As a native Azeri we have a lot of sounds like "a" in HAT but in turkish it seems to me the letter "e" is sometimes pronuced as "A" in HAT and not "e" in PET.

Can anybody make this clear for me?

In Turkish, the vowel used in the word "hat" does not exist. Nevertheless, there are people, especially those with Arabic or Kurdish lineage, speaking Turkish as a secondary language. Those people usually substitute the vowel "a" with the Arabic or Kurdish wovel "ae".

There are 8 wovels in the Turkish language and their use is bound by the two wovel harmony rules which govern the use of what we may call as hard and soft wovels as well as round and plain vowels. Accordingly, a hard vowel (a,ý,o,u) cannot coexist with a soft wovel (e,i,ö,ü in the same word. Furthermore, plain vowels (a,i,ý,e) cannot be used together with round vowels (o,ö,u,ü. You can easily determine the originality of a word by checking it against these two vowel harmony rules. 

In Turkish, the wovel used in the word "hat" does not exist. Nevertheless, there are people, especially those with Arabic or Kurdish lineage, speaking Turkish as a secondary language. Those people usually substitute the wovel "a" with the Arabic or Kurdish wovel "ae".

This statement is not correct. Sometimes the pronunciation of the letter "a" is very close to the pronunciation of "a" in "hAt" (British pronunciation of this word not American)

for example  bEn (sounds more like ban)

There are a lot of rules about this. If you want to perfect your Turkish pronunciatin, pm me

TT

You certainly speak another version of Turkish... I never say "baen" or "saen". Nevertheless, the "e" used in Turkish is not the same as the English "e". To my knowledge, there is a certain "gay talk"  which probably mimics the way a coquette renders certain words.  You would hear those baens and saens (ben and sen) only in those circles (in addition to those under Arabic influence.)

By the way, I made a spelling mistake and wrote "wovel" instead of "vowel".

usually some girls speak like that

As a matter of fact, one needs to have certain criteria when comparing vowels. One of the important parameters is the length of a vowel. In Turkish all vowels are short ones. In English there are both short and long vowels. The ´ae´ sound of English is a long vowel whereas all the variations of ´e´ in Turkish are short.

The ´ae´ sound of English is a long vowel whereas all the variations of ´e´ in Turkish are short.

this statement is absolutely wrong. ae is a short vowel in British english. not all the variations of "e" are short. example   "memur"  : you have to elongate the "e" in this word we borrowed from Arabic. There are many words like this in Turkish

Have you ever  spoken to an American speaker of English? Or are you giving this information based on received pronunciation? I can´t imagine anyone saying the words bad or sad using a short vowel.You would say, vowels succeeded by fortis plosives are rendered a tad shorter while those used before lenus ones are rendered slightly longer. This is all linguistic bullshit. Real people don´t talk like that unless they want to mimic the voices on language teaching tapes.

Your idea about Turks rendering the word "ben" like  "hat" is pointless...

I have spoken to thousands of American and British speakers. memur is pronounced like "meeemur"

not memur . Not all the British elongate the vowel in "hAt" either. (the pronunciation of this word is different in American English.

ben > (more like pan)

beni > (as in pen)

"memur" is not a Turkish word, full stop.

OK. I don´t agree with you.

Memur is a loan word from Arabic. It violates both of the vowel harmony rules.  Usually, loan words are pronounced the they are rendered in the language they are taken from. All the conjugations and stuff follow the rules of the source langue too. Try to find a Turkish word where you can point your finger at a long vowel.

A word of clarification. I made a mistake by saying "ae" is a long vowel. The correct explanation should be like this:

- All Turkish vowels are short

-They are usually shorter than the short vowels of English

-Some short vowels in English have allaphones with varying lengths. When they are used before p,t,k they are rendered shorter and when they are used before b,d,g they are prolonged a bit.

memur is not a Turkish word. kelime is not a Turkish word. internet is not a Turkish word. There are tens of thousands of words in Turkish that are not originally Turkish.

This does not necessarily mean that we shouldn´t learn or teach them. Beside Turkish language does not mean Turkish words. Sure there´ll be a lot of words from many other languages as well.

Who can strongly claim that all the words in English are English words?

Uzman Türkçe Okutmaný

Bir uzman olarak, elmalar ile armutlari iyi karistiriyorsun...

Bir kelimenin Turkce icinde kullanilmasi baska, Turkce olmasi baska.

"kelime" hosuna gitmiyorsa, "sözcük" ne gune duruyor?

Hiç kimse memurun Türkçe bir kelime olduðunu iddia etmemiþtir. Elma armut meselesine gelince, onlarý sadece meyve salatasýnda karýþtýrýrým. Tavsiye de ederim.  Türk dilinde onbinlerce yabancý kökenli kelime vardýr.

Ýngilizce , Almanca , Arapça, Farsça, Ýspanyolca, Fransýzca ve diðer bir çok dilden kelimeler dilimize yerleþmiþtir.

Memur, Türkçe bir kelime olmamakla birlikte, sözlü ve yazýlý Türkçede en sýk kullanýlan kelimeler arasýnda yer almaktadýr. Ve bu kelimedeki "e" harfini muhakkak uzatýrýz. Türk dili sadece Türkçe kelimelerden kurulu bir deðildir. Kelime sözcüðünü kullanmaktan da rahatsýz olan yok.

Hoþ kelimesi de Farsça bir sözcüktür. Dilimizde kullanýlýr.

Türk Dili dillerin en zenginlerindendir. Yeter ki þuurla iþlensin

Ulu Önder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Bos laflarla, konusmanin tadini kacirmayalim.

Senin hatan, Turkcede "e" harfinin nasil telaffuz edildigini izah icin, o harfin "Memur" kelimesi icinde nasil telaffuz edildigini ornek olarak vermende. Kelime Turkce degil bir defa, neyi tartisiyorsun?

Zaten Arap da "memur´ yazarken, "e" harfini kullanmiyor...rvmm  yaziyordur herhalde (saðdan  sola okunacak, "v"  (vav) harfi de  Turkcedeki "u" gibi seslendirilecek)....iki mim arasina arasina ne koyulacagini Arap kardeslerimiz okuyucunun ferasetine birakmis, ama ne koyarsan koy, o kelime Turkce degil.

Kelime Türkçe deðildir ama uzatýlýr. Artý Türkçe kelimesinin tanýmýnda bir sýkýntý yaþamayalým. Türkçe kelimesinin tek anlamý yok. Türkçe içinde sadece Türkçe kelimelerin olduðu bir þey deðil.

Türkçe ayný zamanda bir dil ismidir. Ýçinde onlarca dilden kelimelerin olduðu muhteþem bir dildir.

Birisi "Ben doktorum" dediði zaman TÜRKÇE bir dil kullanmýþtýr. Bu adama kalkýp "Hayýr, doktor kelimesi Türkçe deðil, sen Türkçe bir cümle kurmadýn" denemez

Söylediklerim boþ sözler deðildi. Ama siz bilirsiniz.

Az söyledim dikkat ettim kalbini kýrmamaya

Bilirim üzülürsün yoksa sözüm çoktur sana

Sen ne dediginin pek farkinda degilsin galiba. Kulagini acsan birseyler ogreneceksin, ama sen bilirsin.

Yukaridaki veciz misalindeki gibi bir soz eden mi var ? Mesela ben hic oyle bir soz etmem...

Ama senin cumlenin icindeki "doktor" kelimesi için, Turkçede de kullaniliyor ama,  Turkçe degildir diye iddia ederim; ve gerekirse, o kelimenin Turkcesini  de sana soylerim...

Actually we have also 2 of "e" but it is not used in written language.

We have a "dar" (means narrow inTurkish) e which is between i and "geniþ" (means wide in Turkish) e. In his "Türkçenin Grameri", Tahsin Banguaoðlu uses "é" to  show it.

Then for example

yémék = food (noun)

yémek = to eat (verb)

Well I agree with that.

 The problem with comparing with UK or US pronunciation, is that even within the UK we say words differently depending which part of the country we come from. Scottish, Welsh, English: all are different vowel sounds. Within England: up north or down south? Even within London, North London, South London and East London all have different accents ... people from Kensington or Chelsea are different again!

I am sure if we recorded our comments rather than typed them that Aenigma, Sonunda, LIR, libralady and I would also say hat slightly differently. Some of us might even start it with a gluttal stop and say ´at!

MarioninTurkey is on the spot. In the East Midlands, people talk like " ´Ave you been too Jaymee´s ´ouse?" for "Have you been to Jaime´s house?" Really! If there is going to be an argument on phonetics, use the Universal Phonetic Alphabets that the standard dictionary uses. The Poles came up with it, I think.

The reason why it is not smart to give a comparison of pronounciation of vowels with an Arabic loanword, is because the ´original word´ is written differently. In Arabic, memur is written with a glottal letter, hemze (i think). This causes a small pause in the word and tehrefore the vowel seems longer.

It is hard to give an exact example of how words in Turkish are pronounced, because when they are from Arabic or Persian origine, their pronounciation depends on the original spelling. For example, officially there is a difference in pronounciation between ben (me) and ben (mole on the skin). The difference in pronounciation derives from original spelling: the n in ben/me is a Nun, the n in ben/mole is a kef. However, these are just details. A general rule in Turkish is that all vowels are pronounced shortly, words of Turkish origine do not know long vowels, they are all short.

The lovely Turkish open e...as someone teaching Spanish to Turkish students, I can say this is a serious issue for us, the open E as in "memur" or "merkez" (I know they aren´t truly Turkish words, but let´s keep it simple) sounds almost like "A" to Spanish speakers (all Spanish E´s are closed like in yemek), and our students often mix up A and E in verb endings, and this is a serious issue in Spanish because substituting A for E or vice-versa in some verb endings switches between the indicative mood, and the subjunctive, which our students learn only during their 3rd year.

But no, as far as I have seen, that sort of intermediate vowel between A and E (the Azeri inverted e letter) doesn´t exist in Turkish.

No qualified Turkish teacher would ever pronounce the word "ben", as "ban".

I have to agree that no matter which accent you speak you can´t say ben as in ban... that is in Azeri only.. 

But I have to also say regardless of where the word is originated from, we have to look at the Turkish language as a whole.  Not everybody knows if memur is a Turkish word or not... So I think it will not be right to generalise the vowels as short sounds except the foreign words, it will just be very confusing as the language learners will have to first try to identify the words origin to properly pronounce it.

I think, one has to learn the words as it is.  The example : ben - me, and ben - mole explains it very well.

So, I believe there are 3 kinds of E in our language:

1. a short closed E as in pen (ex: ben (me))

2. a short open E as in send (though in NZ it would be a close E) (ex: ben (mole))

3. a long closed E as in -ei / -ey (ex: memur) (By the way you can´t say it like meemur, as it will be open and incorrect)

Pronounciation of the two Turkish words.

Ben = me

Ben = mole

are exactly identical.

 Actually, officially they arent  You would hear it only in ´folk tongue´ though. It is kind of like the difference in the last n of ´nörüyon´ and ´napiyon´. Someone in Yozgat saying nörüyon pronounces that n differently than someone from Ankara asking ´napiyon´. It is about the ´original´ sounds of Turkish, though I realise that that is kind of debatable.

However, in nowadays Turkish they are pronounced the same, yes, and my point there was not to teach anyone to pronounce them differently (though so far I have come across 2 persons who do ), but to illustrate why it is cumbersome to give pronounciation-examples for Turkish by giving loanword-examples.

 Deli Kizin how soon have you come to grasp these local variations?

 I had the luck to spend long periods of time in Turkey (9 months in 2006-7 and 6 months this year), and also the chance to work with Turkish people in the Netherlands who usually come from (families from) villages in Turkey and therefore have a more rural accent. Alltogether it took me about 3 years to get where I am now, but I can say that the first 9 months were the ones I learnt most of what I know now.

Regarding "nörüyon" people sometimes swallow the last "n" i think, its also popular in Kastamonu region . But i havent realised any different pronounciation of "ben(me) & ben(mole)" so far. Maybe one shouldnt be a native to realise this ... 

If we show the closed e as "é" then I say them differently

ben = I

bén = mole

Futhermore even the "e" in ben=I becomes "é" sometimes when next syllable has an "i" in it.

For example:

ben-den = from me

but

bén-i = accusative of "ben"

bén-im = mine

But é is not used in our orthography at all.

İstanbul accent (Turkish language is taught only with this accent) behaves differently from the other accents and always uses ´açık e´. In İstanbul accent there is no difference between the pronunciation of ben (I) and ben (mole). Other accents use ´kapalı e´ only for the words that had once been used with i: yi- , vir- , etc. First one is now ye- (eat) and the second ver- (give).In some accents they are still with i: yimek, virdim,etc. Kapalı e is a sound between i and e. For ben (mole) has never been used with i (bin), there is no point to claim that it has ´kapalı e´. İstanbul accent behaves so differently that it may turn e into i: el (country) => il

By the way, you should not fall in mistake like saying ´açık e´ is ´long e´. Turkish vowels are always short.´Long e´ is only found in loan words.The difference between ´kapalı e´ and ´açık e´ is that ´kapalı e´ is a sound between i and e. In other words, while ´açık e´ indicates ordinary e, ´kapalı e´ indicates an intermediate tone between i and e sound. 

Turkish language also have nasal n as in ana (mother) but n in ben is ordinary n as in anne (mother).So there is no difference between the pronunciation of ben (I) and ben (mole).But it is free when one wants to make difference between them, unless he states it as a rule.      

Regarding "nörüyon" people sometimes swallow the last "n" i think, its also popular in Kastamonu region . But i havent realised any different pronounciation of "ben(me) & ben(mole)" so far. Maybe one shouldnt be a native to realise this ... 

Not really. It´s not a difference that is spoken these days anymore. The only way one would realize it, is with knowledge of the Arabic spelling of Ottoman times. Then you´d see why officially they are different. However, nowadays pronounciation is the same, unless you put suffixes. ´benim´ (my mole) and ´benim´ (mine), are pronounced differently, not the N this time, but there´s a slight differnce between the e´s. Ofcourse that also depends on who speaks

Anyway as I said, the point was not the pronounciation of ben, more an illustration of the difficulty of loanwords