A letter without a vowel
So far every letter has had a vowel sign. Sometimes, though, a letter has no vowel – then it carries a sukun (Turkish: cezm), usually a small circle: ـْ . A letter with sukun is not read on its own but is attached to the syllable before it.
How it works
First read the letter with the vowel sign, then attach the letter with sukun straight away – without a vowel of its own. So “ba” and “t” become the syllable “bat”, in the Turkish Elif-Ba “bet”. Pronounce the letter with sukun clearly but briefly: “min”, not “mini”.
Practice: syllables with sukun
The classic Elif-Ba exercise – read each syllable out loud. In brackets is the reading in the Turkish Elif-Ba:
With heavy letters such as ق the syllable sounds darker: ak, ık, uk.
Practice: words with sukun
Split each word into syllables: the letter with sukun closes the syllable before it.
You may already know the word قُلْ: Surah al-Ikhlāṣ (Surah 112) begins with it, and you will learn to read it in Lesson 12.
Next steps
Read slowly and practise a few syllables every day. If you are unsure how a word sounds, ask our imam. In Lesson 6 you will learn the shadda – the sign for a doubled letter.