Merhaba--Am studying with an older grammar book, and it states that the letter "a" with a circumflex which follows the letters "g", "k", and "l" have a "y" sound to it.  I´ve not noticed any mention of it in another text I have.  Any help with this?  çok teþekkürler.

Hi, the use of the circumflex above the letter ´a´ no longer occurs in modern Turkish.

I was told it was used to differentiate between the sharper and longer versions of pronouncing ´a´.

For example, words such as "ama" (meaning both but and blind), and "hala" (meaning both aunt and still), no longer need to use the circumflex in current printed Turkish.

These could be easily differentiated when the circumflex was used, and native Turks recognize them by pronunciation and context.

If you use the dictionary on this site you will notice the circumflexes are still used with these words in their second meaning.

Hope this helps.

Thank you Henry---now it will be a bit less baffling in my studies.  As I mentioned, it show it in one book and not in another, so I´ll just ignore it when I see it.  I wonder if there´s any other changes in the language, I was over there in the Air Force 49 years ago, but doubt if the spoken language has undergone basic change, perhaps added alot of new words.  Once again, your help is appreciated.--Rick

This is about the pronounciation and it is still valid, actually this is because of Arabic words in Turkish, because in Arabic there are different sounds.

Although usage of "â" is no more valid for some of the words ( it is still used for the ones that we have to differentiate, like ama and âmâ - to make this sign first click shift+3 and then the vowel you want â,û,î ), for pronouncitation you have the read the "a" softer;

e.g. : rüzgar

         kaðýt

         lale

( a after g,k and l has to be read softer than the normal a we pronounce in Turkish - it is something between a and e)

p.s. both dil derneði (www.dildernegi.org.tr) and türk dil kurumu (http://tdk.gov.tr) dictionaries show rüzgâr and kâðýt  with "â", but lale with normal a. As you see, usage of "^"sign became very confusing, and most people ignore it in the written language - however you have to consider when you are pronouncing it.

Thanks Dilli for the extra information, and good luck with your learning Rick!

And I thank you Dilli for that very insightful information, will make a copy for my files, and thank you Henry, for your encouragement.  It is interesting, I study çok az Arabic, and I´ve noticed some similarities in certain aspects, so your info will be useful Dilli.  The best to you both, if I run into any more snags, I hope I can rely on your help---as I said, out here there´s no one who speaks Turkish.---Rick