[Originally posted on 03/30/15 on the Duolingo Turkish for English speakers forum by Selcen_Ozturk]
Turkish has a, i and u with the circumflex BUT the circumflex is often not used (The Turkish language association once removed them and later tried to bring them back, but almost nobody uses them anymore, except for confusing words.)
- â for /aː/ and/or to indicate that the consonant before â is palatalized
- î for /iː/ (no palatalization implied)
- û for /uː/ and/or to indicate palatalization.
[The izafet i’si is used at the end of a word, when it would otherwise look like a different suffix had been added. E.g. on “askerî” “military” to separate it from “askeri” “his soldier”; on “millî” “national” to separate it from “mil + li” “with axle”.]
While they are not so essential, they actually help you pronounce the words correctly, especially if they change the meaning! Also keep in mind, only loan words will have these letters, Turkish itself does not have these sounds.
One essential example is hala (paternal aunt) vs hâlâ (still, yet). You will hear both of them pronounced like the first one (paternal aunt) in the course.
Another example is kar (snow) vs kâr (profit). It gets even more confusing when you add suffixes, “karımı” could mean my wife, my snow, or my profit.
Sometimes it just makes “a” longer, for example adet (piece) vs âdet (tradition).
â also often comes before L. This makes the sound much softer – and then the suffixes seem to not follow the vowel harmony (in fact they do, because in those cases â is closer to e, û is closer to ü etc). For example
- “hâl” will be “hâlim” (my situation) not “halım” (my carpet)
- “meşgûl”** will be “meşgûlüm” (I am busy) and not “meşgulum”
- “hayâl”** will be “hayâlim” (my dream) and not “hayalım”
**not actually spelled with a circumflex, but pronounced as though it is
If I am not wrong, î is found only at the at the end of the words, and means “-al” (probably Arabic, someone should confirm). It is just a long iiii.
- millet: nation vs millî: national
- hukuk: law vs hukukî: legal
- siyaset: politics vs siyasî: political
- iktisat: economy vs iktisadî: economical
- ahlak: morality vs ahlakî: moral
Final reminder, usually you won’t see the circumflex! But you should remember which words have it (or should have it) to pronounce words correctly. If you are a native Arabic/Persian speaker, I guess you’ll know it by heart 🙂
[Updated by Danika_Dakika starting 03/01/22]
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