Phonetically, Turkish is not dissimilar from English. The Turkish alphabet is nearly identical to the English one, and only includes a few extra letters, most of which represent sounds already used in the English language. However, the letter ğ is unique when comparing Turkish and English, as it can serve to both lengthen and combine vowel sounds depending upon its position in a word. English has no such mechanism for this. This phonetic similarity with English and Turkish (due to Turkey switching to a Latin-type alphabet in 1928) may indicate a potential ease for learning Turkish, but this is far from the truth. Even just a single level up (to phonology), Turkish and English differ quite distinctly. For example, Turkish words all exhibit a type of vowel harmony, in which all the vowels in a word originate either from the front or the back of the throat. English has no such requirements. As the levels progress higher, the differences only seem to accumulate (Because Turkish is an agglutinative language, meaning endings can be piled up behind the root of a word to produce different meaning, it is syntactically very different from English).
It seems like the basic levels of language demonstrated in Aitchison's diagram (phonetics up to semantics) can all be learned by book (or at least separate from the culture or country of origin for the language). However, the levels including and above pragmatism seem to require one to be in the presence of the native culture, as pragmatics deals with language in ways "which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone" ( Aitchison 11). Thus, in order to gain a holistic knowledge of a language, it may be necessary to travel and study in the country of that language. This is why I believe many language-learning programs focus on phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics without going any further. I hope to also focus on these four levels of language as I pursue Turkish; I believe if I can perfect these skills (or at least achieve a reasonable level in them), gaining a more holistic view of the language can be achieved through studying abroad.
Comments