1887
Volume 27, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1387-6732
  • E-ISSN: 1570-6001
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Abstract

Abstract

A well-known Turkish saying states that “Turkish is written the way it is read and it is read the way it is written”; however, not many investigations have been completed to test this assumption. The current study aims to question the transparency of Turkish orthography with two measures. Firstly, a word-initial entropy analysis is carried out. Then secondly, the ratio of transparent words among the most frequently occurring words in children- and adult-oriented written texts is investigated. The results indicate that Turkish is quite transparent word-initially, but when the whole words are considered, its transparency decreases. Only about 75 to 81% of the most frequently used words in written texts are transparent. This demonstrates that Turkish orthography, while still highly transparent, might not be as transparent as previously assumed.

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2025-06-03
2025-06-24
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