Language/Turkmen/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

Hello Turkmen learners! 😀

The Turkmen alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for official purposes in Turkmenistan.

• At the start of the 20th century, when Turkmen started to be written, it used the Arabic script, but in 1928, 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 was created.
• When Turkmenistan became independent in 1991, President Saparmurat Niyazov immediately instigated a return to the Latin script.

Alphabet table

Turkmen Latin Alphabet

Latin letter	A a	B b	Ç ç	D d	E e	Ä ä	F f	G g	H h	I i	J j	Ž ž	K k	L l	M m	N n	Ň ň	O o	Ö ö	P p	R r	S s	Ş ş	T t	U u	Ü ü	W w	Y y	Ý ý	Z z

Turkmen Cyrillic Alphabet

Cyrillic letter	А а	Б б	Ч ч	Д д	Е е	Ә ә	Ф ф	Г г	Х х	И и	Җ җ	Ж ж	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	Ң ң	О о	Ө ө	П п	Р р	С с	Ш ш	Т т	У у	Ү ү	В в	Ы ы	Й й	З з

Turkmen Arabic Alphabet

Arabic letter	ا	ب	چ	د	اِ– ە	أ	ف	غ - گ - ق	ح - خ - هـ	ای	ج	ژ	ق - ك	ل	م	ن	نگ	اوْ	اؤ	پ	ر	ث - س - ص	ش	ت - ط	اوُ	اۆ	و	ای	ی	ز - ذ - ض - ظ
IPA	[a, aː]	[b]	[t͡ʃ]	[d]	[je], [e]	[æ, æː]	[ɸ]	[ɡ~ʁ]	[h~x]	[i, iː]	[d͡ʒ]	[ʒ]	[k~q]	[l]	[m]	[n]	[ŋ]	[o, oː]	[ø, øː]	[p]	[r]	[θ, s]	[ʃ]	[t]	[u, uː]	[y, yː]	[β]	[ɯ, ɯː]	[j]	[ð, z]

Pronunciation equivalent in English

vowels

The 9 vowels of Turkmen are represented by the following letters:

• a When short, pronounced as the English a in the word ―father. In words with a long a, it is pronounced as a drawn-out English aa, as in ―bah (humbug).
• ä When short, pronounced as the English a in ―ant. In words with a long a, it is pronounced as a drawn-out a as in ―man or ―lamp.
• e When short, pronounced as the English e in ―pet. There is no long e in Turkmen.
• y When short, pronounced similar to the English -possible. In words with a long y, it is pronounced approximately as a drawn out hee in ―wheel, but deep in the throat.
• i When short, pronounced as the English i in ―middle. In words with a long i, it is pronounced approximately like ea in ―easy.
• o When short, pronounced as the English a in ―all. In words with a long o, it is pronounced approximately as a drawn-out English o in ―board.
• u When short, pronounced as English u in ―truth. In words with a long u, this sound is pronounced approximately as a drawn-out English ou in ―through.
• ö Pronounced short, is close to ir in ―girl but with rounding the lips. In words with
• a long o, it is pronounced with a longer duration than short o, as in the word learn.
• ü Similar to u as English ―prune, but with more tightly rounded lips.

Consonants

The 21 Turkmen consonants are represented by the following letters:

• p Pronounced as English p in ―pen.
• t Pronounced as English t in ―ten.
• k Pronounced as English k in ―keep when in words with the vowels ä, e, i, ö, ý but as English c in ―call when in words with the vowels a, y, o, u.
• b Pronounced as English b in ―boy at the beginning of a word and similar to v or w in other positions.
• d Pronounced as English d in ―deep.
• g Pronounced as English g in ―geese when in words with the vowels ä, e, i, ö, ý, but as a sound like the soft English gh in ―yogurt in words with a, y, o, u.
• m Pronounced as English m in ―meat.
• n Pronounced as English n in the word ―nice.
• ň Pronounced as English ng in ―sing.
• l Pronounced as English l in ―look.
• r Pronounced the same way as English r in ―rice, but with a trill.
• s Pronounced as a hard English th in ―thing in Turkmen (including Arabic and Persian) words, but as English s in ―sun in words coming from Russian.
• z Pronounced as a soft English th in ―the in Turkmen (including Arabic and Persian) words, but as English z in ―zoo in words coming from Russian.
• ş Pronounced as English sh in ―share.
• ç Pronounced as English ch in ―check.
• ž Pronounced as English s in ―treasure in words from Russian.
• j Pronounced as English j in ―juice.
• h Pronounced as English h in ―hall in some words, but as a gutteral ch in English-German―Bach in other Turkmen words.
• f Pronounced as English f in ―four.
• w Pronounced as English w in ―wagon in Turkmen (including Arabic and Persian) words, but as English v in ―very in words from Russian.
• ý Pronounced as English y in ―yes.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmen_alphabet

https://photos.state.gov/libraries/turkmenistan/868986/pdf/TurkmenLanguageLearningGuide_001.pdf