Louis: > My Turkish language professor at Columbia University once made an > interesting observation. He said that variations on the Turkish language > (Turkic) can be heard from Turkey to China and that he could understand > it if he proceeded eastward. But the further east you go, the harder it > would be for him to understand. Azeris would be quite easy to > understand; Kazakhs somewhat more difficult; and Uighurs (or Uyghurs) > the most difficult of all.
You see, I am a polyglot by birth. Your Turkish language professor is right. I can understand and speak the Azeri language simply because I know my own language, with 90% efficiency. I also understand Kirgiz, Tacik, Ozbek (I wrote these in my own spelling) and the like to some degree without any preparation, again simply because I know my own language. Uygur is the most difficult to follow, but only when it is spoken. When it is written in the Latin alphabet, I understand most of it. Like this: "Bir kun yahxikurmeydighan bir hoxnisi Nasirdin Hojaning ixigini urup, exigini bir kunlik otnige berixini soraptu." The only thing I don't really understand in the above is "yahxikurmeydighan" and I don't understand it only partially. "Yahxi," or as I would write it in my own way "yahsi," is something that you like. My guess of "kurmeydighan" is "gormedigi," so I would say, "yahxikurmeydighan" is "yahsi gormedigi," which more or less means "not seen as likable." Quite an awkward way of saying this in my language, but it still makes sense. In 1999, I went to a Turkish picnic at Tilden National Park in Berkeley. The organizers were some Turkish nationalists, so they invited some Uygur nationalists, as well. Chinese call them "separatists" just as we call Kurdish "separatists" also. One of the Uygurs brought with him an Uygur flag. It was identical to the Turkish flag, except in that it was blue, rather than red. Best, Sabri _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
