Why Turkish has a dotless ı on iPhone
Switch to the Turkish keyboard and there are two i-shaped keys instead of one — a dotted i and a separate dotless ı. Why Turkish treats them as entirely different letters, what it means for autocapitalization, and what to do if you are typing Turkish without that keyboard turned on.
Add the Turkish keyboard on iPhone and one thing looks off immediately: there is not one i key that simply capitalises with or without a dot depending on shift. There are two separate i-shaped keys, each with its own capital. It is not a bug in iOS, and it is not something Kibo or any other keyboard app invented — it is a direct, correct reflection of how Turkish spelling actually works.
Turkish has four i-letters, not two
In English, and in most languages that use the Latin alphabet, “i” and “I” are the same letter in two cases — lowercase gets a dot, uppercase does not, and nobody thinks about it beyond that. Turkish orthography does not work that way. It has two entirely separate letters that both happen to look like versions of “i”:
- Dotted i / İ — the sound close to the English “i” in “sit”. Lowercase is i, and — this is the part that trips people up — the uppercase form keeps the dot too: İ.
- Dotless ı / I — a distinct back vowel sound that English does not really have. Lowercase is ı, with no dot, and the uppercase form is the plain I you already know from English, also with no dot.
So the capital letter I, the exact key everyone already has muscle memory for, is not the uppercase of Turkish’s dotted i at all — it is the uppercase of the dotless one. The dotted letter needs its own capital, İ, which barely exists in English text and looks unfamiliar the first few times you see it.
What that looks like on the keyboard
The Turkish alphabet has 29 letters rather than the Latin 26 — it adds Ç, Ğ, Ö, Ş and Ü on top of the dotted/dotless i split, and drops Q, W and X, which are not used in native Turkish spelling. To fit all of that, the Turkish keyboard gives ı its own key, separate from i, following the same national layout that has been standard on Turkish keyboards for decades rather than something iOS made up. Long-pressing either key does not convert one into the other — they are two different letters, not two forms of the same one, so there is no shortcut between them.
Why this trips people up
The practical problem shows up with capitalisation. A Turkish sentence that starts with a dotted-i word — için, iyi, İstanbul is actually already capitalised correctly in the other direction — needs to start with İ, not the plain English-style I. Software that was not built with Turkish in mind, including autocapitalize logic borrowed from English rules, can default to the familiar plain I instead, which quietly changes the word. A Turkish reader notices instantly, because it is not a stray typo the way a missing accent might be — it turns the first letter into a different letter altogether.
This exact mix-up is famous enough in software that it has its own name, the “Turkish I problem”, and shows up as a cautionary example in programming documentation for far bigger systems than a phone keyboard. A keyboard occasionally getting it wrong is not a sign of a uniquely bad keyboard — it is a genuinely easy case to miss.
Typing Turkish without the Turkish keyboard on
If you try to type Turkish while only the English keyboard is active, there is no way around this: the English keyboard has exactly one i-shaped letter, and it cannot produce ı or İ at all, because those keys are not on it. This is why casual Turkish text — old text messages, forum posts from before phones made switching keyboards easy — often substitutes a plain i for ı as a workaround. It reads as close enough to a Turkish eye, but it is not the correct letter, and search, autocorrect and spell-check all treat it as a different word from the one with the real ı. Adding the actual Turkish keyboard and switching to it with the globe key is the only way to type the letter that is actually meant.
Where Kibo fits
Turkish is one of the 30 typing languages built into Kibo, with the full 29-letter alphabet described above — dotted i and İ, dotless ı and I, all as their own distinct keys, not a single toggling key. Switching to it is a tap or a hold on the globe key like any other language in Kibo’s list, with no separate keyboard to add in Settings beyond the one you already added for it. Typing in 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
Why does the Turkish keyboard have two different i keys on iPhone?
Because Turkish treats dotted i/İ and dotless ı/I as two separate letters, not two cases of one letter the way English treats i and I. Each needs its own key, so the keyboard shows both.
What is the difference between i, İ, ı and I in Turkish?
i and İ are the lowercase and uppercase of one letter, the dotted one. ı and I are the lowercase and uppercase of a different letter, the dotless one. The plain capital I you already know from English is the dotless letter’s uppercase, not the dotted one’s.
Why did my Turkish text get capitalised with the wrong letter?
Autocapitalize logic built around English rules can default to the plain I when a dotted-i word needs İ instead, since English never needs to make that choice. It is common enough in software generally that it has its own name, the “Turkish I problem”.
Can I type ı on iPhone without switching to the Turkish keyboard?
No. The English keyboard has one i-shaped key and no way to produce the dotless ı or dotted İ forms — those keys only exist on the Turkish keyboard. Add it in Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard… and switch to it with the globe key.
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.