Property in Turkey | Language
Turkish is spoken by over 200 million people and is the world’s 7th most widely used language, out of over 4000. Today’s Turkish has evolved from dialects known since the 11th century and is one of the groups of languages known as Ural-Altaic which includes Finnish and Hungarian.
It can be quite difficult to get to grips with Turkish. Words sound unfamiliar and even the way they are written appears strange. The key, however, is the Turkish version of the Latin alphabet – the same one which is used for English with the addition of 6 different characters. Turkish is unusual in that it is completely phonetic – each letter of the alphabet has only one sound, so each word sounds exactly how it is written. During Ottoman times Turkish was written in Arabic script, which few people could write, so in 1928, Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic decided to switch to the new alphabet to improve levels of literacy. Once you get the hang of the sounds of the letters you can improve your vocabulary with a few basics such as taksi, cizburger and ketcap – the c is pronounced as ‘ch’ so just to say them out load! Although English is widely spoken in tourist areas, it will still be appreciated if you make the effort to learn a few phrases. When visiting your property in Turkey you will pick basic words/phrases and it is very useful if you will be living in your property in Turkey or residing there for a few months.
