3 ms·

> So while we have two i’s (upper and lower), they have four. No, we don’t have four i’s in Turkish. I(ı) and İ(i) are two separate letters. Turkish alphabet h

by ozgung 1y ago

> So while we have two i’s (upper and lower), they have four. No, we don’t have four i’s in Turkish. I(ı) and İ(i) are two separate letters. Turkish alphabet has 29 letters, and each letter has their own key on a Turkish keyboard. We also have Öö, Üü, Çç, Şş and Ğğ. These are all individual letters. They are not dotted versions, accents or a writing convention. So the language is as simple as it gets. The complications come from mapping letters to English alphabet.

mrighele 1y ago
It's not just the English alphabet, but all the languages that use a Latin alphabet. I think that reusing two symbols representing a specific vowel for two different vowels was a poor choice. (I guess that when it was made, more than one hundred years ago, it didn't seem that bad)
- ozgung 1y ago
  They are two different vowels. There are 8 vowels in Turkish. All letters correspond to a different phonetic sound in the language. So you can read it as it is written. Iı sounds like e in ‘the’, and ‘i’ sounds like ‘ee’ in deep. They are different sounds, different vovels hence conveniently different letters. Difference changes all the meaning. For instance “sınır” means boundary and “sinir” means nerve. I think it is simple and brilliant design for Turkish. I respect the design choices of all the other languages but this is what works best for our own language. You can simply accept that it is a different (modified latin) alphabet for a different language.
- tremon 1y ago
  It's not really a worse choice than reusing the same symbol to represent multiple vowels. The preceding sentence has three different vowel sounds associated with the letter e, for example (four if you include the silent -e like in choice).
CemDK 1y ago
> So while we have two i’s (upper and lower), they have four 1. i 2. I > No, we don’t have four i’s in Turkish. I(ı) and İ(i) are two separate letters 1. ı 2. I 3. i 4. İ --> 4
- jccalhoun 1y ago
  that's like saying l and I are the same letters because they look similar in some sans serif fonts.
  - jofla_net 1y ago
    mumble mumble forest ... mumble mumble trees
  - somat 1y ago
    early typewriters had no 0 or 1, you were expected to use I or O. So at least there they were the same letter. There was a great article posted here not too long ago about the actual origin of the qwerty keyboard, spoiler, it was not actually designed to slow typing down. Anyway a fun fact found in that article was why "I" is where it is. An early adopter of the typewriter was a telegraph transcription company. and they wanted "I" moved near the end of the numbers so using it as a "1" they could type the 18 in 1875 quicker. https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/139379/1/42_161.pdf https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433...
- nkrisc 1y ago
  But you're comparing two cases of one letter to two cases of two letters. Of course two letters have, in aggregate, more glyphs than one letter.
- NooneAtAll3 1y ago
  [translated from latin] So while we have two i's, they have four 1. i 2. I No, we don't have four i's in English, I(i) and J(j) are two separate letters 1. i 2. I 3. j 4. J --> 4
  - 1y ago
froh 1y ago
to bad that typography doesn't care. other languages are hit by the same hard destiny. German language has öäüÖÄÜ and ßẞ, yet typographically, the only "real" letter of these is ßẞ, the others are "Umlaut" aouAOU. Linguistically they are "letters" of their own right. With obscure rules for sorting and capitalization, especially if the typeface doesn't have capital ÄÖÜẞ. then they become what they were AE, OE, UE, SZ... and that's what the article is about: locale matters. and in that context you have four i-like glyphs in tr-TR. and if you do anything locale sensitive in your code, like case folding, better set the locale explicitly...
GoblinSlayer 1y ago
Add to this decomposed variants.
Dylan16807 1y ago
What is your definition of "i's" that you think everyone should agree on? It can't just be "i", there would only be one glyph then. But if we're calling multiple things "i's", I think it's reasonable to include all four.

by ozgung 1y ago

mrighele 1y ago

It's not just the English alphabet, but all the languages that use a Latin alphabet. I think that reusing two symbols representing a specific vowel for two different vowels was a poor choice. (I guess that when it was made, more than one hundred years ago, it didn't seem that bad)

ozgung 1y ago
They are two different vowels. There are 8 vowels in Turkish. All letters correspond to a different phonetic sound in the language. So you can read it as it is written. Iı sounds like e in ‘the’, and ‘i’ sounds like ‘ee’ in deep. They are different sounds, different vovels hence conveniently different letters. Difference changes all the meaning. For instance “sınır” means boundary and “sinir” means nerve. I think it is simple and brilliant design for Turkish. I respect the design choices of all the other languages but this is what works best for our own language. You can simply accept that it is a different (modified latin) alphabet for a different language.
tremon 1y ago
It's not really a worse choice than reusing the same symbol to represent multiple vowels. The preceding sentence has three different vowel sounds associated with the letter e, for example (four if you include the silent -e like in choice).

CemDK 1y ago

> So while we have two i’s (upper and lower), they have four 1. i 2. I > No, we don’t have four i’s in Turkish. I(ı) and İ(i) are two separate letters 1. ı 2. I 3. i 4. İ --> 4

jccalhoun 1y ago
that's like saying l and I are the same letters because they look similar in some sans serif fonts.
- jofla_net 1y ago
  mumble mumble forest ... mumble mumble trees
- somat 1y ago
  early typewriters had no 0 or 1, you were expected to use I or O. So at least there they were the same letter. There was a great article posted here not too long ago about the actual origin of the qwerty keyboard, spoiler, it was not actually designed to slow typing down. Anyway a fun fact found in that article was why "I" is where it is. An early adopter of the typewriter was a telegraph transcription company. and they wanted "I" moved near the end of the numbers so using it as a "1" they could type the 18 in 1875 quicker. https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/139379/1/42_161.pdf https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433...
nkrisc 1y ago
But you're comparing two cases of one letter to two cases of two letters. Of course two letters have, in aggregate, more glyphs than one letter.
NooneAtAll3 1y ago
[translated from latin] So while we have two i's, they have four 1. i 2. I No, we don't have four i's in English, I(i) and J(j) are two separate letters 1. i 2. I 3. j 4. J --> 4
- 1y ago

froh 1y ago

to bad that typography doesn't care. other languages are hit by the same hard destiny. German language has öäüÖÄÜ and ßẞ, yet typographically, the only "real" letter of these is ßẞ, the others are "Umlaut" aouAOU. Linguistically they are "letters" of their own right. With obscure rules for sorting and capitalization, especially if the typeface doesn't have capital ÄÖÜẞ. then they become what they were AE, OE, UE, SZ... and that's what the article is about: locale matters. and in that context you have four i-like glyphs in tr-TR. and if you do anything locale sensitive in your code, like case folding, better set the locale explicitly...

GoblinSlayer 1y ago

Add to this decomposed variants.

Dylan16807 1y ago

What is your definition of "i's" that you think everyone should agree on? It can't just be "i", there would only be one glyph then. But if we're calling multiple things "i's", I think it's reasonable to include all four.