There are many problems faced by students of English, none more pervasive than those posed by first language interference. With regards to the twin skills of reading and writing, one of the most obvious problems with which a new student may wrestle is that of a new alphabet. The obvious difficulties faced by someone literate in Chinese (for example) would be those of learning a whole new graphologic system, the issue is much slighter when confronting a student literate in say Italian (where the alphabet is virtually identical). The middle-ground of these two extremes is found among speakers of languages whose alphabets are very similar to that of English in some aspects, and are yet quite different in others. Using the middle-ground language of Turkish, the difficulties faced by readers and writers of languages with a similar alphabet to English can be examined and illustrated.
One of the first difficulties that a Turkish reader faces when reading English text is with the variety of English sounds coming from a single letter. There are eight vowel letters in Turkish and there are eight vowel sounds, each logically corresponding to the according letters. English, by contrast, has five vowel letters and fourteen vowel sounds, making the spelling rules hard to remember and almost impossible to anticipate. Consider the pronunciations of the English “i” in the words Fish, Ion, and Education. The sounds include the phonemes /ı/, /i/ and /ə/. In Turkish, as in many other languages, there is a strong connection between a single letter and a single sound. As has been observed, if you pronounce “gh” like in the word enough and “o” as in women, accompanied by “ti” as in function, then ghoti would be pronounced fish. This issue is a problem for all learners of English, but more so when they come from a graphological tradition that has more rigid rules.
For Turks who have a single sound that comes from the letter “i” and another from “ı,” this is a special issue, as the diacritic marks change the sound of the letter from /i/ to /ɯ/. This same diacritic phenomenon occurs with two additional vowels “o” is pronounced /o/, but “ö” is pronounced /Ø/. Lastly “u” is pronounced /u/ and “ü” is pronounced /y/. The strict observation of spoken and written sounds in their native language makes the English capacity for variety seem frustrating and somewhat inaccurate, if not outright dishonest.
A third facet to the problem of a similar written language is that sometimes the same letter can have different sounds in the two languages. In Turkish, the letter “c” is always pronounced /ʤ/ and “j” is pronounced /J/. Another example is that the letter “y” is always pronounced /j/ as in Yokel and never /i/ as in funny. The English ambiguity with “y” is somewhat confusing to the student, but the regulations of “c” and “j” is a nuance that could quite easily carry over into the new language without being noticed by an overworked teacher.
After the initial issues of spelling and pronunciation are addressed, the second tier of reading and writing problems emerges, and that level consists of present and absent letters. There are three consonants in the English alphabet which do not exist in the Turkish: Q, W and X. The sound made by English “x” is handled in loanwords like Taksi (Taxi) and Meksika (Mexico) by making do with the Turkish letters that exist. There are, however some English words that would don’t always use the letter “x” for the normal sound, “Tacks” and “Tax” being a homophonic example where the same improvising phenomenon occurs in English. The bilabial glide of “w” doesn’t exist in Turkish and is always substituted by the labiodental fricative “v.” The sounds are very similar in the Turcophone’s phonemic register, and while this won’t emerge in reading tasks, in writing assignments there will be consistent spelling errors when the students tries to substitute one for the other in what amounts to little more than a guessing game of spelling. The letter “q” presents similar problems, but is dealt with in the same way as “x.” The English loanword kwanza illustrates a pan-Africanist rejection of the offending letter, and show how the literate Turkish speaker would likely adapt to the new sounds.
There are three consonants that exist in Turkish but not in English. Two of them fall easily into the English phonemic register and represent no significant problems for the Turkish student. “ç” is pronounced /tʃ/ and “ş” is pronounced /ʃ/ leaving little room for problems, save in exceptional words like chemical or school. The third consonant is “ğ” which serves to elongate the proceeding vowel, this is not generally an issue with most English words, but could emerge with the graphicization of diphthongs like loud.
The third problem of spelling comes from the convergence of English and Turkish morphology. In English, the alveolar stops “t” and “d” have a fair bit of overlap, as they do in Turkish. In the word appeared the final “d” retains the /d/ quality to it, whereas in walked, the “d” takes on the sound of /t/. In the Canadian accent of English, the “tt” sound in better, butter, Ottawa or Ottoman becomes /d/. A similar morphing takes place in Turkish. “Git” is Turkish for “Go,” but when the suffix “iyor” is added to the verb root, indicating that the action takes place in the present continuous tense, rather than becoming “Gitiyorum,” it’s written and pronounced as “Gidiyorum.” The “t” becomes a “d” in mouth and pen. The difference between the two languages, is that the in Turkish, the spoken change is expressed in the written word, as opposed to English, where the phoneme is understood.
The last challenge is represented by punctuation. These are simple differences, that need to be told explicitly to the students, but once taught, don’t need much repeat or practice. In Turkish, there is no space after a comma. This becomes a problem for students writing lists. “I went to the store to buy milk,sugar,eggs and a yellow,wool sweater.” They need to be told once how it’s done in English, and then the problem is solved. There is also no space after a full stop, it’s a similar issue. Another example of punctuation is the percentage symbol. In Turkish, the symbol precedes the number, so the sale at the shop is “%50 Off” all shoes, and in English it’s “50% off.” The final example is the use of the comma in mathematics, it’s used as a decimal spot. ∏ = 3,14... instead of 3.14... The three sequential dots at the end still indicates going off into the wilderness. This punctuation convention is a problem for large numbers, for example 1,456,873.290,184.
The problem of coming to English from a similar alphabet is multi-faceted, but is summed up in the term fine-tuning. Whereas people coming from a wholly different alphabet have the advantage of a blank slate, people coming from a similar written language have to deal with overcoming the familiar and redefining existing options. This is especially difficult with vowels in particular and spelling in general. The student has to be conscious of the shift in letters and unlearn what they’ve known for their entire literate life. The problems of punctuation, while much easier to identify, are so ossified as normal, that they will pop up again and again throughout the student’s academic career if not properly noted and identified. For those who would argue that 90% similarity is close enough not to produce problems, I would point out that human and chimpanzee DNA are 96% the same, and that 4% leftover makes quite a difference. Certainly enough to note and study, certainly not close enough to ignore.
