| Forward to the Current TURKISH Forum |
| Mahmut | Monday 20th of June 2005 09:28:01 PM |
| Kız - I have one question... What is the correct pronounciation of the word girl: Kız Because i live in DK, and all turks here in Dk, pronounce the word this way: Khız. You know they pronounce the K as KH like the arabic kh in Khalid. But i have heard some turks other places pronounce it as a simple K. Just Kız. Could somebody help me out and tell me the real pronounciation of this word? | |
| zappie | Wednesday 22nd of June 2005 02:38:06 PM |
| - In proper Turkish there is no Kh sound but ony k. Like k in "key" or c in "Canada". Most probably you have heard Kh from a southeasterner. | |
| khaan11 | Saturday 25th of June 2005 11:50:36 PM |
| - on the same theme of pronounciation: is ğ meant to be pronounced like GH like in Arabic Ghulam (which i was told from a website whos address ive now forgotten)? or does it do something else? Teşekkür ederim | |
| daristani | Sunday 26th of June 2005 12:09:21 AM |
| Pronouncing the ğ - The so-called "soft g" in Turkish (ğ) derives from the "gh", but in standard Turkish it is not pronounced this way. It itself is silent, but it lengthens the vowel that comes before it. Thus the word for mountain, dağ, is pronounced "daa", while the enclitic "da" (meaning "in addition to") is pronouced short, i.e., "da". (In Central Asian Turkic languages, the word for "mountain" ends differently; it's "togh" in Uzbek, for instance, and "taw" in Kazakh.) Another example is "ağ" for "net", and "bağlamak" for "to fasten". The first is said a bit like the English word "aw" or "aah", with a long vowel and no consontal sound at the end, while in the second word, the first syllable is pronounced longer than the next two syllables, but all of this length is in the vowel sound; there is no hint of a "g" or "gh". Non-standard dialects of Turkish, however, expecially those spoken in regions where Kurdish, Arabic, or Azerbaijani influence prevails, tend to have a degree of the "gh" (like Arabic 'ghayn') for the ğ. Hope this helps. | |
| khaan11 | Sunday 26th of June 2005 01:13:46 AM |
| - Selam What about when it is between 2 vowels like in 'sancağı'? Çok teşekkür ederim | |
| zappie | Sunday 26th of June 2005 04:15:06 AM |
| - Normally the vowel after ğ is silent. However there is a tendency among the highly educated and the news speakers to pronounce it like the german r, but not stressed. I personally would not say " daan arkasinda " but da~ın arkasinda " (behind the mountain). The same applies to sancağı as sancaa ( sanca~ı for me ) Another good example is " değil ". Some people say deel but it is very rude. Some say diil, some say deyil. But I say de~il. | |