Ottoman Turkish alphabet

Alphabet

As with Arabic, Persian and Urdu, texts in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet are written right to left. The appearance of a letter changes depending on its position in a word:

• isolated (in a one-letter word);
• final (in which case it is joined on the right to the preceding letter);
• medial (joined on both sides); and
• initial (joined on the left to the following letter).

Some letters cannot be joined to the left and so do not possess separate medial and initial forms. In medial position, the final form is used. In initial position, the isolated form is used.

There were no standardised romanisation rules for Ottoman Turkish, and throughout the many centuries that the language was in use, transcriptions varied greatly. A notable example is the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, which was variously transcribed as "Kuchuk Kainardji", "Kuchuk Kainarji", "Koutchouk-Kaïnardji", "Kütschük Kainardschi", or "Chiuciuc Cainarggi" depending on the source and the linguistic background of the translator.

Sound–letter correspondence

The orthography of Ottoman Turkish, like many other abjads, is complex:

• Many Turkish sounds can be written with several different letters. For example, the phoneme /s/ can be written as ⟨ث⟩, ⟨س⟩, or ⟨ص⟩.
• Conversely, some letters have more than one value: ⟨ک⟩ k may be /k/, /ɡ/, /n/, /j/, or /ː/ (lengthening the preceding vowel; modern ğ)
• Vowels are written ambiguously or not at all. For example, the text ⟨کورك⟩ kwrk can be read as /ɟevɾec/ 'biscuit', /cyɾc/ 'fur', /cyɾec/ 'shovel', /cøryc/ 'bellows', /ɟørek/ 'view', which in modern orthography are written gevrek, kürk, kürek, körük, görek.

The Persian consonant (ژ) is not native to Turkish but is still pronounced distinctively with the letter J in the modern Turkish Latin alphabet.

Vowels

Turkish has 8 total vowels which are evenly split between front and back vowels. One of the shortcomings of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet is that it could not differentiate between the front and back vowels with the exception of A and E. This situation required readers to infer the frontness or backness of vowels based on consonants and the vowels A and E.

Another shortcoming was that it could not differentiate between O/Ö and U/Ü in the first syllable (O/Ö do not exist in the second syllable in Turkic, Arabic, or Persian words with the exception of one suffix -iyor/ıyor). Although this issue only existed in the first syllable, the O/Ö sounds were generally more common than U/Ü in the first syllable.

Arabic and Persian Borrowings

They are written in their original orthography: for example, and if using Arabic vowel points (harakat), sabit 'firm' is written as ⟨ثَابِت⟩ s̱âbit, with ⟨ث⟩ s̱ representing /s/ (in Arabic /θ/), ⟨ا⟩ representing the long vowel /aː/ as in Arabic, ⟨ب⟩ representing /b/, ⟨ـِ⟩ representing the short vowel /i/, and ⟨ت⟩ representing /t/. However, as in Arabic and Persian, harakat are generally found only in dictionaries and didactic works, therefore the same word sabit will generally be found written thus: ⟨ثابت⟩ (with no indication of the short /i/). As in Persian, the alif hamza (⟨أ⟩ ’) is rarely used in initial position and is replaced instead by a plain alif (⟨ا⟩); the ta marbuta (⟨ة⟩, appearing in final position of Arabic words) is also rarely used itself and is instead replaced by a plain ha (⟨ه⟩). The letters ث ح ذ ض ظ ع are found only in borrowings from Arabic; ژ is only in borrowings from Persian and French.

Consonants

Consonant letters are classified in three series, based on vowel harmony: soft, hard, and neutral. The soft consonant letters, ت س ک گ ه, are found in front vowel (e, i, ö, ü) contexts; the hard, ح خ ص ض ط ظ ع غ ق, in back vowel (a, ı, o, u) contexts; and the neutral, ب پ ث ج چ د ذ ر ز ژ ش ف ل م ن, in either. In Perso-Arabic borrowings, the vowel used in Turkish depends on the softness of the consonant. Thus, ⟨كلب⟩ klb 'dog' (Arabic /kalb/) is /kelb/, while ⟨قلب⟩ ḳlb 'heart' (Arabic /qalb/) is /kalb/. Conversely, in Turkish words, the choice of consonant reflects the native vowel.

On the other hand, both soft and hard consonants (especially in Perso-Arabic borrowings) forcibly become either hard (a, o, u) or soft (i) when vowels are etymologically long, e.g. ⟨ایمان⟩ 'iman' (faith), ⟨حساب⟩ 'hesap' (arithmetic), ⟨صحیح⟩ 'sahih' (authentic, true), ⟨عید⟩ 'id' (Islamic holiday), etc.

Despite these rules, there might be few exceptions that break these rules, e.g. ⟨عمر⟩ 'Ömer' (where it should theoretically pronounced 'Omer'), ⟨ایوب⟩ 'Eyüp' (where it should theoretically pronounced 'Eyyup'), ⟨تمام⟩ 'tamam' (where it should be theoretically 'temam', just like سلام 'selam'),

All other letters are considered by default soft [front].

Vowels Letters

In Turkish words, vowels are sometimes written using the vowel letters as the second letter of a syllable: elif ⟨ا⟩ for /a/; ye ⟨ی⟩ for /i/, /ɯ/; vav ⟨و⟩ for /o/, /œ/, /u/, /y/; he ⟨ه⟩ for /a/, /e/. The corresponding harakat are there: üstün ⟨○َ⟩ (Arabic fatḥah) for /a/, /e/; esre ⟨○ِ⟩ (Arabic kasrah) for /ɯ/, /i/; ötre ⟨○ُ⟩ (Arabic ḍammah) for /o/, /œ/, /u/, /y/. The names of the harakat are also used for the corresponding vowels.

Orthographic conventions

The rule for vowels in native Turkish words are the following:

1. Never introduce a vowel letter into a Turkish or foreign Ottoman word without removing a possible doubt as to pronunciation;
2. Never leave out a vowel in such a word, if by omission a doubt is created as to the pronunciation.

The above rules have the two following exceptions:

1. In any syllable which is composed of two consonants, if the vowel is soft üstün (see vowel table above), none of the orthographic (vowel) letters is added; but if it is composed of one letter, he (ـه ه) is added to indicate the vowel;
   • گلدی (gel-di)
   • بش (beş)‌
   • ایسته‌مک (is-te-mek) (the letter he distinguishes it from i-set-mek, and other possible misreadings)

1. None of the grammatical affixes take the orthographic or vowel letters. (This contrasts with other historic and modern Arabic-based Turkic orthographies, such as Chagatai)
   • گلدم (gel-dim)
   • باشلر (baş-lar)
   • اوچلک (üç-lük)
   • آلمق (al-mak)

Dictionary notations

As mentioned in previous sections, in written Ottoman Turkish conventions, some letters, especially the letter ⟨ک⟩ k could represent many phonemes: /k/, /ɡ/, /n/, /j/, or /ː/ (lengthening the preceding vowel; modern ğ). Same applied to vowels, if they were even written using elif ⟨ا⟩ for /a/; ye ⟨ی⟩ for /i/, /ɯ/; vav ⟨و⟩ for /o/, /œ/, /u/, /y/; he ⟨ه⟩ for /a/, /e/. In many cases they were not.

Therefore, some Ottoman Turkish dictionaries and language textbooks sought to address this issue by introducing new notations and letters. None of these proposed notations ever gained wider popularity, and none came to be adopted by the society at large. For example, in the Ottoman Turkish-Turkish compiled by Ottoman Albanian lexicographer Şemseddin Sâmi, these notations have been defined and have been used. The necessity arose from the fact that this was a solely Turkish dictionary, and thus Şemseddin Sâmi avoided using any Latin or other foreign notations.

The other book with such notations is a book called the Ottoman Turkish Guide (Osmanlıca. 1: Rehberi). This book was first published in 1976, and has been continuously published over the years well into the 21st century. This book by Ali Kemal Belviranlı, is an alphabet premier book and guide, and its primary purpose is to help and teach modern native Turkish speakers who are literate in the modern Latin alphabet, to learn and be able to read and decipher older Turkish language documents that were written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. This book also employs specific notations and letters in order to distinguish between different phonemes, so as to match with the Modern Turkish alphabet.

Azerbaijani Turkish orthography, which at the time was similar to Ottoman Turkish orthography, has undergone a similar process in Iran, of letters being assigned diacritics and notations to distinguish them. Those modifications have over the decades gained widespread legitimacy and acceptance. These are also shown for comparison in the table below.

Other scripts

Other scripts were sometimes used by non-Muslims to write Ottoman Turkish since the Arabic alphabet was identified with Islam.

The first novel to be written in the Ottoman Empire was Akabi (1851), which was written in the Armenian script by Vartan Pasha. Similarly, when the Armenian Duzian family managed the Ottoman mint during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid I (r. 1839–61), they kept records in Ottoman Turkish but used the Armenian script.

The Greek alphabet and the Rashi script of Hebrew were used by Greeks, Orthodox Turks and Jews for Ottoman. Greek-speaking Muslims would write Greek using the Ottoman Turkish script. Karamanlides (Orthodox Turks in Central Anatolia around Karaman region) used Greek letters for Ottoman Turkish.

Numerals

Ottoman Turkish used Eastern Arabic numerals. The following is the list of basic cardinal numerals with the spelling in the modern Turkish alphabet: