Stress in a name

Stress in a word is often on the last syllable (stress shown in bold below).


ka = door

araba = car

pazar = market, bazaar

Pazar = Sunday (= market day)


With composite words, one of the sub-words takes the stress:

Pazartesi = Monday (literally: Pazar + ertesi = the day after Sunday)


As suffixes get appended, the stress still remains on the last syllable, unless the suffix is an unstressed suffix:


zel = beatiful

güzellik = beauty

güzelliğin = your beauty

güzelliğinden = from your beauty


In proper names such as city and country names, the second last syllable mostly takes the stress:

  • Istanbul
  • İzmir
  • Edirne
  • Nikaragua
  • İngiltere
  • Yugoslavya


  • Ankara

İstanbul from space:
- left: Europe, right: Asia
- north: Black Sea, south: Marmara Sea
- in between: the Bosphorus
The old İstanbul is a little below the center of the photo.