Dottıng.

Do not dot the ı, even in pixels.

My name, Fırat, is also the Turkish name of the Euphrates River. It carries the dotless ı, because Turkish has two separate letters where English has one: i and İ keep their dots, ı and I never had any. The first essay, do not dot the ı, was about the string bug: software that uppercased or normalized text turned ı into i, quietly corrupting names.

That was a bug you could patch. Now the bug moved up the stack: ask an image model to write a Turkish word, and the dot can come back as pixels. This test asks forty models to write fifteen Turkish words, then checks which letters survive.

Generated image intended to read Fırat

Plain sign

Fırat becomes Firat

Expected
Fırat
a Turkish given name, and the Euphrates River; one stray dot misspells both a person and a river
Observed
Firat

Human: Dotted Firat

A clean sign turns Fırat into Firat.

The bug moved from strings to pixels.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Dotted Claude Sonnet 4.6: Dotted Gemini 3 Pro: Dotted GPT-5.5: Dotted Claude Opus: Dotted Qwen-VL: Mangled

FLUX.2 [dev]
Black Forest Labs (2025-11)

Studio sign
A plain English request for a studio sign. This is the control scene.

Generated image intended to read Fırat

Plain sign

A clean Fırat

Expected
Fırat
a Turkish given name, and the Euphrates River; one stray dot misspells both a person and a river
Observed
Fırat

Human: Correct Fırat

The same task is hard, but not impossible.

A frontier model can keep the dotless letter.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Correct Claude Sonnet 4.6: Correct Gemini 3 Pro: Correct GPT-5.5: Correct Claude Opus: Correct Qwen-VL: Dotted

FLUX.2 [pro]
Black Forest Labs (2025-11)

Studio sign
A plain English request for a studio sign. This is the control scene.

Featured results

Look closely at the letter.

The images are polished enough to trust at a glance. The failure is often one dot wide.

Generated image intended to read Fırat

Plain sign

The dot that split the judges

Expected
Fırat
a Turkish given name, and the Euphrates River; one stray dot misspells both a person and a river
Observed
FİRAȚ

Human: Dotted FİRAȚ

The sign looks confident. The machine cannot read what it wrote.

Four of six judges catch the dot; two normalize it away. None reads the sign exactly.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Dotted Claude Sonnet 4.6: Correct Gemini 3 Pro: Dotted GPT-5.5: Dotted Claude Opus: Dotted Qwen-VL: Correct

Ideogram 3.0
Ideogram AI (2025-05)

Studio sign
A plain English request for a studio sign. This is the control scene.

Generated image intended to read kız

Plain sign

When the mark falls off

Expected
kız
girl; the minimal pair, one added dot and it stops being a Turkish word
Observed
kiz

Human: Dotted kiz

The diacritic did not disappear. It fell off.

A playful, visible glyph-level accident.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Dotted Claude Sonnet 4.6: Dotted Gemini 3 Pro: Dotted GPT-5.5: Dotted Claude Opus: Dotted

Qwen-Image-2512
Alibaba Qwen (2025-12)

Studio sign
A plain English request for a studio sign. This is the control scene.

Generated image intended to read kız

Language + coaching

Meaning instead of text

Expected
kız
girl; the minimal pair, one added dot and it stops being a Turkish word
Observed
A young girl stands on a sandy beach, wearing a pink patterned dress, with a large, rugged mountain range in the background under a soft, pastel sky.

Human: Off task A young girl stands on a sandy beach, wearing a pink patterned dress, with a large, rugged mountain range in the background under a soft, pastel sky.

It translated the word into a scene.

The prompt asked for text; the model made the meaning.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Off task Claude Sonnet 4.6: Mangled Gemini 3 Pro: Off task GPT-5.5: Off task Claude Opus: Off task Qwen-VL: Correct

Ideogram 3.0
Ideogram AI (2025-05)

Turkish coached sign prompt
The Turkish sign prompt plus the same explicit glyph reminder, also in Turkish.

Generated image intended to read ışık

Plain sign

ışık, overcorrected

Expected
ışık
light; two dotless ı flanking a ş, three chances for stylish lettering to slip
Observed
İŞIK

Human: Dotted İŞIK

The lights are gorgeous. The middle letter is not.

A fully public sign still trips over a single Turkish glyph.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Dotted Claude Sonnet 4.6: Dotted Gemini 3 Pro: Dotted GPT-5.5: Dotted Claude Opus: Dotted Qwen-VL: Dotted

Ideogram 2a
Ideogram AI (2025-02)

Studio sign
A plain English request for a studio sign. This is the control scene.

The run

8,396 images from 40 models.

The grid covers 15 words, 7 prompt contexts, and 2 seeds. The contexts ask for the same Turkish words as signs, serif posters, handwritten notes, LED displays, Turkish-language instructions, and coached glyph instructions.

8,396

images generated

40

models tested

$535.06

total run cost

Model time

What changed in image models: the late-2025 glyph shift.

The shaded window marks the jump from sometimes usable to often correct. Color groups model families; rings mark the few anchor models named in the chart.

The late-2025 jump: 53% to 91%

The practical shift runs from roughly 53% exact text at FLUX.2 [dev] to about 91% around GPT Image 1.5. This is where the dotless ı stops looking like a rare lucky render.

The specimens behind the curve: five eras of one sign.

Field notes

First the eye learns what to look for.

Before the full run becomes evidence, the eye needs a few close reads. These notes add new specimens without repeating the opening Fırat pair.

ı
i
İ
I

Train the eye first: dotted and dotless letters can both be correct, but not in the same place. Everyone keeps their dots.

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Field note 01

Text can become a script-like texture.

The image has the authority of a public display, but the sentence has left Turkish entirely.

Human: Mangled

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Field note 02

The model remembers the tree.

For a line that literally names a tree, meaning can arrive while the requested lettering disappears.

Human: Off task

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Field note 03

A near-clean page can still break in the middle.

This is the dangerous case: the layout looks typographic, then one cluster turns into noise.

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Field note 04

Even a strong family can lose the sentence.

A late model turns the phrase into a display object. The failure is rare enough to show where the edge still is.

Human: Mangled

Prompt contexts

Same word, different surfaces.

Each prompt is a small bet about where the dotless ı might survive: typography, handwriting, matrix pixels, language, or explicit coaching.

Plain sign

Studio sign

A plain English request for a studio sign. This is the control scene.

a clean studio photograph of a sign that reads "Fırat"

Typography

Serif poster

A typography-first request: centered serif text on a white background.

the text "Fırat" in an elegant serif typeface, centered, plain white background

Handwriting

Handwritten note

A cursive note on paper, where the dotless ı can be confused with a casual i.

a handwritten note on paper that says "Fırat" in cursive ink

Display

LED matrix

A red dot-matrix display, where the bug becomes a literal extra lit pixel.

a red LED dot-matrix display showing the text "Fırat"

Instruction language

Turkish sign prompt

The same studio-sign scene, but the instruction itself is written in Turkish.

üzerinde "Fırat" yazan bir tabelanın temiz bir stüdyo fotoğrafı

Glyph coaching

Coached sign prompt

The English sign prompt plus an explicit reminder about dotless ı and Turkish marks.

a clean studio photograph of a sign that reads "Fırat". The text is Turkish — render every letter exactly: the dotless letter ı must have NO dot, and keep the marks on ç ğ ö ş ü.

Language + coaching

Turkish coached sign prompt

The Turkish sign prompt plus the same explicit glyph reminder, also in Turkish.

üzerinde "Fırat" yazan bir tabelanın temiz bir stüdyo fotoğrafı. Metin Türkçedir — her harfi tam olarak çiz: noktasız ı harfinde nokta olmamalı, ç ğ ö ş ü harflerinin işaretlerini koru.

One sentence

Forty-two attempts at one sentence.

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür means "to live like a tree, alone and free." The Nazım Hikmet line is the wider Turkish stress test: ç, ğ, ş, ü, and ordinary i all have to survive at once. Every model takes one attempt at the line, and Qwen-Image 2512 and Nano Banana 2 show both of their seeds: forty-two cards, running in release order while the surfaces change. Most carry a human label; where no human has looked yet, the Gemini 3.5 Flash review stands in.

Correct: every requested glyph survives. Dotted: the dotless ı gained a dot. Substituted: a real but wrong letter took its place. Mangled: the text collapsed into non-letters. Off task: the model drew something else.

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
01 · 2022-10
Stable Diffusion 1.5
Studio sign
Human: Mangled
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
02 · 2023-07
SDXL 1.0 base
LED matrix
Human: Mangled
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
03 · 2024-02
Ideogram 1.0
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
04 · 2024-05
Imagen 3
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
05 · 2024-07
Imagen 3 Fast
Studio sign
Gemini 3.5 Flash: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
06 · 2024-08
FLUX.1 [dev]
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
07 · 2024-08
FLUX.1 [schnell]
LED matrix
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
08 · 2024-08
Ideogram 2.0
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
09 · 2024-10
FLUX1.1 [pro]
Coached sign prompt
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
10 · 2025-02
Ideogram 2a
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
11 · 2025-03
GPT Image 1
LED matrix
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
12 · 2025-04
HiDream-I1 Dev
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
13 · 2025-04
GPT Image 1 Mini
LED matrix
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
14 · 2025-05
Ideogram 3.0
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
15 · 2025-05
Imagen 4
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
16 · 2025-06
Imagen 4 Fast
Serif poster
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
17 · 2025-06
Stable Diffusion 3
Studio sign
Gemini 3.5 Flash: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
18 · 2025-06
Imagen 4 Ultra
LED matrix
Gemini 3.5 Flash: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
19 · 2025-08
Qwen-Image
Studio sign
Human: Mangled
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
20 · 2025-08
Nano Banana
Handwritten note
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
21 · 2025-09
Seedream 4.0
Turkish sign prompt
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
22 · 2025-11
Nano Banana Pro
Coached sign prompt
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
23 · 2025-11
FLUX.2 [dev]
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
24 · 2025-11
FLUX.2 [flex]
Handwritten note
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
25 · 2025-11
FLUX.2 [pro]
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
26 · 2025-11
Z-Image Turbo
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
27 · 2025-12
Seedream 4.5
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
28 · 2025-12
GPT Image 1.5
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
29 · 2025-12
Qwen-Image-2512
Turkish sign prompt
Human: Off task
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
30 · 2025-12
Qwen-Image-2512
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
31 · 2026-01
FLUX.2 [klein] 9B
Serif poster
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
32 · 2026-02
Qwen-Image-2.0
Turkish sign prompt
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
33 · 2026-02
Qwen-Image-2.0-Pro
Serif poster
Gemini 3.5 Flash: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
34 · 2026-02
Seedream 5.0 Lite
Studio sign
Human: Substituted
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
35 · 2026-02
Nano Banana 2
LED matrix
Human: Mangled
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
36 · 2026-02
Nano Banana 2
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
37 · 2026-04
Grok Imagine Image Quality
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
38 · 2026-04
GPT Image 2
Studio sign
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
39 · 2026-05
Krea 2 Large
Handwritten note
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
40 · 2026-05
Recraft V4.1
Turkish coached sign prompt
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
41 · 2026-05
Krea 2 Medium
LED matrix
Human: Correct
Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
42 · 2026-06
Ideogram 4.0
Turkish sign prompt
Human: Substituted

Three acts

The sentence slowly comes into focus.

These are not greatest hits. Watch what changes between acts: the sentence vanishes, turns almost readable, then passes while the typography stays fragile.

Early systems

The sentence first arrives as texture.

Before the models can reliably write the line, they still produce convincing surfaces: chalk walls, dot-matrix blocks, and signs that look official until the words fall apart.

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2022-10

Stable Diffusion 1.5

YIDUS AAM NHKI VIGUE GUP ASRMA HEVERAN GIEARIK ITIS AJWKK YASKK GEACIF VELGELEIS GELERNE GRILAD VAAM SEVVAI VEE AL VALEVAE AD CRUY BRETIO

Human: Mangled

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2023-07

SDXL 1.0 base

תעבורה תיעוד היבוא תהליך

Human: Mangled

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2024-02

Ideogram 1.0

YAŞAMAK BİR AĞAC. GİBİ TEK VE HÜR.

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2024-05

Imagen 3

YAŞAMAK BİR AŞLAÇ GİBİ TEK VE TEK VE HÜR.

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2024-07

Imagen 3 Fast

YAŞAMAK
bir aǧcAÇ
Gibi —v—&
TEK VE HÜR.

Gemini 3.5 Flash: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2024-08

FLUX.1 [schnell]

Yaşasınmak bir akça gibi tek ver ve kahr

Human: Substituted

Near misses

Readable does not mean correct.

Many panels look solved from a distance. Up close, the model changes a mark, swaps a syllable, or normalizes Turkish into something easier for itself.

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2024-08

FLUX.1 [dev]

Yaşamak bir kar ağaç gibi tek ve hur

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2024-10

FLUX1.1 [pro]

Yaşamak bir ağac gibi tek ve hur.

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-02

Ideogram 2a

YAŞAMAK BİR AĞA GİBİ TEK VE HÜR

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-08

Qwen-Image

Yaşamak bir ağacıyla dua etmek

Human: Mangled

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-12

Qwen-Image-2512

Yaşamak bir ağaç iğini tek ve hür

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2026-01

FLUX.2 [klein] 9B

Yaşamaak
bir ağaç cğhc ice
tek ve hür

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2026-06

Ideogram 4.0

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibli tek ve hür

Human: Substituted

Stronger models

Better text still has edges.

The late models often land the phrase. The useful specimens are the ones that show how fragile that success can be across handwriting, LEDs, and polished signs.

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-03

GPT Image 1

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Human: Correct

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-08

Nano Banana

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Human: Correct

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-11

FLUX.2 [dev]

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek vve hür

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-11

FLUX.2 [flex]

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek vne hür

Human: Substituted

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2025-12

GPT Image 1.5

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Human: Correct

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2026-02

Nano Banana 2

ATM WORK

Human: Mangled

Generated image intended to read Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür
2026-04

GPT Image 2

Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür

Human: Correct

The good news

The newest models are learning where the dot belongs.

This is the rare bug you can watch being fixed. The late-2025 jump is real, and the newest models keep words intact that their ancestors mangled beyond reading. My hopes from here are concrete: publish research like this, talk about the letter in public, and give the machines better material to learn from. I still keep the old wish from the essay: machines that finish typing Fırat on their own, with the dot exactly where it belongs, which on this ı is nowhere.

From here, the Leaderboard ranks all forty models, the Full results page holds every image, and the Methodology page explains every label. The whole run is also a public dataset: the Hugging Face Dataset carries every row, label, and image, ready for whoever tests the next model.