The following phonemes are present in the Turkmen language:
Vowels[]
Turkmen contains both short and long vowels. Doubling the duration of sound for a short vowel is generally how its long vowel counterpart is pronounced. Turkmen employs vowel harmony, a principle that is common in fellow Turkic languages. Vowels and their sounds are as follows:
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |
| Close | i/и [ɪ] i/и [ɪː] |
ü/ү [ʏ] üý/үй [ʏː] |
y/ы [ɯ] y/ы [ɯː] |
u/у [ʊ] u/у [ʊː] |
| Close-mid | ë [e] | o/о [o] o/о [oː] | ||
| Open-mid | e/е [ɛ] | ö/ө [œ] ö/ө [œː] |
ɔ [ɔ] ɔ [ɔː] | |
| Open | ä/ә [æː] | a/а [ɑ] a/а [ɑː] |
||
Consonants[]
Turkmen consonant phonemes (shown with the letters of the Turkmen alphabet used to represent them):
| Bilabial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Postalv. /Palatal |
Dorsal /Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m/м | [m] | n/н | [n] | ň/ң | [ŋ] | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p/п | [p] | t/т | [t] | ç/ч | [t͡ʃ] | k/к | [k] |
| voiced | b/б | [b] | d/д | [d] | j/җ | [d͡ʒ] | g/г | [ɡ] | |
| Fricative | voiceless | s/с | [θ] | ş/ш | [ʃ] | h/х | [h] | ||
| voiced | z/з | [ð] | |||||||
| Approximant | w/в | [w] | l/л | [l] | ý/й | [j] | |||
| Rhotic | r/р | [ɾ] | |||||||
Note that s/с and z/з represent [θ] and [ð], not [s] and [z], a unique feature among the Turkic languages (cf. ceceo in some Spanish dialects).
Vowel harmony[]
Like other Turkic languages, Turkmen is characterized by vowel harmony. In general, words of native origin consist either entirely of front vowels (inçe çekimli sesler) or entirely of back vowels (ýogyn çekimli sesler). Prefixes and suffixes reflect this harmony, taking different forms depending on the word to which they are attached.
The infinitive form of a verb determines whether it will follow a front vowel harmony or back vowel harmony. Words of foreign origin, mainly Russian, Persian, or Arabic, do not follow vowel harmony.