Learn Hardcore Turkish: Mahkeme kararları adil olmadıkça toplumda güven oluşmaz. - Unless court decisions are fair, trust cannot be built in society.

mahkeme = court
karar = decision
karar-lar-ı
- -lar = plural suffix → decisions
- -ı = 3rd person possessive suffix → its decisions / their decisions

In Turkish, “X’s Y” is often expressed as a possessive compound:

mahkeme kararı = the court’s decision
mahkeme kararları = the court’s decisions

So mahkeme kararları is a fixed compound meaning “court decisions” in general; you don’t need an extra word for “of” or “’s”.

Why is it adil olmadıkça and not something like adil değilken?

Both structures can be translated as “when/while … is not fair”, but olmadıkça has a specific idiomatic meaning: “as long as … is not / unless … is”.

adil = fair
ol-ma-dık-ça
- ol- = to be / to become
- -ma- = negative
- -dık = verbal noun / participle (like “the fact of being/not being”)
- -ça (from -dikçe/-dıkça) = “as/so long as, whenever”

So adil olmadıkça = “as long as (they) are not fair / unless (they) are fair”.

değilken would be more like “while it is not fair” and is less natural in this general-law, proverb-like sentence. -dikçe with negation is the standard way to say “unless/as long as not”.

How does the suffix -dıkça / -dikçe work in olmadıkça?

-dıkça / -dikçe / -dukça / -dükçe / -tıkça / -tikçe ... is a suffix attached to a verb stem to mean:

“as / as long as / whenever / each time (that)”

Form:

Take the verb stem → ol-
Add negation if needed → ol-ma-
Add -dıkça with vowel harmony → ol-ma-dıkça

General pattern:

gel-dikçe = as (he) comes / whenever (he) comes
konuştukça (konuş-tukça) = as (we/they) talk
olmadıkça = as long as (it) is not / unless (it) is

In many cases, the subject and person are understood from context and no extra personal ending is added to this form.

Why is there no explicit subject or pronoun in adil olmadıkça?

Turkish usually omits pronouns when the subject is clear from context.

In Mahkeme kararları adil olmadıkça…, the subject of adil olmadıkça is mahkeme kararları.

Full “English-style” logic would be:

Mahkeme kararları adil olmadıkça…
= As long as *court decisions are not fair…*

Turkish doesn’t need a pronoun like they before adil or olmadıkça. The subject is carried over from the noun phrase mahkeme kararları.

Why is adil bare, with no ending? Why not adil-dir or something similar?

Adjectives used as predicates (like “is fair”) are usually bare in Turkish, without any suffix:

Kararlar adil. = The decisions are fair.
Kararlar adil değil. = The decisions are not fair.

You can add -dir (adildir) for formality, emphasis, or general truth, but you don’t have to. In everyday usage and in conditional structures like this, the bare adjective is standard:

adil olmadıkça = literally “(they) not-being fair-as-long-as”

So adil functions as “fair” in a predicate role, and olmak carries the verbal morphology.

What does toplumda mean exactly, and what does the -da suffix do?

toplumda means “in society”.

Morphology:

toplum = society
-da = locative case: in, at, on

The locative suffix has forms -da / -de / -ta / -te depending on vowel harmony and consonant voicing. Here:

toplum ends in m (voiced), so we use -da, not -ta.

So:

toplumda = in society
evde = in the house
masada = on the table

Why is it güven oluşmaz instead of just güven olmaz?

Both are grammatically possible, but there is a nuance:

güven olmaz
= literally “there is no trust” / “trust does not exist”
güven oluşmaz
= literally “trust does not form / does not come into being”

Here:

oluşmak = to form, to come into existence, to develop

So güven oluşmaz emphasizes the process of trust forming in society. It suggests: > trust won’t develop / won’t emerge in society

güven olmaz would sound more like “there is no trust (there)”, a bit more static and less process-oriented.

What tense or aspect is oluşmaz, and why is that used here?

oluşmaz is the negative aorist form:

oluş- = to form
-maz = negative aorist (3rd singular) → “does not (generally) form / will not form (generally)”

The aorist (-r / -maz) in Turkish often expresses:

general truths
habits
timeless conditions

So güven oluşmaz means:

“trust does not form” in general, as a rule or principle, not just in one specific case.

This matches the proverb-like, general-law tone of the sentence. A future tense (oluşmayacak) would sound more situational and less like a universal statement.

Why isn’t there a word for “unless” in Turkish? How does olmadıkça cover that meaning?

Turkish typically expresses “unless” with a negative verb + -dikçe / -dıkça.

Pattern:

[NEGATIVE VERB] + -dikçe ≈ “unless / as long as … not”

So:

adil olmadıkça = as long as (they) are not fair ≈ unless they are fair
sen gelmedikçe gitmem
= I won’t go as long as you don’t come ≈ I won’t go unless you come

There is no separate conjunction like English “unless”; the meaning is built into the suffix -dikçe combined with negation.

Could we move the clause and say Toplumda güven oluşmaz, mahkeme kararları adil olmadıkça?

Yes, that is possible and grammatical:

Toplumda güven oluşmaz, mahkeme kararları adil olmadıkça.

Turkish word order is relatively flexible. However:

Starting with Mahkeme kararları adil olmadıkça puts the condition first, which feels very natural in spoken and written Turkish when stating rules or general truths.
Your reordered version is fine but sounds a bit more afterthought-like: the main claim first, then the condition.

Both are understandable; the original order is stylistically smoother and more common in this kind of sentence.

Is mahkeme kararları singular or plural in meaning? In English we say “court decisions” (plural).

mahkeme kararları is plural in meaning:

The plural is marked by -lar in karar-lar-ı.
The -ı is not a singular marker here; it is part of the possessive-compound pattern (court’s decisions).

So:

mahkeme kararı = court decision (singular)
mahkeme kararları = court decisions (plural)

In this sentence, we are talking about court decisions in general, not one specific decision.

Why is there no bir before güven? Could we say bir güven oluşmaz?

You normally do not use bir with abstract, uncountable nouns used in a general sense.

güven = trust (abstract, uncountable in this context)
Toplumda güven oluşmaz. = Trust does not form in society.

If you say bir güven, it would sound like “a kind of trust” / “some sort of trust” in a particular context, which is not the intended generic meaning here.

So:

No bir → general, abstract: trust as a concept
With bir → a specific instance/type of trust (sounds odd here)

Does toplumda güven oluşmaz mean “there is no trust in society” or “trust does not form in society”? Is there a difference?

Literally, it is closer to “trust does not form in society”:

oluşmak = to form, to come into being
So güven oluşmaz focuses on the coming into existence of trust.

In English, depending on context, you might still translate it as:

“There will be no trust in society”
or
“Trust does not develop in society”

The important nuance is: if court decisions are not fair, trust will not come into existence in society (not just “is absent”, but “cannot arise”).