Turkish Words Research Articles

ONOMASTIC SPACE OF KAZAKH AND BASHKIR LANGUAGES

This article discusses the theory naming system of the Kazakh and Bashkir languages. The main sections of Kazakh and Bashkir onomastics are described, the degree of study of its individual sections is analyzed, according to which the course of development of Kazakh and Bashkir onomastics is determined. Although the main sections of onomastics are currently studied in detail, its individual areas still require study and systematization. In this regard, the historical materials that were guided in the study of onomastic space make it possible to identify the linguistic connection of onomastic units, show their connection with the history and culture of the people, as well as to cite the continuity of some phenomena in the formation of historical Kazakh and Bashkir names with a certain period of public life. As a result, it is established that in the basic vocabulary of Kazakh and Bashkir names, along with common Turkic words, other elements are used, and the lack of consistency in modern Kazakh surname writing, and in modern Bashkir, models of writing a person's last name (patronymic) are formed in accordance with the word-forming patterns of the Russian language, are shown on the basis of specific language data.

Semantic Shift and Phonological Features of Words Borrowed from Kurdish to Turkish

This study examines the semantic shift and phonological features of words borrowed from Kurdish into Turkish. It highlights the interactions between languages throughout history, which have led to shifts in the meanings of words. The research focuses on how certain Kurdish words that carried neutral or positive meanings have acquired negative or derogatory meanings in Turkish. The socio-cultural interactions and historical events that influenced this shift are analyzed, supported by examples of morphological, phonetic, and semantic changes. For instance, the Kurdish word "avare," which originally means homeless, is used in Turkish to mean jobless. The study aims to provide a systematic analysis of the semantic shifts of these words within the framework of etymology and linguistic interaction, contributing to a deeper understanding of the interactions between the two languages. The findings shed light on the social and cultural dimensions of language, offering insights into the evolution of language. In conclusion, the negative semantic shift of Kurdish words in Turkish reflects the dynamic nature of language and the influence of social perceptions.

The distinctive role of vowel harmony in visual word recognition: The case of Turkish.

Vowel harmony is a phenomenon in which the vowels in a word share some features (e.g., frontness vs. backness). It occurs in several families of languages (e.g., Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages) and serves as an effective segmenting cue in continuous speech and when reading compound words. The present study examined whether vowel harmony also plays a role in visual word recognition. We chose Turkish, a language with four front and four back vowels in which approximately 75% of words are harmonious. If vowel harmony contributes to the formation of coherent phonological codes during lexical access, harmonious words will reach a stable orthographic-phonological state more rapidly than disharmonious words. To test this hypothesis, in Experiment 1, we selected two types of monomorphemic Turkish words: harmonious (containing only front vowels or back vowels) and disharmonious (containing front and back vowels)-a parallel manipulation was applied to the pseudowords. Results showed faster lexical decisions for harmonious than disharmonious words, whereas vowel harmony did not affect pseudowords. In Experiment 2, where all words were harmonious, we found a small but reliable advantage for disharmonious over harmonious pseudowords. These findings suggest that vowel harmony helps the formation of stable phonological codes in Turkish words, but it does not play a key role in pseudoword rejection.

Almanya’da Büyüyen Türk Öğrencilerin Türkçe Konuşmada Yaptıkları Telaffuz Hatalarının İncelenmesi

In the context of the labor migration agreement, the children of the first generation who arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961 often faced academic failure due to their lack of proficiency in German. Aware of this, the second and third-generation families started speaking predominantly German at home to help their children learn the language better, pushing Turkish to the background. Since speaking is the most common means of communication in society, effective communication largely depends on clear and correct speech. However, due to the phonetic differences between German and Turkish, children often make pronunciation errors when speaking. The aim of this study is to identify the causes of Turkish pronunciation errors among Turkish-origin students raised in Germany and to propose solutions. This research utilizes a case study within a qualitative research framework. Data collection was conducted through observation and interviews, and the data were analyzed using content analysis. In this study, sound recordings from six classrooms in two primary schools 62 students in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany, were examined, and the causes of pronunciation errors, along with suggestions for correcting these errors, were provided. The findings reveal that although children are raised bilingually, they grow up in an environment where German is more dominant than Turkish. As a result, they tend to apply German language rules to Turkish when speaking, leading to pronunciation errors. Additionally, factors such as families speaking with dialects at home, the increase in intercultural marriages, similarities between some German and Turkish words, and differences in the letters of the two languages the number of pronunciation errors increases and contribute to these pronunciation errors. Keywords: Turkish-origin students, bilingualism, speech, pronunciation errors, stress

The names of outerwear in the Tatar and Chuvash languages

This work studies the vocabulary of outerwear in two related Turkic languages – Tatar and Chuvash. These two languages of neighboring peoples closely interact, which leads to their interpenetration, including the linguistic elements.In the article, Tatar and Chuvash lexemes, included in the thematic group “outerwear”, are analyzed in a comparative aspect. The words are considered in historical and etymological terms. The work provides examples from other Turkic languages and investigates the borrowing of these words into the Russian language.The article concludes that the stem of lexemes expressing the meaning of outerwear is made up of common Turkic words such as chikmen, tolyp, kurk, chapan, ermek, tun, bishmet, etc., although researchers believe some of them to be borrowings from other languages. Some of the words were borrowed into the Chuvash language from Tatar: sapan, kamsul, beshmet, etc. The etymology of such foreign words as kamsul is generally believed to come from Italian through Russian, zybyn, choba from Arabic, etc. Some names of outerwear were adopted into the Russian language from Turkic languages: beshmet, azyam, armyak, chekmen, epancha, kaftan, tulup, chapan, etc. The fact that the origin of many words is determined by scientists in different ways makes their study more complicated.

Происхождение и лексико-семантическая характеристика цветообозначения ерән ‘рыжий’ в башкирском языке

The article examines the origin, historical development and semantics of the word yeran ‘red’ in the Bashkir language. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in Bashkir linguistics, this color designation is subjected to a comprehensive etymological, comparative historical, and lexico-semantic analysis. During the scientific analysis, it was revealed that the yeran ‘red’ lexeme is characterized by an ancient origin: scientists have restored its proto-Turkic (*jẹgre-n ‘red (about the color of a horse); deer, gazelle, antelope’), proto-Altai (*negre ‘type of deer’) forms. It is established that the first fixation of the word falls on the ancient Turkic period. The word is found in almost all Turkic languages in the meaning of ‘red color of a horse or other animals’, in Kipchak – in the designation of red hair, mustache, beard, in some Turkic languages – as the names of animals ‘roe deer, gazelle, antelope’ (‘roe deer’, ‘gazelle’, ‘antelope’). It is assumed that jagren ‘chestnut’ in the Turkic languages originally meant the color of the horse’s skin, over time the semantics of the word expanded – it began to be applied to the color of human hair, then gradually to all objects of reddish color, reddish hue. In Bashkir, eran, like the reflexes *jẹgre-n in many Turkic languages, functions in the meanings of ‘red (about the suit, about the hair, mustache, beard)’. Related lexemes are found in other Altaic languages: in Korean and Tungusic-Manchurian languages, they are used in the meanings of ‘roe deer’, ‘vazhenka (female reindeer)’. In the Mongolian and Tungusic-Manchu languages, the meaning of the word ‘red horse color’ is a Turkic loan. The Turkic word entered the Russian language as well: Igreny ‘light red (about horse color)’.

The effect of teaching the alphabet with onomatopoeia on writing skills in Turkish lessons for foreigners

One of the difficulties in teaching Turkish, which is a phonetically rich language, to foreigners, is that similar sounds are often confused with each other. Since even a single punctuation mark is crucial for writing and reading Turkish letters (ı-i, o-ö, u-ü, c-ç, g-ğ, s-ş, etc.), students who use the Arabic alphabet have great difficulty writing and pronouncing Turkish words correctly. The difficulties that foreigners have in spelling vowels (ı-i, o-ö, u-ü) and consonants (c-ç, g-ğ, m-n, s-ş) when learning Turkish also have a negative impact on their writing and speaking skills. Especially in essay writing classes, students often misspell words, which makes it necessary to determine and implement more effective strategies in alphabet lessons. When teaching the Turkish alphabet, it is of great importance that the teacher uses “onomatopoeia,” which is considered an important feature of Turkish, to overcome this problem. In this study, the effect of onomatopoeia, the word corresponding to sounds in nature, on writing skills in Turkish classes for foreigners was investigated. This study, taken from a class of nine students at the Afyon Kocatepe University Turkish Language Teaching Centre at A1 level in the semesters of 2013–2014, was based on the analysis of three essays written by the students before and after studying onomatopoeia. The analysis of the data revealed that teaching the alphabet with onomatopoeic words was effective for the students in terms of the letters whose spellings were confused with each other and made a significant contribution to the writing skills of foreigners.

A comprehensive analysis of static word embeddings for Turkish

Word embeddings are fixed-length, dense and distributed word representations that are used in natural language processing (NLP) applications. There are basically two types of word embedding models which are non-contextual (static) models and contextual models. The former method generates a single embedding for a word regardless of its context, while the latter method produces distinct embeddings for a word based on the specific contexts in which it appears. There are plenty of works that compare contextual and non-contextual embedding models within their respective groups in different languages. However, the number of studies that compare the models in these two groups with each other is very few and there is no such study in Turkish. This process necessitates converting contextual embeddings into static embeddings. In this paper, we compare and evaluate the performance of several contextual and non-contextual models in both intrinsic and extrinsic evaluation settings for Turkish. We make a fine-grained comparison by analyzing the syntactic and semantic capabilities of the models separately. The results of the analyses provide insights about the suitability of different embedding models in different types of NLP tasks. We also build a Turkish word embedding repository comprising the embedding models used in this work, which may serve as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in the field of Turkish NLP. We make the word embeddings, scripts, and evaluation datasets publicly available.

Reduced false memory in the second language of Turkish-English bilinguals

In the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, studying a list of semantically related words leads to false memory for the critical non-studied word that is related to all the words in the study list. Previous studies questioning whether bilinguals are more prone to false memory in their first language (L1) or second language (L2) in the DRM paradigm revealed mixed results. The present study investigated the same question with Turkish-English bilinguals. The revised hierarchical model proposes that the link between the lexicon and the semantic system is weaker in L2 than in L1, suggesting that false memory in the DRM paradigm that relies on semantic relatedness would be higher in L1 than in L2. Furthermore, previous studies showed that L2 is more resistant to errors in decision-making when the two languages are dissimilar, but not when they are similar, and Turkish and English are historically distant and typologically dissimilar languages. We tested Turkish-English bilingual participants whose L1 is Turkish with Turkish and English DRM word lists that had similar prior norms for generating false recognition. In the recognition test, some of the studied items and the critical non-studied items were presented and participants identified the studied items. False recognition for the critical non-studied items was lower and correct recognition for studied items was higher in L2 than in L1. The results suggest that L2 is more resistant to false memory due to its weaker lexicon and semantic system associations, at least when the two languages spoken by the bilingual are dissimilar.

Source Analysis of Turkism in the Balkan Languages

The connection of Turkic tribes with the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula has a long history. With the conquest of the Ottoman Empire, the influence of the Turks on the countries living in the Balkan region increased, and this situation led to significant changes for the Balkan peoples. Words of Turkic origin in the Balkan languages became the basis for the study of Turkic influence in the Balkans. Researchers should first of all determine from which language Turkic vocabulary was introduced. The term “Orientalism” is widely used by linguists to define words and phrases from any Eastern language (Turkish, Arabic, Persian). First, since orientalism entered the Balkan languages through the Ottoman Turkish language, which was spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire and its territories, many researchers used the term “Turkism” to denote the characteristics of the way of life of the eastern countries. When linguists of the XVIIIXIX centuries defined the term “Turkism”, they relied on a small number and insufficient information about the origin of Eastern words. The purpose of this study is to make a detailed description and detailed analysis of the words that have entered the Turkic language in the Balkan languages. The research focuses on Romanian, Serbian, and Albanian languages, where the most Turkic words can be found.

ETYMOLOGY OF SOME TURKIC WORDS IN THE WORK SHEZHIRE-I TERAKIME

The study of monuments of historical writing in the linguistic aspect is of great importance for linguistics. The research article analyzes the etymology of the words qaryndas, elshi, eñbek and baila- verb found in the work «Shezhire-i terakime». The use of these words in ancient Turkic written monuments, medieval heritage and modern Turkic languages is described. The main goal of the study was to determine the etymology of Turkish words. Hypothetical opinions of Altaic and Turkic scientists are given during the research. The work of Abulgazy Bahadur Khan “Shezhire-i terakime” is a medieval work written in the Chagatai language. Its lexical layer consists of Turkic, Mongolian, Arabic, and Persian words. Also, the mixed use of Oghuz, Kipchak, Karluk-Uighur elements in the language of the work indicates that the Chagatai language was a common written language for the Turkic peoples. Therefore, the lexical-semantic study of the historical work, which we took as an object, and the determination of the etymology of Turkic words in it speaks of the relevance of the study. To differentiate theoretical conclusions, the article uses the method of analysis, the method of semantic analysis, the descriptive method, and the historical- comparative method.

Investigation into the Vocabulary and their Origin of the Poems in the 3rd Grade Turkish Textbooks and Workbooks

A good Turkish education is necessary in order to raise generations who can use their language correctly and effectively. This education is usually given from the Turkish textbooks of the Ministry of National Education, which are used in schools and considered as the primary source. However, the adequacy and comprehensiveness of the number of Turkish words in the textbooks is a controversial issue. In this study, it is aimed to determine the number of letters, syllables, words and different words in the poems calibrated in Turkish 3rd Grade Textbooks and workbooks by Private Publication (PP) and the Turkish 3rd Grade textbooks and workbooks prepared by Ministry of National Education Publications (MoNE) via using the document review method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, and to find the origins of the words in the poems. According to the findings obtained in the study, there are total of 719 words, 606 different words, 1770 syllables and 4278 letters in total in 13 poems in PP Turkish 3 coursebooks. 78.84% of these words are Turkish, 21.16% of which are words of foreign origin. There are 789 words, 649 different words, 1876 syllables and 4551 letters in total in 14 poems in MoNE1 Turkish 3 coursebooks. It is seen that 71.82% of these words are Turkish and 28.18% are foreign words. There are 281 words, 231 different words, 684 syllables and 1662 letters in total in 7 poems in MoNE2 Turkish 3 workbooks. It is seen that 78.76% of these words are Turkish and 21.24% are foreign words. It is assumed that the results of the research will give ideas to review the textbooks and to develop different techniques in vocabulary teaching.

Turkish sarımsak ~ sarmısak ‘garlic’ revisited

Thus far, four – structurally very different – etymologies have been suggested for the Turkic word for ‘garlic’. This author adduces derivatives found in Altai, one of the Siberian Turkic languages, that provide crucial support for one of them.

Selectively manipulating softness perception of materials through sound symbolism.

Cross-modal interactions between auditory and haptic perception manifest themselves in language, such as sound symbolic words: crunch, splash, and creak. Several studies have shown strong associations between sound symbolic words, shapes (e.g., Bouba/Kiki effect), and materials. Here, we identified these material associations in Turkish sound symbolic words and then tested for their effect on softness perception. First, we used a rating task in a semantic differentiation method to extract the perceived softness dimensions from words and materials. We then tested whether Turkish onomatopoeic words can be used to manipulate the perceived softness of everyday materials such as honey, silk, or sand across different dimensions of softness. In the first preliminary study, we used 40 material videos and 29 adjectives in a rating task with a semantic differentiation method to extract the main softness dimensions. A principal component analysis revealed seven softness components, including Deformability, Viscosity, Surface Softness, and Granularity, in line with the literature. The second preliminary study used 27 onomatopoeic words and 21 adjectives in the same rating task. Again, the findings aligned with the literature, revealing dimensions such as Viscosity, Granularity, and Surface Softness. However, no factors related to Deformability were found due to the absence of sound symbolic words in this category. Next, we paired the onomatopoeic words and material videos based on their associations with each softness dimension. We conducted a new rating task, synchronously presenting material videos and spoken onomatopoeic words. We hypothesized that congruent word-video pairs would produce significantly higher ratings for dimension-related adjectives, while incongruent word-video pairs would decrease these ratings, and the ratings of unrelated adjectives would remain the same. Our results revealed that onomatopoeic words selectively alter the perceived material qualities, providing evidence and insight into the cross-modality of perceived softness.

Phraseological features of ancient Turkic words in Azerbaijani dialects

Phraseological features of ancient Turkic words in Azerbaijani dialects

«Кедей» ұғымына қатысты тілдік бірліктердің этномәдени ерекшелігі (қазақ, қырғыз және түрік тілдерінің материалдары негізінде)

This article is devoted to the consideration of the ethno-cultural specificity of linguistic units in relation to the concept of "poor", which is part of the human macrosystem. Language provides insight into the identity, culture, spiritual and material values, way of life, knowledge and understanding of the people. Therefore, the main goal of the research article is to identify the cognitive nature of the concept of “poor”, to consider the specifics, the semantic meaning of this word in the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Turkish languages, and to show their differences and similarities. The article presents knowledge and thoughts, vocabulary, proverbs, phraseology and catchphrases related to the concept of the “poor”. The analysis of the semantics, linguocognitive meaning of the words baikus, zhalshi, zharly, zharly-zhakybay, beggar included in the Kazakh microconcept of the poor, and phraseological units formed by these words was carried out. The etymology of the Turkish word "yoksul" (poor), set phrases associated with this name, has been ethnolinguistically differentiated. Differences in similar phraseological units found in three languages were compared and demonstrated. Having learned the inner meaning of the language as a whole, one can recognize a whole ethnic group, people. In modern linguistics, the study of the relationship between language and culture is considered as an urgent problem. The study of ethnocultural units related to the concept of the poor, the definition of the history of their origin, the consideration of the scope of their application at the present time, as well as the definition of their place in the historical vocabulary, culture, customs and traditions of our people emphasize the relevance of the article.

THE LOGIC OF TURKISH LANGUAGE FOR NLP

One of the applications of NLP is Question and Answering (QA) system. In this field there are many researches and applications. Some competition is organized to increase the performance of the systems. Turkish is a language designed as if by a scientific committee. In Turkish language, rules are clear and transparent. In order to prove these features of Turkish, rules regarding phonology, morphology and syn-tax features have been deduced, a logical expression has been written for each rule and a flow diagram has been drawn. Indexing of pages written in Turkish is somewhat difficult than any India-European pages. Although an English word can get one prefix and one suffix Turkish words can take many suffixes. Therefore, we need to discover the root or stem of the word. The rules of Turkish were tested with the programs developed in accordance with the flow diagram. As a result of the tests, it has been proven that the rules of Turkish are intact. Finally, a study was con-ducted to artificially create a sentence and a program was prepared.

Kuyruk Sözcüğünün Kök Biçimi

Türkçe sözcükler, temelde tek heceli kök biçimine sahiptir. Kök biçimi tarihî metinlerde yer almayan, iki ya da daha fazla heceden oluşan ve biçim birimleri arasında ilişkinin belirsiz olduğu sözcükler kapalı biçim birimi olarak adlandırılmaktadır. Araştırmacılar çeşitli yöntemlerle kapalı biçim birimi özelliği taşıyan sözcükleri çözümleme çalışmaları yapmaktadırlar. Sözcüklerin ağız, lehçe ve diğer dillerdeki izlerinden hareketle ve dilin genel mantığından yararlanılarak yapılan bu çözümlemelerin genel kabul görenleri yanında bir öneri olarak kalanları da vardır. Kapalı biçim birimi içeren sözcüklerden biri de kuyruk sözcüğüdür. Kuyruk sözcüğü üzerine birden çok çözümleme yapılmasına rağmen sözcüğün biçim birimleriyle ilgili tartışmalar devam etmektedir. Bu çalışmada kuyruk sözcüğünün tarihî metinlerde, çağdaş Türkiye Türkçesi ağızlarında, Türkçenin lehçelerinde ve diğer dillerdeki biçim birimleri incelenmiştir. Bu incelemeler yanında sözcükle ilgili daha önce yapılan çözümlemelere de yer verilmiştir. Sonuçta, elde edilen verilerden hareketle sözcüğün tek heceli kökü tespit edilmiş ve o kökten hareketle sözcüğün diğer biçim birimleriyle ilgili yeni bir çözümleme yapılmıştır.

Türkçedeki Alıntı Sözcüklerde Ortadaki ve Sondaki Üçlü (CCC) Ünsüz Kümeleri: Bu Bir Yanılsama mı?

Known as a language which strictly follows its phonotactic constraints showing low tolerance for the exceptions, Turkish employs a variety of phonological processes in the adaptation process of the foreign words into the language so as to make the phonologically improper loan words obey with the phonotactic and phonological constraints of the language. As one of these constraints, Turkish forbids the adjacency of three consonants (CCC) in the simplex forms given that CCC implies morphological complexity on the phonological string. However, there are still a number of foreign words with medial and final CCC clusters adapted to Turkish such as bandrol ‘banderol’, semptom ‘symptom’, portföy ‘portfolio’ and kuvartz ‘quartz’. Based on these observations, the aim of the present study is to investigate the appearance of CCC clusters in Turkish words, which are adapted to Turkish from foreign languages. In this regard, we claim that CCC in simplex words are only an illusion and there is no violation of phonotactic constraints. Accordingly, we argue that Turkish has three basic strategies in order to avoid CCC clusters while adapting the foreign words. As the first strategy, Turkish prefers the realization of a vowel following the initial CC as in /bandɯrol/ (i). The second strategy Turkish applies is to adapt the word which has a CCC cluster with only CC: e.g. /semtom/ and /kuvarz/ (ii). As the third option, certain adapted words with CCC clusters are stored in the mental lexicon as if they had a complex morphological structure port-föy (iii). We will give an account for these strategies in the light of government, licensing and constituent structure analyses.

Lexical features for repetition task: Turkish language perspective

AbstractBackgroundPrimary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome that presents with speech and language impairments and is commonly classified into three variants based on varying symptomatology and pathology: semantic (svPPA), nonfluent/ agrammatic (nfvPPA), and logopenic variants (lvPPA). While more than 85% of the world population don’t speak English language as their first or second language, PPA research has largely focused on English speakers. Thus, we may lack adequate understanding to PPA symptoms of typologically different languages. Turkish language is an agglutinative language that commonly combines multiple morphemes in a word. Therefore, Turkish words are frequently high in syllables, morphemes, and words. Repetition test is a frequently used tool to diagnose lvPPA patients by assessing auditory verbal short‐term memory function. However, the capacity for auditory verbal short‐term memory has been known to be influenced by time and morphological structure, which are generally more complex in Turkish. Our study investigates the lexical features critical for repetition task for Turkish language speakers.MethodIn this study, Turkish‐speaking participants are tasked to repeat six lists of words. List 1 and 2 consist of real and pseudo‐words with one morpheme and one word but increasing in syllables; List 3 and 4 comprised of real and pseudo‐words with increasing number of morphemes and syllables; and List 5 and 6 contained words with increasing morphemes, syllables and words. We then studied the performance of cognitively normal and PPA participants when repeating these lists of words and investigated the effect of number of morphemes, syllables and words.ResultsA total of 15 Turkish‐speaking controls and 12 PPA individuals (7 lvPPA, 1 nfvPPA, 4 svPPA) completed the repetition task. Individuals with svPPA and lvPPA scored significantly lower than controls when repeating List 5 and 6 (p = 0.05 and p = 0.03 respectively). Using general linear model, when covarying for number of words, morphemes, and syllable, we found that repetition performance in Turkish‐speaking participants is predicted by the number of words, morphemes, and syllables in both real and pseudo‐word lists.ConclusionWhen designing repetition task for speakers of agglutinative or polysynthetic languages, lexical features such as number of morphemes and syllables might need to be accounted.