SDLC 110: Cultural Post 2

[Tenaya Bien]

Informal versus formal language in Turkish does matter a lot, but isn't really that complicated. Other than things like informal and formal greetings and farewells (Selam meaning Hi and Merhaba meaning Hello, things that we also find in English) the difference between formal and informal language is often the change of ending in a word or phrase. For example, "Adin ne?" meaning What is your name? would be considered informal. But the addition of the suffix "iz" to the word "Adin" makes the phrase appropriate for a formal language situation. I think this is a lot easier than in Spanish where the difference between formal and informal language is in the conjugation of the verb.