ciftleri

Çiftleri is a Turkish noun form derived from çift, meaning a pair or couple. The standard plural is çiftler. The form çiftleri occurs when the plural noun bears the accusative case or a possessive suffix in third-person plural, as in Çiftleri gördüm (I saw the pairs) or Onların çiftleri (their pairs). Turkish uses suffixes to indicate case and possession rather than articles, so definiteness is derived from context.

Origin and related terms: The root çift denotes two or a division into two parts, and it underpins many related Turkish words such as çifleşme (mating or pairing), çiftçilik (farming), çiftçi (farmer), and çif tlik (farm or estate). The semantic core of çift involves pairing, doubling, or duality, which also informs phrases describing paired objects or social couples.

Usage in language and toponymy: Beyond its grammatical uses, the root appears in place names and surnames in Turkish. The form Çiftler has appeared in village or neighborhood names in various regions, reflecting historical land divisions or agricultural heritage. In contemporary Turkish, çiftleri is primarily a grammatical form, and its exact meaning is determined by its syntactic role in a sentence.