Hayır, bugün toplantı yok.

today

Breakdown of Hayır, bugün toplantı yok.

• toplantı: the meeting
• yok: to not exist
• hayır: no

Questions & Answers about Hayır, bugün toplantı yok.

Why does the sentence use yok instead of a verb meaning is not?

In Turkish, yok is commonly used to mean there is not / there isn’t / absent / unavailable.

So Bugün toplantı yok literally works like:

• today
• meeting
• not present / nonexistent

A very natural English translation is There’s no meeting today.

Turkish often uses var (there is / there are) and yok (there isn’t / there aren’t) instead of a separate verb like English is in this kind of sentence.

For example:

• Bugün toplantı var. = There is a meeting today.
• Bugün toplantı yok. = There is no meeting today.

Why isn’t it Hayır, bugün toplantı değil?

Because değil and yok do different jobs.

• değil negates something being identified as something else, or negates adjectives/descriptions.
• yok means something does not exist or is not present.

Here, the idea is not Today is not a meeting.
The idea is There is no meeting today.

So:

• Bugün toplantı yok. = correct
• Bugün toplantı değil. = unnatural / wrong for this meaning

A simple comparison:

• O doktor değil. = He/She is not a doctor.
• Doktor yok. = There is no doctor.

What does Hayır add at the beginning?