Turkish is spoken in Republic of Türkiye (previously known as Turkey), Northern Cyprus, and as a minority language in many countries within the former borders of the Ottoman Empire. There are many dialects spread over a very large geography, which can be grouped into three, namely Eastern, Northeast, and Western Turkish. Turkish is characterized by 21 consonants and eight vowels. There are a number of studies of children’s acquisition of Turkish that demonstrate Turkish children acquire certain phonemes and affixes quite early presumably due to being an agglutinative language. There are few studies focusing on speech sound disorders, childhood apraxia of speech, cleft lip and palate, and hearing loss. Common speech assessments include the Türkçe Sesletim-Sesbilgisi Testi-SST [Turkish Articulation and Phonology Test] and the Ankara Artikülasyon Testi-AAT [Ankara Articulation Test] in addition to using family interview, other standardized tests, and instrumental assessments (nasopharyngoscopy, nasometer, and acoustic measurements). Interventions include traditional articulation therapy, auditory discrimination, minimal pairs, maximal opposition, multiple oppositions, core vocabulary, stimulability treatment, Rapid Syllable Transition Training (ReST) and Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT).

Key words: 
Turkish, multilingual, communication, speech, language, children’s development, interdisciplinary, international communities, assessment, intervention

Book chapter:
Zengin-Bolatkale, H., Ünal Logacev, Ö., & Topbaş, S. (2025). Turkish speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.

Language overview presentation:

• Zengin-Bolatkale, H., Ünal Logacev, Ö., & Topbaş, S. (2024). Turkish: Multilingual children’s speech development. Charles Sturt University, Australia. https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/languages
• Video: Turkish [Turkish version] – Children’s Speech Development
• Video: Turkish [English version] – Children’s Speech Development
• PowerPoint: Turkish [Turkish version] – Children’s Speech Development (pdf)
• PowerPoint: Turkish [English version] – Children’s Speech Development (pdf)

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 17: Partnerships to Achieve the Goals