Language/Turkmen/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

Turkmen Alphabet, IPA Pronuncation, Video, Virtual Keyboard...

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.

In today's lesson, you will learn how to write the different letters of the Turkmen alphabet, how to pronounce these letters whether it is through the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), or through a video with the pronunciation of the letters by a native speaker.

You will also find at the end of this lesson a virtual keyboard to be able to type each special character of this language.

Turkmen Alphabet and IPA Pronunciation

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]

Turkmen Latin Alphabet: 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.

Turkmen Online Virtual Keyboard

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Sources

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

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