"What are you doing?" - most common ways to ask, by country

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n8an
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"What are you doing?" - most common ways to ask, by country

Postby n8an » 2018-09-24, 7:12

Image

Just a note: most countries have multiple ways of asking this question, so this map just shows the most common.



Note 2: The Iraqi one says "ishda tsawi" and writes it as "شدا تسوي", but this hasn't been transcribed correctly at all, as "sh" and "da" belong to the verb as prefixes.

In this dialect of Iraqi (Muslim Baghdadi), this contains three seperate particles that are all joined together.

- "What?" is translated as "shinu?" (شنو), which becomes shortened to "sh-" (ش) and prefixed to the next word.

- "Da-" (دا) is the marker for continuous/progressive tenses, and is prefixed to the indicative verb.

- "Tsawi" (تسوي) is the present indicative for "you do" (masculine singular).

So, "what are you doing?" combines "sh-" "da-" and "tsawi" for "shdatsawi?" (شداتسوي or شدتسوي).

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Re: "What are you doing?" - most common ways to ask, by country

Postby vijayjohn » 2019-08-31, 19:26

Very interesting, though it would've been good if it was possible to see it in a bigger size just so it's a little easier to read.

Thanks, n8an! (Where'd you get this from, if you don't mind me asking?)

n8an
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Re: "What are you doing?" - most common ways to ask, by country

Postby n8an » 2019-09-02, 12:16

vijayjohn wrote:Very interesting, though it would've been good if it was possible to see it in a bigger size just so it's a little easier to read.

Thanks, n8an! (Where'd you get this from, if you don't mind me asking?)


I don't remember :-\ but it's cool!

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Re: "What are you doing?" - most common ways to ask, by country

Postby cHr0mChIk » 2019-09-22, 14:26

I believe that the picture was taken from here:

https://www.qfi.org/about-qfi/gallery/
Speaks: English (en) Bosnian (bs) Serbian (sr) Romani (rom)

Learns: Arabic (ar) Urdu (ur) Pashto (ps)

vijayjohn
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Re: "What are you doing?" - most common ways to ask, by country

Postby vijayjohn » 2022-02-20, 19:53

Thanks! :)


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