How to type Turkish accented letters on iPhone
Turkish adds five accented letters to the Latin alphabet on top of the dotted/dotless i split. Three of them, ç, ö and ü, already hide behind the same press-and-hold gesture used for é and ñ on the English keyboard — ğ and ş do not, and need the actual Turkish keyboard.
Turkish spelling adds five accented letters to the Latin alphabet beyond the dotted-i/dotless-ı split it is best known for: ç, ğ, ö, ş and ü. None of them sit on a visible key on the standard English iPhone keyboard, so writing çay or beğenmek looks like a dead end until you know where each one is actually hiding — and two of the five are not hiding on the English keyboard at all.
Three of the five are already a hold away
The default English keyboard opens a small popup of accented variants when you press and hold certain letters, the same gesture used for é or ñ: hold the base letter, slide to the one you want, lift your finger. It happens to cover three of the five Turkish letters:
- c → ç (along with ć and č)
- o → ö (along with ô ò ó œ ø ō õ)
- u → ü (along with û ù ú ū)
For an occasional Turkish word dropped into an English-language message, that is enough on its own — no extra keyboard required.
The two that are not: ğ and ş
Hold g on the English keyboard and nothing happens at all — g does not open a popup there, so ğ has no hold shortcut to find, however long you wait. Hold s and the popup that appears is ß ś š — no ş. Both letters are specific to Turkish rather than shared with the wider set of Western European diacritics the English keyboard’s hold menu was built to cover, which is why they never made it into that menu in the first place.
ğ, the yumuşak g or “soft g”, is barely pronounced in modern Turkish — it mostly lengthens the vowel before it rather than making a sound of its own, which is part of why it is easy to guess wrong even once you know it exists. ş is a cedilla-s, the same hooked mark that shows up under the Romanian ş — Romanian software borrowed that exact shape from Turkish for years before Romanian’s own comma-below ș became standard, which is why the two letters look identical despite belonging to different languages.
Add the Turkish keyboard for all five
The reliable way to reach every one of the five, without guessing which base letter to hold, is to add the Turkish keyboard itself:
- Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
- Tap “Add New Keyboard…” and choose Turkish from the list.
- The Turkish keyboard joins your keyboard list. Switch to it with a tap or a hold on the globe key 🌐, the same gesture used to move between any two keyboards on iPhone.
A keyboard built for Turkish carries ç, ğ, ö, ş and ü as ordinary keys on its own layout, alongside the separate dotted-i and dotless-ı keys covered in more depth elsewhere — the accent stops being a special case the moment you are actually typing on it.
A shortcut for occasional use
If you only need ğ or ş now and then and would rather not switch keyboards mid-sentence, iOS text replacement can store the finished character once and hand it back from any keyboard. Switch to the Turkish keyboard once, type the word with the correct letter, copy it, then save it as a shortcut under Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement — typing the shortcut phrase afterward inserts the saved text from whichever keyboard you are on, no switching required for that one word.
What happens to autocorrect
Each iOS keyboard carries its own dictionary, and switching keyboards switches the whole autocorrect and prediction stack with it. Typing Turkish on the English keyboard, even using the hold gesture for ç, ö and ü, still runs on an English dictionary underneath, which will fight longer Turkish words the whole way. Switching to the actual Turkish keyboard hands autocorrect and prediction a Turkish dictionary along with the layout, which is the bigger reason to add it beyond just reaching ğ and ş.
Where Kibo fits
Turkish is one of the 30 typing languages built into Kibo, inside a single keyboard rather than a separate iOS keyboard to add and switch between. Turn it on and a tap or hold on the globe key reaches it directly, with ç, ğ, ö, ş and ü sitting on the full Turkish layout rather than the three-letter subset the English keyboard happens to expose. Typing in Turkish, like any language, needs no Full Access — that switch in Kibo is read only by the Copy word, Copy line and Paste buttons on the toolbar. Kibo is free to download.
Frequently asked questions
Does holding c, o or u give me ç, ö or ü on iPhone?
Yes. The standard English keyboard’s press-and-hold accent menu covers all three: hold c for ç, o for ö, u for ü, then slide to the character and lift your finger.
Can I type ğ or ş by holding g or s on iPhone?
No. g does not open a press-and-hold popup on the English keyboard at all, and holding s offers ß, ś and š but not ş. Both letters are specific to Turkish and are only reachable on the actual Turkish keyboard.
Does adding the Turkish keyboard change my iPhone’s system language?
No. Adding a keyboard only adds a typing layout to switch to with the globe key — it does not touch the language iOS itself is displayed in.
Do I need to add a separate Turkish keyboard if I use Kibo?
No. Kibo includes Turkish among its 30 typing languages inside one keyboard, so switching to it is a tap or hold on the globe key rather than a separate keyboard to add in Settings.
Try it on your own keyboard
Kibo is a free custom keyboard for iPhone with real mechanical key sounds, a wardrobe of themes and RGB backlight effects. No account, no ads, and it works with Full Access left off.