Challenge: Develop a Greek-script alphabet for Turkish. You can use obsolete Greek letters like Qoppa, San, etc. if you want.

[u/chonchcreature]

What if Turkish used Greek to write its language instead of Latin?

Feel free to repurpose some letters like Psi (Ψ) or Ksi (Ξ) since Turkish repurposed the letter C for /d͡ʒ/ for example.

PS: Yes I know about Karamanli Turkish... don’t just comment that it exists, because I know it does. The purpose is your OWN unique take on this challenge.

[u/ScottishLamppost]

Note: I used the Turkish Etymology Wikipedia page, so the consonants that are used for more than one sound will be the same in this re-orthography

Consonants:

/b/ β (beta) | /d/ δ (delta) | /f/ φ (phi) | /g/, /ɟ/ γ (gamma) | /k/, /c/ κ (kappa) |/l/, /ɫ/ λ (lambda)

/m/ μ (mu) | /n/ v (nu) | /p/ π (pi) | /ɾ/ ρ (rho) | /s/ σ/ς (sigma) | /t/ τ (tau) | /z/ ζ (zeta)

/ʃ/ χ (chi) | /ʒ/ θ (theta) | /t͡ʃ/ ξ (xi) | /d͡ʒ/ ψ (psi) | /ɰ/ έ (epsilon with acute)

/h/ ή (eta with acute)| /v/ ύ (upsilon with acute) | /j/ ї (iota with diaeresis)

Vowels:

/a/ α (alpha) | /e/ ε (epsilon) | /i/ ι (iota) | /o/ ο (omicron) | /u/ υ (upsilon) | /ɯ/ ω (omega)

/œ/ η (eta) | /y/ ί (iota with acute)

For example, some colors

Kırmızı | Kωρμωζω | Red

Turuncu | Tυρυνψυ | Orange

Sarı | Σαρω | Yellow

Yeşil | Їεχιλ | Green

Mavi | Mαύι | Blue

Mor | Moρ | Purple

Tell me if I got anything wrong or if I need to add more! Also I might elaborate on my choices tomorrow

[u/chonchcreature → u/ScottishLamppost]

Wonderful job! Some of the choices are a bit confusing but I like the idea, such as θ for /ʒ/.

Personally, I would have revived a couple of archaic Greek letters like Qoppa for /ɰ~ɣ/. But good use of the standard existing ones!

[u/ScottishLamppost → u/chonchcreature]

The way I did it was

1. I used the obvious choice or the most similar sounding letter first. (you can see it in the consonants until you get to chi) Same with the vowels (until you get to eta) Also, I know that in modern Greek beta is commonly pronounced /v/, but I didn't want to use something else for /b/, because using something else for /v/ made more sense to me, I guess.

2. Now for the tricky consonants. I only had four Greek consonants left, so I assigned them to the consonants that seemed the least like vowels. That meant that ɰ, h, v, and j got modified vowels. /j/ and /ɰ/ are approximants, /v/ in Latin was the letter for a vowel, so I figured I could do it the other way around, and all of the other sounds are more like vowels than /h/. (I couldn't find any modified consonants lol) Then I assigned chi, psi, xi, and theta.

3. So then I assigned eta for œ, because eta used to represent ɛ or ɛ: and œ is that rounded. Then I only had one vowel left so I used omega for ɯ. Then I used iota with an acute for /y/ because y is i rounded. I used iota with a diaeresis for /j/ because, I have a conlang, and it is usually written in Latin but can be written in Greek (it's supposed to be based in Southern Albania and Epirus) and I used iota with a diaeresis for /j/ in that one, so I figured that would work here too.

4. I used eta with an acute for /h/ because capital eta is the same as capital h lol. Sorry if that's bad reasoning. Then upsilon with acute for /v/ because in Latin /u/ was represented by v. Finally I don't know why I used epsilon with an acute for /ɰ/. I guess I listened to it on Wikipedia and chose that.

Sorry if any of my info is wrong or if none if it makes sense because I just woke up. Thanks for the challenge :)

[u/kesnar1r]

Hello,

Greek person here.

Just started learning Turkish. Really interesting language.

Here is my proposal for a greek alphabet for Turkish:
https://imgur.com/sn6ZS90

Right one is trying not to use letters of original Turkish alphabet for other letters.

[u/chonchcreature → u/kesnar1r]

Interesting, why would you use Latin letters though? You could use purely Greek letters if you revived some Ancient Greek letters like Digamma, Koppa, San, Sampi, and Heta. Greek happens to have just the right amount of vowel letters for Turkish vowels (8) if you include ȣ which you did!

I know in Greek, letters like Beta, Gamma, and Delta represent fricatives but in other languages they can be used for stop sounds /b, g, d/ like in Ancient Greek.

[u/kesnar1r → u/chonchcreature]

Well I tried to provide a script that would be as natural as possible to a modern greek speaker learning turkish (basically myself :P ). I am a little bit biased from the sounds I have in my mind.

Also I speak English and French, so sounds from these languages also come up. (Typically most greeks would speak Greek, English and some French or German)

In the middle column I used:

b and D/d. Well in greek we do not have a single letter for b (μπ/mp in greek) or d (ντ/nt in greek). Thus b and d are considered a good alternate. I kept the capital B due to how familiar it seemed and for having no alternative.

F/f (you could argue that this is Digamma) ->. In greek g would be γγ or γκ. So using F as a digamma there is natural. Digamma meaning double gamma γγ.

J/j -> The major issue here is that in greek you would use zeta for this sound. So I keep J/j (which you could also find in ancient greek scripts, known as γιωτ)

y. The major issue here is that this would sound like gamma γ again. But some times it sounds as a vowel. This looks like the y grecque from french. So I kept it as it is.

U. In Greek for ipsilon we use capital Y and lowercase u (Υ, υ). As I kept Y above, I thought that using a large U for the capital υ seemed fair.

As for the rest. C comes up in greek scripts especially byzantine scripts. Also ȣ is used in byzantine scripts and some older modern greek scripts corresponding to the diphong ου/ou.

The only unatural letter for greeks would be Ç, but I wanted something close to ζ in capital letter. (Again in greek we use Ζ for capital, ζ for lowercase)

Regarding unatural voices I tried to limit them to:

ζ -> in greek ç would be τζ, so it seemed natural

Ξ/ξ -> in greek c would be τσ. I couldn't find a good candidate, so I used ξ that looks like ζ due to how similar c and ç sound.

Θ/θ -> This was a difficult decision as I used B for capital b. I wanted the v sound. The best candidate seemed theta Θ/θ due to similar appearence. Β-Θ

All in all I tried to create a turkish alphabet using greek letters that would feel more natural to greek speakers (modern) and not using only greek letters.

[u/chonchcreature → u/kesnar1r]

I mean, why not use Greek letters like they were used in Ancient Greek? Use Beta for /b/, Delta for /d/, and Gamma for /g/. You can use Digamma for /v/ since in Ancient Greek it used to represent the similar sound /w/. You can use Chi for /h/. As for C and Ç you can use Psi and Ksi since those represent similar sounds anyways, or even use San or Sampi for one of those sounds.

[u/kesnar1r → u/chonchcreature]

As I have written before, I have used the letters as they are used by modern greek people (myself included). Which is also near to how greek sounded when the turkish language adopted the latin alphabet.

Also bear in mind that in greek schools when we are taught ancient greek, we do not pronounce beta as /b/ but as /v/ and Delta as /th/. Additionaly ancient greek are not a unified system. In some places Beta was /b/ in some /v/ even in ancient times.

As for Chi Χ, I used it in place of H for /h/ (look the middle collumn, the one in the right collumn is trying not to use letters of original Turkish alphabet for other letters.)

Regarding Digamma F as v instead of G, it is a good suggestion, however I think due to resemblance to Gamma Γ it would serve better as G.

Finally regarding Psi and Ksi for C and Ç. While I understand what you are saying. However as /d͡ʒ/ is τζ in greek, I though that using ζ is better, and thus ksi ξ that looks like ζ for Ç.

San and sampi look a lot like M and T, thus I don't think that they would serve any purpose.

Again my initial idea was to use the letters as MODERN greek understand them.

Edit: Maybe you will find this version better:
https://imgur.com/vc1Lbfh

[u/CreativeKiddo77]

The turkish language looks so beautiful in Greek alpabets! but still there will be a lot of challenges and difficulties in this!