Many Europeans could say the same thing, in Romance, Germanic, or Slavic
language groups. I've got a colleague from Belgian Limburg who says he can
walk from Limburg to Cologne and go into any bar and speak his local dialect
and be understood. Since he also speaks Dutch, he could do the same with
most of Northern Europe.
I had a student from Finland who became the national security adviser of
Estonia for a while. No problem learning Estonian.
Much of the world is a continuum of dialects that blend into each other from
town to town. What is interesting is that Sabri's language is mutually
intelligible over so long a distance.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sabri Oncu" <[email protected]>
To: "pen-l" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:20 AM
Subject: [Pen-l] Uighur oppression
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
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