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Article published In: Written Language & Literacy
Vol. 27:1 (2024) ► pp.64–88

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Testing the waters

Two measures of orthographic depth in Turkish

 | Tilburg University
Published online: 3 June 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00083.ter
Abstract
A well-known Turkish saying states that “Turkish is written the way it is read and it is read the way it is written”; however, not many investigations have been completed to test this assumption. The current study aims to question the transparency of Turkish orthography with two measures. Firstly, a word-initial entropy analysis is carried out. Then secondly, the ratio of transparent words among the most frequently occurring words in children- and adult-oriented written texts is investigated. The results indicate that Turkish is quite transparent word-initially, but when the whole words are considered, its transparency decreases. Only about 75 to 81% of the most frequently used words in written texts are transparent. This demonstrates that Turkish orthography, while still highly transparent, might not be as transparent as previously assumed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Word-initial entropy
    • 1.2Turkish
    • 1.3Current study
  • 2.Study 1: Word-initial entropy
    • 2.1Method
      • 2.1.1Sample
    • 2.2Analysis & results
    • 2.3Discussion
  • 3.Study 2
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Sample
      • 3.1.2Analysis
    • 3.2Results & discussion
      • 3.2.1Words with the grapheme <ğ>
      • 3.2.2Words with the graphemes <y> and <h>
      • 3.2.3Words with long vowels
      • 3.2.4Words with vowel clusters
      • 3.2.5Words with vowel substitution
      • 3.2.6Words with vowel addition
      • 3.2.7Words with vowel deletion
      • 3.2.8Words with palatal consonantals
      • 3.2.9Words with consonant clusters
      • 3.2.10Words with consonant substitution
      • 3.2.11Words with consonant deletion
      • 3.2.12Words with undetermined patterns
      • 3.2.13Words with multiple patterns
  • 4.General discussion
  • References
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