TAC - voron (Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic)

[voron]

How do my Kurdish friends manage to stay so optimistic all the time? They are like the most laid-back people I ever knew. One of them has recently got into a really big trouble, but he's like, ok life goes on, let's go have a barbecue! I'm like the total opposite with my perpetual Dostoyevskian spleen.

Turks are not like that. They are subject to sudden mood changes and can get sulky for no reason just like us.

I wonder, just like the heroine of Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life, adapted into the film Arrival (which I haven't watched; is it good?), who learnt the alien's language and started seeing the world the way they do; can learning Kurdish help me become more laid-back?

[voron]

I've started Zazaki Study Group.

[voron]

Today I went to the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, and not only I saw a lot of Hittite, Akkadian and Sumerian writings, but also the original of the very text from Hittite Lesson 1 on the LRC website!

Photos (sorry for the quality - the cuneiform actually looks much more readable than on the photo):


Also, I had imagined them to be rock size plates with huge crude inscriptions, but they are actually very small and delicate, the size of a modern book page.

[Antea]

[voron]

Seems like I'm getting back into the habit of reading. I finished a collection of stories by Ömer Seyfettin, and started reading a collection of stories by Salahattin Ali. Infact I was planning to finish Seyfettin's book during the weekend, but my flight from Istanbul to Antalya (where I am right now spending probably the last sea-side vacation of this summer) was delayed for 2 hours, and I finished the book during this delay.

Ömer Seyfettin is enjoyable and his language is quite easy -- it doesn't have too many Arabisms and Persianisms. Infact, considering that both him and Salahattin Ali, whose book I am reading now, wrote before the language reform, I wouldn't say that the reform changed that much. OK, they wouldn't use words like okul 'school' or uçak 'plane', both of which, as far as I know, were invented during the reform, preferring mekteb and tayyare instead, but words like these are not too many and the overall understanding does not suffer. (Besides, my knowledge of Arabic and Kurdish sometimes helps; Kurdish, in particular, helps me guess the meaning of Persian words*).

I wonder if the first editions of these books were published in the Ottoman script. They should have been, right? Because the Latin alphabet for Turkish wasn't invented yet...

*One particularly cute Persian word that I encountered in Seyfettin's book was nadide 'unseen', which contains such a screamingly Indo-European prefix na. In Kurdish, it's nedîtî.

[voron]

Sorry guys, I don't think I have inspiration to post in Zazaki Study Group. And my wanderlust for Hittite is satisfied with one lesson on LRC and a brief grammar review on Wiki and other resources.

[vijayjohn]

Oh, that's too bad...How about the Kurmanji group?

EDIT: Oops, never mind! I guess I was so engrossed with Turkish and Arabic today (or yesterday ) I didn't even notice you posted there!

[voron]

Oh, that's too bad...How about the Kurmanji group?

I'll never ever give up on Kurmanji!

As for Zazaki... I guess I don't find inspiration because I don't hear this language here on the streets of Istanbul. That day when I started the study group, I actually met a Zazaki speaker, but this happens like once in a year.

Maybe I should make a trip to Zazaki speaking areas.

(Kurmanji, I do hear it every day. Right now, there is a child playing outside my window and shouting: Were, were!)

[voron]

As you guys know I've been adding new words from the books we use in our Arabic and Kurmanji study groups, to Memrise:
https://www.memrise.com/course/2016285/ ... -part-2-2/
https://www.memrise.com/course/2009131/ ... seyemin-2/

So far I have 199 words for Kurmanji, and just 89 words for Arabic. I should give Arabic some more love.

I'll resume the practice of dedicating 1 day for 1 language. It helps me avoid hesitation about what to study.
My new schedule:
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat - day off

So it's a simple alternating schedule with Arabic on even days, and Kurdish on odd days. (Sunday is day 0 for me. Is it considered even in the USA?)

[vijayjohn]

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean whether Sunday is considered "day 0" here, or whether 0 is considered an even number here? If you mean the former, I don't think we have a "day 0" per se, but Sunday does have the weird position of being both the last day of the typical work week and the first day of the typical calendar. If you mean the latter, yes, 0 is considered an even number...I guess anywhere, in English.

I wonder, just like the heroine of Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life, adapted into the film Arrival (which I haven't watched; is it good?), who learnt the alien's language and started seeing the world the way they do; can learning Kurdish help me become more laid-back?

Whorf-Sapir, anyone?

[voron]

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean whether Sunday is considered "day 0" here

I just meant that, if I say "I study Arabic on the even days of the week", would it be understood as "Sunday - Tuesday - Thursday - Saturday"?

For example, in Russian, it obviously would, because the numerals in some of the days' names indicate their position within the week:
вторник (Tuesday) - second day
четверг (Thursday) - fourth day
пятница (Friday) - fifth day

EDIT: Wait, no, Sunday is not even, it is the 7th day here. So the even days are just Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday.
Anyway... this definition is confusing and I guess people normally just list the days.

[vijayjohn]

You could say "every other day of the week starting with Sunday," and since you've already said Saturday is a day off, it should be clear enough that you mean Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

I hope.

[voron]

I know I'm looking too far ahead but I've been thinking what we can do next for Kurdish and Arabic in our study groups after we finish the books we're using now...

For Arabic I'd probably like to do book 3 from the series.
For Kurdish, since it's already book 3 (the last one) we're doing, perhaps we can do some translations similar to King-Size Translations in the Turkish subforum. I have links to large collections of e-books in Kurdish.

I'm going to update the schedule because I find it hard to dedicate time for studying every day:
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed - day off
Thu
Fri
Sat - day off

So today is a day off, yaaaay! (Throws the books away and runs outside).

[voron]

One of the hardest things for me to talk about in Turkish is when people ask me about my relatives.

It's a thing in Turkey that one of the common conversation topics are stories about extended family members. Why it is hard for me:

1) I need to remember terms for relatives (like, aunt from the mother's side - teyze, aunt from the father's side - hala, aunt's husband - enişte, etc)

2) If I fail at #1, or if there is no term, I need to use izafe chains (my mother's sister's husband - annemin kız kardeşinin kocası).

3) I need to remember to use the inferential suffix miş for the events which happened to my relatives (because duh, of course I didn't personally witness my father's or mother's growing up -- and people actually get surprised or correct me if I don't use the right suffix).

4) And finally, I simply don't remember all of my cousins and what jobs they do and how many children they have. Turks, and especially Kurds, have no problems navigating through all of their distant cousins and aunts and uncles, as if they talk to them every day (which some of them actually do!)

[voron]

Lately, I've been feeling like suspending Arabic and doing only Kurdish.

I have an emotional connection with Kurdish. I have Kurdish friends whom I love and I'd really like to be able to speak Kurdish naturally with them.

While for Arabic, I rather feel like it's a language I must know, and it can probably give me good career perspectives, but I don't have any close friends to speak it with.

Vijay, since you've been doing both languages with me in our study groups, what would you say if I stopped doing Arabic for a while?
Or probably dropped it altogether?

[Antea]

Just for saying that I am also making a pause with Arabic. In my case, it is just because it has been an intensive summer with this language. Which means that I have been listening to Arabic almost everyday, for a long time now. And now, just naturally, my wanderlusting feelings for other languages are becoming stronger. So I will also give me some time off.

[voron]

Just for saying that I am also making a pause with Arabic.

Thanks Antea, you made my decision easier. So from now on I am doing Kurdish only, not sure for how long (until I get back my motivation for Arabic I guess).

A new song in Turkish that I love:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=x-egWZm3Vk0

[vijayjohn]

It's okay, I'm very much used to people suddenly leaving study groups on this forum or the group suddenly dying. I'm honestly more inclined towards studying Damascene Arabic at this point anyway. I don't get to practice it with anyone IRL, and I still find my knowledge of it pretty weak.

You'll still be around to help us with Turkish, though, right?

[voron]

You know guys, maybe I won't stop doing Arabic after all.

I just had a hard week at work which exhausted me, but now that I rested well during the weekend, Arabic doesn't seem anymore all that time-draining and insurmountable.

You'll still be around to help us with Turkish, though, right?

Sure I will.

[księżycowy]

It's okay, I'm very much used to people suddenly leaving study groups on this forum or the group suddenly dying.

How many times does a guy have to apologise and feel awful before he's forgiven!?