Locale Tr 001

Reference data for the Turkish locale — endonym Türkçe, written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: tr-001
• ISO 639-1: tr
• ISO 639-3: tur
• Script: Latn (Latin)
• Region: 001 (World)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 85,000,000
• L2 (additional): 6,000,000
• L1+L2 (total): 91,000,000

Regional variants

This is the base/macro locale for Turkish. Region-specific variants in this dataset:

• Locale Tr Tr (Turkish (Turkey))

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).

• one — n = 1 (e.g. 1)
• other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Turkish is an agglutinative Turkic language written in the Latin script, with vowel harmony, no grammatical gender, and subject-object-verb order. The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK) publishes the Yazım Kılavuzu (spelling guide) and the Güncel Türkçe Sözlük (https://sozluk.gov.tr). See Locale Tr Tr.

Translate ideas, not words.

• Turkish builds meaning with suffix chains on a stem, not with auxiliaries and prepositions. English prepositional phrases become case suffixes (bilgisayarda, dosyadan, kullanıcı için); English relative clauses become participial phrases before the noun (kaydettiğiniz dosya for "the file that you saved"). Do not keep the English order.
• Turkish relies on noun-verb compounds with etmek and yapmak (kontrol etmek, ziyaret etmek); use the natural verb, and avoid mechanical yapmak for "make" and "do".
• Turkish avoids the English passive when an active form is natural; where used, the passive is formed with -il/-in (Dosya silindi).
• Turkish drops subject pronouns (Değişiklikleri kaydettik).
• Re-express idioms by meaning: "it's a piece of cake" is "çocuk oyuncağı" or "bir su içimi kadar kolay".

Grammar that trips translators.

• Vowel harmony: suffix vowels follow the last vowel of the stem (front/back, rounded/unrounded) in -lar/-ler, -da/-de, -ı/-i/-u/-ü. Wrong harmony is a visible error, especially with loanwords and acronyms, whose harmony follows pronunciation.
• The plural suffix is not used after a numeral or quantifier (iki dosya, birçok kullanıcı). Plural categories: one and other. See Unicode Messageformat.
• Suffixes attach to proper names and acronyms with an apostrophe (Ankara'da, TDK'nın), but not to common nouns.
• The -miş past marks inferred or reported information, and -di marks directly witnessed events. Choose the one that fits.
• There is no grammatical gender and no articles; bir marks indefiniteness only where needed.

Register.

• Siz (polite or plural) is the default for UI, support, banking, and public text; sen (informal) appears in some youth, gaming, and consumer brands. Do not mix them. Imperative with siz is Kaydedin; with sen it is Kaydet.
• Turkish business writing is courteous: Lütfen, Sayın (Dear), Saygılarımızla (Sincerely). Add Bey and Hanım after first names.
• UI commands use the imperative or a noun form for buttons (Kaydet, Kaydetme).

Orthography and typography.

• Dotted and dotless i are separate letters: I ı and İ i. Case mapping is locale-sensitive: uppercase i is İ, and uppercase ı is I. Use a locale-aware case function, or title strings become wrong ("KİTAP", not "KITAP").
• Use ğ, ş, ç, ö, ü, ı, İ; never replace them with ASCII look-alikes.
• Numbers: decimal comma, period for thousands (1.234,56); currency ₺12,50 (symbol before the amount in CLDR); dates 17 Ekim 2026 or 17.10.2026; 24-hour clock.
• Month and day names in specific dates are capitalized (17 Ekim 2026); check the TDK guide for other cases.
• Quotation marks “…” or «…».

Common pitfalls

• Missing vowel harmony or wrong suffix forms with loanwords.
• Using a plural after a numeral.
• Wrong casing of dotted and dotless i.
• Keeping English relative clauses and prepositions.
• Mixing siz and sen.
• Using an apostrophe with common nouns, or omitting it with proper names.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Türk Dil Kurumu (TDK), Yazım Kılavuzu and Güncel Türkçe Sözlük (https://sozluk.gov.tr)
• Microsoft Localization Style Guide, Turkish (https://aka.ms/turkish-styleguide)