Is Turkish Related to Arabic? Loanwords and False Friends for Arabic Speakers

Is Turkish related to Arabic?

No. Turkish and Arabic come from different language families. Glottolog, a reference catalogue of the world’s languages, places Turkish in the Oghuz branch of the Turkic family, next to Azerbaijani and Turkmen. It places Arabic in the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family, the branch that also holds Hebrew.

The words the two languages share were borrowed. Turkish took them from Arabic over centuries, and the sections below show how many, how their sounds changed, and which ones changed meaning. Borrowing does not make two languages related: English took a large part of its vocabulary from French and is still a Germanic language.

Grammar shows the difference most clearly. Arabic builds words from a root and a pattern. Turkish adds suffixes, one after another, to a stem that does not change: ev (house), evler (houses), evlerimiz (our houses). The vowels of the suffixes follow the vowels of the stem. This is vowel harmony, and Arabic has nothing like it.

Some older books join Turkic with Mongolic and Tungusic in an “Altaic” family. Glottolog lists Turkic as a family of its own, and no classification puts Arabic in it.

How many Turkish words come from Arabic

Dursunoğlu counts 6,463 Arabic-origin words among the 104,481 entries of TDK’s 2005 Güncel Türkçe Sözlük. That is about 6% of the dictionary. He notes that no other source language has more entries in it.

The figure counts dictionary entries. It says nothing about how often you will hear them. Some are legal, religious or literary terms, and some are dated. Many everyday words are on the list too, and the next section gives examples.

Turks began borrowing Arabic words after they adopted Islam. Ottoman Turkish, written in Arabic script until 1928, took words from Arabic and Persian alike. Dursunoğlu adds that some words changed so much that an Arab would no longer recognise them.

Persian is the trap. Some words an Arabic speaker would guess are Arabic are Persian in TDK’s dictionary: hasta (ill), şehir (city) and pencere (window). Others join the two languages. Kütüphane (library) is Arabic kutub (كتب, books) plus Persian hâne (house).

Since the language reform of the 1930s, many Arabic words have a partner built from Turkish. TDK’s entry for ilim (science) sends you to bilim, and mektep (school) sends you to okul. Okul is the word you will hear for school today.

To check a word yourself, look it up in the Güncel Türkçe Sözlük at sozluk.gov.tr. Each entry names the source language and the original form, as in kitap, from Arabic kitāb. Every origin in this post comes from those entries.

Turkish in Arabic letters, until 1928

For centuries Turkish was written in Arabic script. Ottoman Turkish used the Arabic letters together with letters Persian adds, such as پ, چ and ژ for p, ç and j, and it kept the original spelling of Arabic and Persian loanwords.

The Arabic letters fit Turkish vowels badly. Arabic script writes long vowels and usually leaves short ones out, and Turkish has eight vowels. A single letter, و, could stand for o, ö, u, ü or v.

Law No. 1353, adopted on 1 November 1928, replaced “the Arabic letters used until now to write Turkish” with Turkish letters taken from the Latin alphabet. The deadlines were short. Newspapers, signs and advertisements had to use the new letters from 1 December 1928, and books from 1 January 1929.

Modern Turkish is written left to right in the 29 letters of the Turkish alphabet, and its spelling follows pronunciation closely. Your Arabic reading does not carry over, but the alphabet is quick to learn.

• The Turkish Alphabet: 29 Letters and How They Sound

Everyday words you already know

The words in this table are in daily use, and TDK gives Arabic as the source of each. Most kept their core meaning. Some added a sense: hava is air, and also the weather.

Expect the vowels to look unfamiliar. Arabic has three vowels, a, i and u, and Turkish has eight. So an Arabic a can come out as e or a (kelime, kalem), and an i as e (hesap, from حساب).

How Arabic sounds changed in Turkish

Turkish has no ع, ح, خ or ق, and none of the emphatic consonants ص, ض, ط and ظ. Each was replaced by the nearest Turkish sound. The replacements are regular enough to fit in the table below.

ح and خ are different sounds in Arabic. ح is made deep in the throat. خ is made higher up, where the back of the tongue meets the soft palate or the uvula. Turkish has neither, so both became h: hayat (حياة), haber (خبر). A few words turned خ into k instead, like kalfa (journeyman, foreman) from خليفة.

ق and ك both became k. The old difference sometimes survives in the spelling. Before a long a, ك often gave a fronted k, shown by a circumflex on the vowel (kâ), as in kâtip (كاتب) and dükkân (دكان). ق gives the ordinary k of kalem and kadı.

At the end of a word, Arabic ب, د and ج usually became p, t and ç: kitap, evlat (أولاد), ihtiyaç (احتياج). Before a suffix that starts with a vowel, the voiced sound comes back: kitabı, evladı, ihtiyacı. TDK shows this in the entry, as kitap, -bı.

Words that end in two consonants in Arabic gained a vowel between them: fikir (فكر), akıl (عقل), isim (اسم), sabır (صبر). Words that end in a doubled consonant lost one: hak (حق), his (حس). Add a suffix that starts with a vowel and the Arabic shape returns: fikri, aklı, ismi, hakkı, hissi. Dursunoğlu lists dozens of each.

ة became t in some words (devlet, saat, hayat) and a final e or a in others (kelime, hediye). A few Arabic words also break vowel harmony and take front suffixes although their last vowel is a. So saat gives saati and saatler, and kalp gives kalbi. The dictionary entry warns you, as saat, -ti.

False friends

A borrowed word keeps its form longer than its meaning. The words in this table look like Arabic words you know, but they mean something else in Turkish. The Turkish meanings are the ones TDK gives.

Some began as Arabic plurals and are singular in Turkish. Evlat (أولاد) is one child, talebe (طلبة) one student, and ahbap (أحباب) one friend. Esnaf (أصناف) is a shopkeeper or tradesperson. They take the Turkish plural on top: evlatlar, talebeler.

Others kept part of the Arabic sense. Sefer (سفر) is a journey, but bu sefer means “this time”. Sanat (صنعة) means art in Turkish, where the Arabic word means a craft or trade.

Cami comes from جامع and means a mosque. University is جامعة in Arabic and üniversite, from French, in Turkish.

Some of the most confusing pairs are about how people treat each other. Ihanet (إهانة) is betrayal, and an insult is hakaret (حقارة). Teyit (تأييد) is confirmation, as in teyit etmek, “to confirm”. Rica (رجاء) is a request, close to the Arabic plea, but rica ederim, a common reply to teşekkürler, means “you are welcome”.

Sounds Arabic does not prepare you for

Turkish has consonants that Standard Arabic lacks: p, ç (as in church), v, g and the rare j. In Turkish, p and b tell words apart, as in pul (stamp) and bul (find).

The vowels need the most practice. Turkish has eight: a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u and ü. e and o are familiar from spoken Arabic (بيت، يوم); ı, ö and ü have no Arabic match at all. ı is like i said with the tongue pulled back and the lips spread, ö is e with rounded lips, and ü is i with rounded lips.

Some letters look familiar and are not. c is ج as it is said in Standard Arabic, as in cuma (Friday). ş is ش. j is the softer ج of Levantine speech, and it is rare, mostly in French loans.

ğ is never غ. It lengthens the vowel before it, so dağ (mountain) sounds close to daa. In some Arabic words, غ became this ğ, as in mağara (مغارة, cave) and mağlup (مغلوب, defeated).

Word order: the verb usually comes last

Word order is where Arabic helps least. Formal Arabic often starts with the verb (قرأ أحمد الكتاب), and everyday Arabic often starts with the subject. Turkish usually puts the verb last: Ahmet kitabı okudu, “Ahmet read the book”.

Göksel and Kerslake describe Turkish as head-final. The main word of a phrase comes at its end, and everything that describes it comes before. So Turkish runs in the opposite direction to Arabic at almost every level.

The possessor comes first: Ahmet’in kitabı, where Arabic says كتاب أحمد. An adjective comes before its noun: büyük ev, “big house”. Turkish uses postpositions after the noun, not prepositions before it: ev için, “for the house”.

A relative clause also comes before its noun, and it has no word like الذي. Okuduğum kitap is “the book I read”, where Arabic says الكتاب الذي قرأته.

Subject, object, verb is the usual order, not a fixed one. Word order shows emphasis. The word just before the verb carries the focus, so Kitabı Ahmet okudu means it was Ahmet who read the book.

In speech, words often follow the verb. Turkish grammar calls this a devrik cümle, an inverted sentence: Okudum o kitabı, “I read that book”. The words after the verb are usually ones the listener already knows about.

What Arabic grammar will not carry over

Arabic builds words from roots and patterns, so كتب gives كاتب, مكتوب and مكتب. Turkish borrowed such words whole, as kâtip (clerk), mektup (letter) and mektep (school). It does not build new words that way.

Turkish words grow by adding suffixes to a stem that does not change. From yaz- (write) come yazar (writer) and yazı (writing). The root helps you recognise a word, but you cannot shuffle its consonants into a pattern.

Turkish has no grammatical gender. O means he, she or it, and neither verbs nor adjectives change for gender.

There is no word for “the”. A specific direct object takes the accusative ending instead: kitabı okudum is “I read the book”, while kitap okudum means “I read a book (or did some reading)”, with no particular book in mind.

There is no dual, and after a number the noun stays singular. Two books is iki kitap, never iki kitaplar.

In Dilsever, the interface can be set to Arabic, and each of the 4,374 curriculum words shows its Arabic meaning. When a false friend comes up, the gloss is where you notice it.

Is Turkish an Arabic language?

No. Turkish is a Turkic language, and Arabic is Semitic. Turkish borrowed many Arabic words: Dursunoğlu counts 6,463 Arabic-origin entries in TDK’s 2005 dictionary, about 6% of it. Its grammar is Turkic, and so are basic words like bir (one), su (water) and göz (eye).

Is Turkish easy for Arabic speakers?

Easier in vocabulary, not in grammar. You will recognise many words, as the tables above show, but you still have to learn eight vowels, suffixes that stack, and a verb that usually comes last. How long it takes depends on the hours you put in, and the post on how long Turkish takes explains the State Department figure and what it measures.

• How Long Does It Take to Learn Turkish? What the Numbers Measure

Which Turkish words look Arabic but mean something else?

Fakat means “but”, not “only”. Misafir is a guest, not a traveller. Ihanet is betrayal, not an insult, and the insult is hakaret. The false friends table above lists 24 such words, each with its meaning in both languages.

Was Turkish ever written in Arabic letters?

Yes. Ottoman Turkish was written in Arabic script. Law No. 1353 of 1 November 1928 replaced it with the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, and books had to be printed in the new letters from 1 January 1929.

Did Turkish take more words from Arabic or from Persian?

From Arabic. Dursunoğlu finds more Arabic-origin entries in TDK’s dictionary than entries from any other source language. Persian gave fewer, but some of them are everyday words an Arabic speaker might take for Arabic: hasta (ill), şehir (city) and pencere (window).