The Turkish alphabet has 29 letters, adapted from the Latin alphabet in a sweeping 1928 spelling reform that replaced the Arabic-script writing system used until then — a deliberate, large-scale change made specifically to make Turkish spelling phonetic and easier to learn.
Turkish's most famous alphabet quirk is that it has four letters where English has two: uppercase İ and lowercase i (dotted, pronounced like English "ee"), and uppercase I and lowercase ı (dotless, a distinct back-vowel sound). Mixing these up is such a common software bug that it has its own nickname among programmers — "the Turkish I problem" — because naive case-conversion code often turns dotless "ı" into ordinary "I" incorrectly.
Beyond the standard Latin letters, Turkish adds ç, ş, ğ, ö, and ü to represent sounds not covered by unmodified Latin letters — and drops q, w, and x entirely, since Turkish has no use for them.
29 — the standard Latin letters plus ç, ş, ğ, ö, and ü, with q, w, and x omitted entirely.
Turkish distinguishes a dotted İ/i (pronounced like English "ee") from a dotless I/ı (a separate back-vowel sound) — both are genuinely different letters and sounds, not a stylistic variation.
No — Turkish was written in Arabic script until a 1928 reform replaced it with the current Latin-based alphabet, specifically to make spelling more phonetic and easier to learn.
Not yet — Turkish is planned for a future course. Contact Tarc to be notified when it launches.
See also: Turkish Pronunciation · Learn Turkish · Arabic Alphabet