Ordinal Numbers in Turkish

Ordinal numbers “first, second, third,….” in Turkish is expressed with the suffix “-IncI” added to a number. You can look at Turkish numbers here.

-(I)ncI where I → (i, ı, u, ü)

But how do I know if I am going to add inci or ıncı or uncu or üncü ? You look at the last vowel of the number.

Now let us look at it in action.

The formula is number + suffix

You might have noticed that we do something different on number four.

dört should have been dörtüncü and not dördüncü right?

Actually no…

When the last letter is one of [ t, k, ç, p ] and a vowel is added to it like [ a, e, i, o, u, ü, ö, ı ].

That is [ t, k, ç, p ] + [ a, e, i, o, u, ü, ö, ı ]. A transformation given below happens.

t → d

k → ğ

ç → c

p → b

Kitap → Kitabı

Gözlük → Gözlüğü

Ağaç → Ağacı

Dört → Dördü

That is why we say dördüncü ✅ and not dörtüncü ❌

This is done for the sake of having Vowel Harmony. You can read more about it here.

Thanks for reading!

Written by

Abbas Abdelila

@abbasabdelila