Turkmen alphabet

The Turkmen alphabet refers to variants of the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, or Arabic alphabet used for writing of the Turkmen language.

The modified variant of the Latin alphabet currently has an official status in Turkmenistan.

For centuries, literary Turkic tradition in Central Asia ( Chagatai) revolved around the Arabic alphabet. At the start of the 20th century, when local literary conventions were to match colloquial variants of Turkic languages, and Turkmen-proper started to be written, it continued to use the Arabic script. In the 1920s, in Soviet Turkmenistan, issues and shortcomings of the Arabic alphabet for accurately representing Turkmen were identified and the orthography was refined (same as other Arabic-derived orthographies in Central Asia, such as Uzbek and Kazakh alphabets). But by 1928, due to state-policy, this orthography was discarded and the Latin script was adopted. In 1940, the Russian influence in Soviet Turkmenistan prompted a switch to a Cyrillic alphabet and a Turkmen Cyrillic alphabet (shown below in the table alongside the Latin) was created. When Turkmenistan became independent in 1991, President Saparmurat Niyazov immediately instigated a return to the Latin script. When it was reintroduced in 1993, it was supposed to use some unusual letters, such as the pound ( £), dollar ( $), yen ( ¥) and cent signs ( ¢), but these were replaced by more conventional letter symbols in 1999.

Turkmen is still often written with a modified variant of the Arabic alphabet in other countries where the language is spoken and where the Arabic script is dominant (such as Iran and Afghanistan).

Evolution

In the historic Turkmen SSR Arabic orthography (1923–1929), a small uppercase ''Hamza'' was used for indicating front vowels when vowel sounds can't be perceived from other vowels or consonants in a word, very similar to the use of Hamza in Kazakh Arabic alphabet. In Turkmen, there are 9 vowels, 8 of which formed 4 pairs in the Turkmen SSR Arabic orthograhpy. Below are these pairs, the back vowel and its corresponding front vowel:

* / (both written with ''alef'', )
* / (both written with ''vav'', )
* / (both written with ''vav+damma'', )
* / (both written with ''ya majhul'', )
* (Written with ''he in final position'', )

If a word contains front vowels, a small uppercase ''Hamza'' was used; except if the word also contained either the vowel ''E e'' (Written with ''he in final position'', ), or the consonants for or (Written with ''kaf'' and ''gaf'', ; ). As per Turkmen vowel harmony rules, these three letters are only accompanied with front vowels, thus the small uppercase ''Hamza'' will be redundant and is not written.

Turkmen Arabic Alphabet

The development of a Modern Standardized Turkmen Arabic Alphabet has been an ongoing project in Iran in the past 4 decades. Persian Alphabet, without modification or standardization is of course not suitable for Turkmen as 1. it contains multiple letters for the same consonant sounds, for example there are two letters for the sound (ت، ط), and 2. Persian Alphabet does not have letters and diacritics for many of the vowels used in Turkmen and other Turkic languages. Modern Standardized Turkmen Arabic Alphabet was first developed by late Dr. Hamid Notqi and published in Iranian- Azerbaijani-Turk Varlyq magazine. Since then, this system has been adopted by Iranian-Turkmens, and has been used for the publication of Turkmen Language publications such as "Yaprak" and "Sahra", as well as Turkish State Media TRT (see this link for th
Turkmen TRT
website). In the year 2010, Mahmyt Atagazly, Iranian-Turkmen literaturist and linguist has compiled Modern Standardized Turkmen Arabic Alphabet in a booklet called "Guideline for Writing Turkmen Correctly" (, Turkmen: , ). In this booklet, not only has Atagazly presented the Alphabet, he also has reviewed Turkmen phonology and the rules of writing Turkmen to reflect this phonology correctly.

It's important to note that the need for refinement and standardization of Turkmen Arabic script was also recognized in the 1910s and 1920s in Russian Turkistan (Turkmen SSR from 1925). Thus, there was an earlier attempt at standardization of the Turkmen Arabic orthography too, with rules and vowel conventions similar to those used by other Turkic languages of Russian Turkistan, such as Kazakh and Karakalpak. This orthography was presented in the above comparison table, and its vowel convention explained in the above section. That orthography was discarded in 1929 as part of the process of Latinization.Twitter Account: @menalib. ''MENALIB – Web Portal of the Specialised Information Service Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Studies''. (14:57 UTC, 20 jan. 2021) ''Finally ventured to catalogue today: Tуrkmen medenijeti , a Turkmen journal from the period 1928-1931 in reformed Arabic and reformed Latin script'
https://x.com/menalib/status/1351906640795152387
/ref>Lilina, Zlata. Translated by A. Hojamberdi-ogly ''Biziň okudyçymyz Lenin / بزڭ اوقودچيمز لەنين / Наш учитель Ленин'' (Moscow, 1925). DO
10.25673/32556
https://opendata.uni-halle.de/handle/1981185920/32741. (Access a

Vowels

In the Turkmen Arabic alphabet, 9 vowels are defined.

Vowel Harmony

Like other Turkic languages, Turkmen has a system of vowel harmony. Turkmen's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system. This means that all vowels in a word must be ones that are pronounced either at the front or at the back of the mouth. In Turkmen there are two suffixes that make a plural. It's either ـلِر / ler and ـلار / lar, front and back vowels respectively. The same variety of options for suffixes exist across the board in Turkmen. Here is how vowel harmony works, in an example of a word in which the vowels are all frontal:
* The word for ''dog'' is ایت / it. The word for dogs will be ایتلِر / itler (ایتلار / itlar is incorrect)
* The word for ''four'' is دؤرت / dört, thus the word for all four of us will be دؤردیمیز / dördimiz
And below are examples for back vowels:
* The word for ''mountain'' is داغ / dag, thus the word for mountains will be داغلار / daglar

Another sort of vowel harmony that exists in Turkmen is the system in which each syllable is required to have one, and only one vowel. This rule even applies to loanwords, who have their pronunciation altered in order to match this rule.

Roundness of vowels

In Turkmen, there's a rule that words do not end in rounded vowels (unlike Azerbaijani Language).

The round vowels o / اوْ and ö / اؤ can only exist in the first syllable. Even if they are heard in pronunciation in other syllables, they should be written as a / ـا or e / ــِـ ە respectively.

The round vowels u / اوُ and ü / اۆ can only exist in the first and second syllable.

Compound words as well as loanwords are exceptions to these rules.

Vowel Orthography

Of the two forms of the vowels above, some of them happen to have the letter ا in one of their forms, but not the other. These vowels, if at the beginning of the word, will universally be accompanied with ا, but if they happen to be in the middle or end of a word, then the ا will be dropped. The vowel corresponding to the Latin letter u is shown as اوُ / وُ. See examples below for words including this vowel:
* The word for ''flour'' is اوُن / un. It is incorrect to spell it as وُن.
* The word for ''wheat'' is بوُغدای / bugdaý. It is incorrect to spell it as باوُغدای

In Turkmen, there are two types of syllables, open-ended syllables, which end in a vowel, and close-ended syllables. Open-ended syllables are ones that end in a vowel, i.e. they're in a V or cV form. Close-ended syllables are those that end in a consonant, i.e. they're in a Vc or cVc form. This generally doesn't matter, with the exception of the vowel that represents the same sound as the Latin letter "e". If the syllable is close-ended, the diacritic form of the vowel, ــِـ is used. But if the syllable is open-ended, the ە form is used (similar to how this letter is used as a vowel in Kurdish and Uyghur). Below are examples for the two:
*Close-ended syllable: The word ''dessan'' ('story') is broken down to two close-ended syllables, ''des-san''. Thus, the diacritic form of the vowel "e" is used: دِسسان. It is worth noting that similar to Persian and Arabic, diacritics are often omitted from writing.
*Open-ended syllable: The word ''erteki'' is broken down to three syllables, ''er-te-ki''. Thus, the "e" vowel in the second syllable is written as ە, the word is spelt as ارتەکی.

There is one exception to this rule, and that is the suffix "leri", which indicate that a noun is plural and in an objective or possessive case. Despite the suffix consisting of an open-ended syllable, it is written as ـلری.

The Latin letter ''a'' is generally written as آ / ـا. This is universally true for words of Turkmen origin. However, loanwords, since they're mostly from Persian or Arabic, and already have a proper and familiar spelling, can retain their original spelling. In Persian or Arabic, the same sound can be represented either by the diacritic ــَـ, or by the letter ع, either with diacritic as عَـ or as عا.

Consonants

While Turkmen Latin Alphabet has 9 vowels and 21 consonants, Turkmen Arabic Alphabet has 32 consonants, as there are sounds that are represented by more than one consonant. The two letters, نگ are treated as one letter, as they are pronounced as a single sound.

Notes

Turkmen words cannot end in the letter ب / b. Instead, a letter پ / p is used. However, in Arabic alphabet, and unlike Latin Alphabet, this rule does not extend to loanwords, such as کباب /kebap. If as part of a suffix, a vowel is added to the end of a word ending in پ / p, this final letter is then replaced with ب / b. This rule does not apply to single-syllable words. When the letter ب / b is between two vowels, its pronunciation would be in between (b) and �(v).

All originally Turkmen words that have the sound ''t'' are to be written using ت. The letter ط, while being pronounced identically, is solely used for writing loanwords.

Turkmen words cannot end in the letter ج / j. Instead, a letter چ / ç is used. However, In Arabic Alphabet, unlike Latin Alphabet, this rule does not extend to loanwords. If as part of a suffix, a vowel is added to the end of a word ending in چ / ç, this final letter is then replaced with ج / j. For example, the word دۆرتگۆچ / dürtgüç is transformed to دۆرتگۆجی / dürtgüji. This rule does not apply to single syllable words, such as ساچ / saç, meaning hair.

Turkmen words cannot end in the letter د / d. Instead, a letter ت / t is used. However, In Arabic Alphabet, unlike Latin Alphabet, this rule does not extend to loanwords. If as part of a suffix, a vowel is added to the end of a word ending in ت / t, this final letter is then replaced with د / d. This rule does not apply to single-syllable words.

All originally Turkmen words that have the sound ''z'' are to be written using ز. The letters ذ / ض / ظ, while being pronounced identically, are solely used for writing loanwords.

All originally Turkmen words that have the sound ''S'' are to be written using س. The letters ث / ص, while being pronounced identically, are solely used for writing loanwords.

The letters ق / غ are exclusive with back vowels, whereas the letter گ is used with front vowels.

The letter غ is never used at the beginning of a word, and it's only used in words where the Latin "G" letter produces a rhotic pronunciation, otherwise, the letter ق is used. This rule does not extend to loanwords.

The Latin letter K is written as ق in presence of back vowels, and it is written as ک in presence of front vowels.

tashdid

Similar to Persian and Arabic, tashdid diacritic (ــّـ) can be used to mark that a consonant is to be geminated, functionally similar to writing double consonants in Italian.
* قصّه / Kyssa
* ینگّه / Ýeňňe
There are two exceptions to where tashdid can be used.
Firstly, if the double consonant is produced as a result of creating a compound word or addition of a suffix, then tashdid cannot be used and both consonants need to be written. For example, the word سۆممک / sümmek is produced by adding the suffix ''-mek'' to the verb root ''süm''. Thus, the correct spelling would be سۆممک, and it is incorrect to spell the word as سۆمّک.

The second exception is, if a word has two consecutive identical consonants as a result of shift in pronunciation of a word, then both consonants need to be written. For example, the word بوْسسان / bossan cannot be written as بوْسَان. This word is a Persian loanword, originally written as بوستان.

Letter names and pronunciation

The Turkmen alphabet has 30 letters.

The names for c, q, v and x are ''se'', ''ku'', ''türk we'' and ''iks'', respectively.

Sample text

Article 1 of the UDHR:

See also

* Turkmen Braille

Notes

References

External links

Omniglot

Turkmen Cyrillic – Latin converter
(does not correctly convert or <ý>)

{{Arabic alphabets

Arabic alphabets
Latin alphabets
Turkmen language
Cyrillic alphabets
Alphabets used by Turkic languages