Lesson 123 © Turkish Tea Time

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Debt Depression Made with love.
Being in debt is no fun. But you know what is? Consonant mutation! Join
us today as we pour radioactive waste all over some Turkish words and
watch them mutate.

Consonant mutation. Beginner

Dialog

1 | Merve Ben hep mutsuzum.

2 | Banu Neden öyle dedin şimdi?

3 | Merve Kitabımı alıyorum, koltuğa oturuyorum. Sonra birden mutsuz hissediyorum. Ağlıyorum.

4 | Banu Belki doktora ihtiyacın var. İlaca ihtiyacın var.

5 | Merve Doktora çoktan gittim. İlacı da içiyorum. Ama hala aynı.

6 | Banu Allah Allah. Sebebi ne acaba?

7 | Merve Ben biliyorum. Bankaya çok borcum var. Senedi ödemedim. Ve yakında hapse gireceğim,
biliyorum.

Dialog Translation

1 | Merve I'm always unhappy.

2 | Banu Why are you talking like this now?

 3 | Merve I'm taking my book and sitting in the chair. Then, I suddenly feel said and cry.

4 | Banu Maybe you need a doctor. You need to take medicine.

5 | Merve I already went to the doctor and I am also taking medicine. And it's still the same.

6 | Banu Geez - I wonder what the cause is?

7 | Merve I know. I have a huge debt with the bank. I didn't pay the bill and soon I will go to jail, I
know it.

Language Points

Consonant Mutation

We already know that Turkish dynamically changes the vowels in suffixes to match sounds and give Turkish its
flowing, melifluent sound. We call this vowel harmony.

There are also situations in which Turkish changes consonants to avoid certain phonetic combinations that are
difficult to say. Here are a few quick examples:

Ağaç. Ağacım.
Tree. My tree.

Kilit. Kapının kilidi.

Lock. The door's lock.

Köpek. Köpeği aldım.

Dog. I bought the dog.

When a word ends in certain consonants, adding a suffix that begins with a vowel forces it to mutate. How and
why? Read on!

Consonants that Mutate

Luckily, there are only four consonants that mutate, so they're not hard to remember. Each of these consonants
has a single corresponding letter that it always mutates into. Here they are, along with their partner letters:

p -> b
Kitap. Kitabım.

ç -> c
Ağaç. Ağacım.

t -> d
Kilit. Kilidim.

k -> ğ
Köpek. Köpeğim

These mutations occur when a word that ends with p, ç, t, or k takes a suffix that begins in a vowel (there are a lot
of suffixes that begin with a vowel: accusative, genitive, dative, personal, etc.). A suffix that does not begin with a
vowel does not force the mutation.

Ağaç. Ağaçsın. (no mutation)

Tree. You are a tree.

Köpek. Köpeksiniz. (no mutation)

Dog. You are dogs.

These rules don't just apply to nouns. In fact, you've probably already seen consonant mutation in action on two of
Turkish's most common verbs: gitmek and etmek.

Gidiyorum. Gidelim. (mutation)

Gittim. Gitsin. (no mutation)

Ediyorum. Edelim. (mutation)

Ettim. Etsin. (no mutation)

Notice that the mutation only occurs when we add a suffix that begins with a vowel.

Finally, there are exceptions to these rules - that is, there are words that don't mutate as you would expect them
to. Don't worry about it - you'll learn these relatively few words as you spend more time listening to and reading
Turkish.

İp. İpim.
String. My string. (NOT ibim.)

İçmek. İçiyorum.
 To drink. I am drinking. (NOT iciyorum.)

Atmak. Atıyorum.
To throw. I am throwing. (NOT adıyorum.)

The Technical Stuff

In case you're interested, here's a bit more information about where these mutation rules come from.

P, ç, t, and k are all sounds that are classified as oral stops. That means that when you pronounce them, they
have a definitive ending to their sound. Compare that to the other unvoiced (whispered) consonants f, s, ş, h -
which are called fricatives and have no obvious termination when you prounounce them. So, Turkish doesn't like
putting vowels after oral stops. When you compare the words that undergo consonant mutation with their
unmutated forms, you can see that they are easier to say.

All of the oral stops are unvoiced (whispered). When they mutate, they change into their voiced equivalents. b is a
voiced p. d is a voiced t. c is a voiced ç. k doesn't have a voiced equivalent so just disappears entirely (and
becomes ğ).

Vocabulary

çoktan already

ilaç medicine

birden suddenly

hissetmek to feel

ihtiyaç need

aynı same

sebep reason
borç debt

senet bill

mutsuz unhappy

Review

1. Consonant mutation. . .

a. . . . only occurs when a suffix begins with a vowel.

b. . . . always occurs when a word ends in an unvoiced consonants.

c. . . . only occurs when a suffix begins with a consonant.

d. Both 2 and 3.

2. Why don't we see consonant mutation in the verb gittim?

a. Consonant mutation only occurs with nouns.

b. Gitmek ends in a consonant that doesn't mutate.

c. Gitmek is an exception to the mutation rules.

d. The past tense -tim doesn't begin with a vowel.

3. Which of the following are examples of consonant mutation? (pick all)

a. borcum

b. ağacı

c. içiyorsun

d. kilidin

e. adınız
 f. dans edelim

4. Translate: our book (kitap). (write)

5. Translate: I bought the flower. (almak, çiçek). (write)

Answer Key

1. a
2. d
3. a b d f
4. Bizim kitabımız , Kitabımız
5. Çiçeği aldım , Ben çiçeği aldım

More. . .

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