Harfleri

Harfleri can refer to the letters of a writing system, with harf meaning letter in Turkish and harfleri being its plural form in certain grammatical contexts. In Turkish usage, the term typically denotes the letters of the modern Turkish alphabet as well as letters in writing systems more generally. Letters are the graphical units that encode phonemes and organize spoken language into written form.

The Turkish alphabet used in everyday writing consists of 29 Latin letters. It was standardized in 1928 as part of a reform to replace the Arabic script with a Latin-based alphabet. The set includes five letters with diacritics not found in basic Latin: Ç, Ş, Ö, Ü, and the distinct I and İ vowels (dotless I and dotted I). The letter Ğ (ğ with a breve) is also unique to Turkish. The eight vowel letters are A, E, I, İ, O, Ö, U, Ü; the remaining 21 are consonants: B, C, Ç, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S, Ş, T, V, Y, Z, along with the digraphs and phonetic nuances that arise from their combination.

Historically, Turkish was written with the Arabic script until the 1920s, when the switch to a Latin-based alphabet facilitated literacy and standardization. The letters themselves encode Turkish phonology, including vowel harmony and consonant voicing distinctions, while orthographic rules govern capitalization and punctuation.

In use, harfler are assembled into syllables and words according to Turkish phonology and morphology. Alphabetical order of harfler is important for indexing, dictionary organization, and pedagogy. The concept of harfleri appears across linguistics, education, typography, and language policy, reflecting the role of letters in reading, writing, and literacy.