of grammar from Latin. It is not so important that the concepts line up perfectly. Accusative case in Latin differs from that of Turkish. Latin gave me the concept of a locative. When someone says, “this is how to make a locative”, I can understand generally what they mean. I will learn the particularities with time. All this will help me understand new grammatical and phonological concepts that I come across in my studies.
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