Circumflex and The Deviations from Phonetic Spelling in Turkish

17057

In Turkish, there are certain spelling characteristics for exclusively loanwords, which aren’t related to originally Turkish words. One of them is the circumflex (lit. ‚correction mark‛) to indicate a long vowel and the soft types of g, k, l consonants before a back vowel in the loanwords. According to the orthography, circumflex isn’t used to indicate all the phonems mentioned above, used on a basis of disambiguation, and mispelling is very common. Additionaly, some of the loanwords are sometimes mispronounced due to these loan phonems. In this study we analise the reasons of the mistakes and offer a teaching method to avoid the spelling and pronunciation mistakes. The method offered in this study is to indicate the long vowels and the soft g, k, l before the back vowels in the basic language teaching materials according to standard Turkish pronunciation. Indicating the long vowels and soft g, k, l consonants can help to teach correct pronunciation. Scientific articles and newspaper columns have been scanned for this study in order to represent the general spelling habits regarding to circumflex.

167

Circumflex , Pronunciation , Orthography , Long vowel , Loanword , Teaching Turkish.1.

Journal Of Turkish Research Institute

179

Journal Of Turkish Research Institute