science

Turklish

Turklish is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Turklish rather than just read about it. In short: Turklish (a portmanteau of "Turkish" and "English") refers to the language contact phenomenon that occurs primarily where native Turkish speakers frequently communicate in English. The term was first recorded in 1994.

Key takeaways

Turklish belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Turklish to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Turklish from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Turklish (a portmanteau of "Turkish" and "English") refers to the language contact phenomenon that occurs primarily where native Turkish speakers frequently communicate in English. The term was first recorded in 1994. Turklish is found in Turkish expatriate communities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand. Australia, among the students of the many English speaking universities, high schools and corporations of Istanbul and other major cities. To a lesser extent, the same phenomenon can be observed in expatriate communities in Turkey. At times, English idioms and proverbs are directly translated into Turkish, and vice versa. Also, the gender distinction between English third person pronouns in Turklish is sometimes (though not always) non-existent, a characteristic derived from Turkish, meaning the different pronouns can be used interchangeably.

Code-switching Turklish speakers borrow a considerable amount of their vocabulary from English while speaking Turkish. It is not uncommon for a speaker of Turklish to frequently switch back and forth between the two languages, sometimes mid-sentence, a practice known as code-switching.

A study of New York City Turkish-English bilinguals found that intra-sentential code-switching was more prevalent that inter-sentential code-switching. Notably, all code-switched sentences retained grammatical rules of either Turkish or English. An example of intra-sentential code-switching can be demonstrated below:"Yani o da böyle coincidence gibi birşey." (I mean it was like a coincidence.)

The role of the Internet Turklish has a long history of being used in online communities. In 2013, Turkish-English memes became popular on X to protest the government, inspired from popular American culture movements. Scholars have hypothesized these English borrowings serve to fill the gaps of new "internet-themed" vocabulary in Turkish. In posts found on X, most of the English words and phrases refer to the webpage, technology and the Internet activity.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Turklish

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Turklish claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Turklish before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Turklish ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Turklish

In research: Turklish appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Turklish in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Turklish is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics English language stubs, Macaronic forms of English, Macaronic language, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Turklish outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Turklish in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Turklish means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Turklish out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Turklish in simple terms?

Why does Turklish matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Turklish?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Turklish.