# The Turkish stress



## marchinoberta

Hi everyone!

I'm learning Turkish with a little grammar. In my opinion it is not so bad but it doesn't explain where I have to put the stress when pronouncing a turkish word. Or better, it is said that in general stress falls on the last syllable.

This is true, as it says, _in general_ but, obviously, I'm interested in the _exceptions_... 

Thank!!


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## tristero

I'll be curious to see what other forum members have to say on this, since the issue of describing Turkish stress has always been rather difficult for linguists.  But I'll give my own brief suggestion, based on what my initial professor of Turkish suggested many years ago, and which in general seems to me to be a pretty good way not to go too far wrong:

All syllables have to be pronounced clearly, and should have relatively equal stress, the main exceptions being
   a) in negative verbs, the syllable before the negative marker gets a stress, and
   b) most place names have the stress on the first syllable

To expand on this, Turkish doesn't have the system of strongly stressed and unstressed/slurred syllables the way English and Italian do.  Americans living in Turkey, for instance, always pronounced the the name of the town Adana like "uh-DAH-nuh", as if it were Italian.  In fact, there's a very slight stress on the first syllable, but it you stress them all equally, you won't go far wrong.  Similarly, they always pronounced Kusadasi as "Ku-SHAH-duh-si", whereas again, the syllables are stressed generally equally, with a slight stress on the initial one.

Apart from placenames, the main exception is in negative verbs, so that "gittim" (I went) is stressed equally as git-tim, but the negative "gitmedim" (I didn't go) is "GIT-me-dim".

There are some other variations, such as stressing the first syllable of someone's name when calling them ("AH-met, gel buraya..."), but in general, stressing the syllables equally, but being sure to pronounce them all clearly, is a good way to be understood.

As noted, I'll be interested to see what others may have to say about this, but I think that the most important thing is that, in Turkish, the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables, when such exists, is quite small, and very different from the situation in English and Italian.


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## AlpArslan

I agree with everything tristero wrote above. Stressing in Turkish is uncommon, and if there is, it is generally in Location names.
For example:
ANkara
İZmir
ERzurum
kanAda
zonGULdak
TORba

If you stress each syllable equally, with most of the time it will be okay. Even for the words above, if you do not stress the syllables, it would not sound awkward.

I have an American friend here, who started to learn Turkish recently. Naturally, he is stressing some syllables although he doesn't need to, which creates a strange accent  So, if you try to avoid stressing, it would be much better other than trying to figure out which syllable to stress, because in my experience they are rare.


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## marchinoberta

Tristero and ArpArslan, thank you very much!


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## fahte

Here are a few hints:

- In simple nouns and people's names, the stress is usually at the last syllable. e.g.: ki-TAP, ki-tap-LIK, Ah-MET, Hü-se-YİN, Ab-dur-rah-MAN.
- In the names of places, the stress is (1) seldom at the last; (2) sometimes at the first; (3) but generally at the penultimate one. e.g.: (1) Yu-na-nis-TAN; (2) KAY-se-ri, AN-ka-ra; (3) Ma-LAT-ya, İZ-mir, Ma-Nİ-sa, Ce-ZA-yir, Ma-da-GAS-kar.
- In compound nouns (for both proper and common nouns), the stress usually goes to the last syllable of the first noun. e.g.: Ça-NAK-ka-le, Kah-ra-MAN-ma-raş, da-NA-bur-nu, ka-ZAN-di-bi


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## Outsider

See also this thread.


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## marchinoberta

Thank you all!


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## khaste_naboshi

Tristero and AlpArslan, thanks so much for the info!  Are Uzbek and Kazakh similar in that each syllable is stressed equally?


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## tristero

I can't comment on Kazakh. but in my limited experience with Uzbek, I would say that it's generally stressed in a way similar to Turkish.


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## Evros

I guess; on verbs at the end,we use stress not on last sylable.Stress is going down,when you are talking like,"eve gìdiyorum" ,so stress is going down.

On simple words,it's at the end.If noun has more than 2 syllable,than stress is going into middle.

kalè -castle
elmà - apple

iskènder - alexander
hambùrger - hamburger


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## dr.izbul

Evros said:


> I guess; on verbs at the end,we use stress not on last sylable.Stress is going down,when you are talking like,"eve gìdiyorum" ,so stress is going down.
> 
> On simple words,it's at the end.If noun has more than 2 syllable,than stress is going into middle.
> 
> kalè -castle
> elmà - apple
> 
> iskènder - alexander
> hambùrger - hamburger


 
I have to disagree with two of the above:

KA-le, isken-DER

-------------------------------------

I would imagine in no language syllables in polysyllabic words receive equal stress.

However, in very few words in Turkish, in contrast to English, syllabic stress is capable of changing the meaning, as in "GElin, geLİN geliyor!" ("Come, the bride is coming.")

In Turkish, misplaced syllabic stress goes by as "foreign accent", but that's all; it does not lead to, on the whole, incomprehensibility.

I would still, on the other hand, recommend that syllabic-stress patterns be learnt for each word individually rather than be placed behind some hard-to-memorise screening rules.


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## Evros

I think you have no idea about the stress

It is surely kaLE and isKENder ,these are considered as rules.I haven't given any expections as an example.You can ask any philologist about it.

Thanks


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## dr.izbul

Evros said:


> I think you have no idea about the stress
> 
> .You can ask any philologist about it.


 
KA-leyi kuşattık. Topu KA-leye gönderdi. Estergon KAL'esi. 

but, ka-LE gibi sağlam.

--------------------------

iskenDER kebabı, arkadaşımın adı İskenDER,

Kardeşim İsKENder! YAP-ma bunu!

-------------------------

I am a bit of a "philologist" myself, humbly admitted.


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## Evros

Well,i will not write more about this,but;

You said "KAleyi kuşattık" but it is "kaLEyi kuşattık" .Your way sounds like hungarian.
Estergon kaLEsi .. first syllable is absolutly not stressed here.


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## dr.izbul

Evros said:


> Well,i will not write more about this


 
Might be a good idea. 



Evros said:


> Your way sounds like hungarian.


 
Oh, yes. Pure blood ever since Attila the Hun.


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## Evros

As to mention,in general,stress in hungarian is in "first" syllable,but in turkish it's on "last" syllable.
A hungarian would read the word "kitap" as KItap ,in turkish it's kiTAP

ps: you may speak english well,but i can't ignore your mistakes about turkish.

Thanks


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