Learn Hardcore Turkish: Sabahın erken seher vakti nergislerin kokusu sokağa yayıldı. - Early at dawn, the scent of the daffodils spread into the street.

In Turkish, sabah means “morning,” and adding -ın (the genitive suffix) yields sabahın (“of the morning”). This genitive form often appears in time expressions where one noun (“sabahın”) modifies another (“vakti”). So sabahın vakti literally means “the time of the morning,” i.e. “in the morning.”

Why do we need vakti after seher? Can’t we just say seher?

Vakti comes from vakit (“time”) plus the third-person possessive -i (“its”). Seher vakti literally means “the time of dawn.” While you can say seher alone in poetic or old texts, the fixed expression seher vakti is very natural in Turkish for “dawn” or “early morning.”

What’s the difference between sabah and seher?

Both words mean “morning,” but seher is more literary or poetic, borrowed from Ottoman Turkish. Sabah is the everyday word. In a poetic description you often see seher, especially in set phrases like seher vakti.

How does the structure nergislerin kokusu work? It looks like two possessives.