SDLP 110: Cultural Post 2

[Constantinos Beauclair-Kolomtsas]

In Turkish formality and informality are expressed through suffixes or  by changing the nature of words. For example, in order to formalize the question 'What is your name?' in Turkish both tactics are used. "Senin adin ne" means 'what is your name' informally, while "sizin adiniz ne" means 'what is your name' in a formal fashion. In this case the initial word "senin" is changed to "sizin" and the suffix "iz" is added to the word "adin" to signify pluralization. In a similar way, "Ya sen" - which means 'and you' - is pluralized as "Ya siz". Therefore, a clear pattern appears to exist in the method of pluralization in the Turkish language.