kelime

Kelime is the Turkish term for “word” and denotes the basic unit of meaning in a language. In Turkish, a kelime is typically a single lexical item that can function independently in speech or writing, but many words are formed through agglutination by attaching suffixes to a root. The base form of a kelime is its kök (root), which can take various affixes to express tense, number, mood, person, voice, and other grammatical categories.

The word kelime has its etymological roots in the Arabic kalima, meaning “word,” and entered Turkish through historical contact with Persian and Arabic literary and scholarly traditions. In Turkish dictionaries and linguistic work, kelime is treated as the umbrella term for lexical items and their inflected forms, which may be single words or multi-mylled sequences in a single orthographic unit.

In usage, kelime is sometimes distinguished from sözcük, a closely related term. While both can translate to “word” in English, sözcük is commonly used in everyday language, and kelime appears more in formal, linguistic, or lexicographic contexts. A kelime can be a noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, or other part of speech, and many Turkish kelimeler form new words through derivation or compounding (birleşik kelimeler).

Turkish phonology and morphology allow kelimeler to carry rich information through suffix sequences, resulting in substantial word forms that convey meaning within a single word. Examples include kitap (book), kitaplar (books), kitaplarımda (in my books), and öğrenmek (to learn).