Word-order

Turkish is generally SOV. A general rule of Turkish word-order is that the modifier precedes the modified:

• .adjective (used attributively) precedes noun;
• .adverb precedes verb;
• .object of postposition precedes postposition.

Also, in a sentence,

• .subject precedes predicate;
• .objects precede verb;
• .indirect object precedes direct object.

However, because the distinction between subject, indirect object, and direct object is also indicated with inflexion, Turkish word order can vary.

The order of morphemes in Turkish is often opposite to English:

Avrupa                                                          Europe
Avrupalı                                                       European
Avrupalılaş                                                 become European    (command)
Avrupalılaştır                                           Europeanize (command)
Avrupalılaştırama                                I wish you could not Europeanize 
Avrupalılaştıramadık                           we could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklar                     those whom    could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımız              those whom we could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan         one of those whom we could not Europeanize
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan mı?   Is S/he one of those whom we could not Europeanize? 
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısın? Are you one of those whom we could not Europeanize?
Avrupalılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? Are you one of those whom we could not Europeanize? (second plural or formal)

Within the same context, the longest Turkish word consists of 44 characters: Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız = You are apparently one of those we weren´t (or haven´t been) able to make a Czechoslovakian. (And equally: İskandinavyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmışsınız = same for a Scandinavian.)[longest Turkish word: in Turkish "Muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine", which means something like (you are talking) as if you are one of those which

we can not easily convert into an unsuccessful-person-maker

 (someone who un-educates people to make them unsuccessful)].

I find this good info for learners.

SOV oreder is only maintained during formal speech.

In daily speech, Turks are as free as they can be. They can scramble any sentece in any possibly meaningful way.

Example:

Veli´nin  öğrendi  gelmediğini  Ali  oraya niye  Fatma´dan  dün.

Now are there any takers (non-natives please) to descramble this sentence and put it in SOV order?

Hm, let´s try

Ali, Veli´nin dün Fatma´dan dün oraya niye gelmediğini öğrendi.

Ali learned why Veli did not come back there from Fatma yesterday.

(after a while, I decided to move dün before Fatma)

Good try and they are still meaningful but not correctly descrambled.

Hint: there are two clauses (sub-clause and main one) in it. You are at least expected to identify the sub-clause and underline it as a unit.

OK, let me answer it myself.

Main clause should be something like te one below (we fill in the blanks later):

Ali ... öğrendi. (You correctly identified it).

The sub-clause should be:

Veli´nin ... oraya gelmediği

Now we have something like this:

Ali ... Veli´nin ... oraya ... gelmediğini ... öğrendi.

The other stuff may be included either in the sub-clause or in the main one giving different meanings.

For example (with underlined subclause):

Ali Veli´nin dün oraya niye gelmediğini Fatma´dan öğrendi.

Ali learnt from Fatma why Veli didn´t come there yesterday.

We can put "dün" in the main clause with a different meaning.

Ali Veli´nin oraya niye gelmediğini dün Fatma´dan öğrendi.

Ali learnt yesterday from Fatma why Veli didn´t come there.

And by the way tomac, I gave it a second thought and your ordering seems correct to me now if you meant:

Ali Veli´nin dün Fatma´dan oraya niye gelmediğini öğrendi.

Ali learnt why Veli didn´t come there from Fatma (i.e. Fatma´s place) yesterday.

etc.

Yes, that is exactly the way how I understood the original sentence I don´t know how I could not get the meaning given by you in your post 

By the way, returning to your original sentence:

Veli´nin  öğrendi  gelmediğini  Ali  oraya niye  Fatma´dan  dün.

I understand that this word order would not sound surprising for Turkish native speaker. Is it likely that he/she would understand this sentence like I did, or rather in the way that you have explained in your post? Or maybe it really depends on person?

Tomac your sentence is difficult to understand without proper punctuation.

I thought again and your sentence seemed okay to me now too if you really meant it. There is nothing wrong with punctuation.

I have provided that example to show that you can freely change the order of the words (so much that you can even scramble the parts of sub-clause and main clause) and it would still be maningful.

The thing is if we go back from the scrambled example there may be many different meanings for correctly ordered sentence of which I gave some.

And here´s another meaning by taking "niye" out of the sub-clause:

Ali Veli´nin dün Fatma´dan oraya gelmediğini niye öğrendi?

Why did Ali learn that Veli didn´t come there from Fatma (i.e. Fatma´s place) yesterday? (He shouldn´t have)

etc. etc.

So you may end up at that scrambed sentence by starting from any correctly ordered sentence.

That said, that kind of orderings may cause confusions. You may mean something they may understand something else. But when there is a context, the probability for confusion decreases.

I have a question about in reported speech ın Turkish. I have noticed many SUBJ-final sentences in my sons´ dergileri when a character is being quoted, a diye-clause. In looking for examples, I only can find long sentences at the moment, kusura bakmayın.

Örneğin (Winnie the Pooh dergisinden):

"Arkadaşlarım sayesinde yalnızca kendimi kötü hissetmmekten kurtulmadım, kendimi müthiş hissetmeye başladım!" diye neşeyle haykırdı Winnie.

There are two other examples in this story.

I assume the alternative is to start the sentence with Winnie. Is this proper or just the way things are in (translated?) çocuklar hikayeleri?