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Weeks 12-13 4/15-4/26

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:13am

This last week we’re going over small different grammatical features, most recently phrases with the construction "X… X (da), for example: ya… ya (da)…. which means either… or… They are a little odd since if there is a verb used, it is placed in between the two clauses, which isn’t abnormal in English, but isn’t always the most intuitive.

Last week however, was my favorite Turkish verb tense: miş past tense aka story past. This is completely unique to Turkish (and I’m going to guess a ton of different languages). Information that is told second hand is given in miş-past, rather than the standard past (di- past). This can be used to impart so much more meaning than I’m used to and a variety of different subtexts. One of the songs we listened to, Dedikodu (Levant Yüksel) is about people gossiping about the singer, but instead of saying a kind of cumbersome phrase like “I heard that it is said that I …” the singer can just miş tense in the first person, which in two syllables accomplishes quite a bit of heavy lifting grammatically and semantically. From Merve’s description of its usage, it’s situational and used in a lot of different contexts, and I suspect that it will be difficult for me to get acclimated to using it in the future, but for now it’s easy to use. I am very curious how it developed since I don’t know of any other languages with a narrative/story past tense.

Song of the Week:

Dedikodu - Levent Yüksel

SDLC 111 - Language Journal Weeks 10-11 4/1-4/12

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:13am

We didn’t get a chance to meet today (4/12), but we have been working on the future tense, which hopefully will make life much easier (inşallah hayat daha kolay olacak). Like other tenses, there don’t appear to be any particularly tricky things here. It follows patterns pretty closely. The only thing that trips me up is that is a sound change (-acak [fut.] + -im [1st person sing. particle] = acağım), which doesn’t follow particularly intuitively now, but it follows other patterns. Just a matter of practice and recognition I think.

Song of the Week:

Yağmur Yağar Taş Üstüne - Ychorus

SDLC 111 - Language Journal Weeks 8-9 3/18-3/29

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:13am

I accidentally ran into Merve in New Orleans during spring break. It’s not super relevant to anything, but I feel like writing it anyways. We didn’t get a chance to talk much in Turkish unfortunately. The last two weeks have been really slow. I am continuing to work on adjectives/their formation with Merve, but there is a ton of work in other classes that’s making it difficult for me to sit down and adequately work through grammar. I am working on some conjunctions (e.g. bu neden = therefore; çünü = because/since)

We are starting the future tense soon though, so I am excited to start that.

Song of the Week:

Kağızman - Haluk Levent

SDLC 111 - Language Journal Weeks 7-8 2/25-3/8

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:12am

I’ve been a little bit ill lately, but we finally got a chance to have a lesson... Imperatives. These are fairly straightforward (an infinitive reduced to a very basic form). In the plural, they form with an additional -in particle. I also have been working on learning a hortative/jussive verb ending: -elsim/sin (i.e. et’s… / let…). This is a little trickier. Luckily, all of the grammar recently has a pretty direct comparison with Latin, which is convenient.

Song of the Week:

Karanfil - Yeni Türkü

SDLC 111 - Language Journal Weeks 5-6 2/11-2/22

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:11am

Last week I worked on the particle -ki. It’s a multi use particle with genitive functions (like an ezafe particle in Persian), and is also used in a way that I can’t fully describe, but is almost like a relative pronoun For example masada su means “the water is on the table,” but masadaki su means “the water on the table.” This week is word endings (-lı, -kap,-lık, -cı), usually as a way to derive another noun or an adjective from a noun. Additionally, I am working on comparatives/superlatives… daha (more) and en (most). They work almost identically to English. There’s a surprisingly large amount of overlap in this grammar between it all, which is making it easier for me.

Content-wise, it’s body parts and illness. I’ve been watching a few video clips with Merve from Turkish movies and shows where characters talk about their head hurting or having a fever. I actually just realized that I’ve never had a dedicated lesson to this subject in any language I’ve had prior, but it seems like a highly important topic to know body parts and illnesses and how to talk about them. This area of vocab has been least similar to any other language. Previously, Turkish has been full of words reminiscent of Arabic or Persian, or other Indo-European languages, but when it comes to discussing the parts of a body, it is almost exclusively Turkic in origin (at least as far as I can tell). This makes a little bit more difficult, because I can’t rely on my “I just happen to know Arabic and some Persian and can guess cognates pretty well” strategy that has served me surprisingly well in some previous areas.

Song of the Week

Senden Daha Güzel - Duman

SDLC 111 - Language Journal Weeks 3-4 1/28-2/8

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:11am

Right now, I’m hoping to cross my Turkish and archaeology classes a bit. Dr. Baughan, my archaeology professor, has done excavations in Turkey for the last few years and speaks Turkish. Merve had the idea of maybe the three of us meeting up for coffee. Unfortunately I can’t come when they planned to meet up, but I can in the future.

The current goal is telling time. Numbers are very easy… It’s a straightforward decimal number system that simply adds number together… no need to memorize a separate word for “twelve” or “eleven” it’s just ten two and ten one, and it doesn’t obey weird pluralization rules like Arabic (don’t get me started). The big issue that I’m having is with the case endings. ###’de is for “at ### o’clock.” ###den ###2e kadar is for “from ### to ###2.” They’re not that difficult when writing it all out, but when added to the vowel harmony rules already in place, it can be really hard to remember which is which while speaking. I think this is more of a practice thing for me, and it’s just a matter of spending more time with times. One of the tricks I used for learning Arabic numbers was to constantly number things my head, and I’m trying to do the same with Turkish and constantly tell time to myself in Turkish and explain my calendar.

Song of the Week:

Istanbul’da Sonbahar - Teoman

SDLC 111 - Language Journal Weeks 1-2 1/13-1/25

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 6, 2019 at 4:10am

For the first weeks back, I don’t have any particular goals. I didn’t get a chance to practice very much Turkish over the break, so this will be a somewhat rough beginning, and I want to return to the comfort level that I had before hand. I’m using the Turkish Essential Grammar book to review and I’m trying to listen to more Turkish music to practice the phonetics and just re-familiarising myself with the sound of Turkish.

In terms of grammar, I have been trying to introduce a few new adverb and adjective phrases (e.g. kendi, bazen, bolca, sık sık). They aren’t particularly difficult luckily. I’m working on setting up a time to work to Merve. We have a class together (LLC 198 with Dr. Bohon) and we have been meeting directly after that class time. To be honest, it’s not a great meeting time since I have three classes consecutively and that usually isn’t the best for me, but hopefully it will work okay.

Song of the Week: Cambaz - mor ve ötesi

Bi-Weekly Journal Weeks 11-12, 13-15

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 3:33pm

Weeks 11-12:

These weeks I learned how to say different countries in Turkish, as well as the languages associated with those countries and their respective nationalities. To say nationalities, you can usually add on the ending -li or -lı (matching with vowel harmony, of course) to the country to say a person's nationality. This ending indicates that you are "from" this country. Similarly, languages are usually the shorter version of the nationality with -ca, -ce, -ça or -çe added onto the end. I also learned how to say myself, yourself, etc. and all of us/you/them in Turkish using the words "kendi-"and "hep-" respectively and tacking on the appropriate suffixes. This was pretty difficult for me to keep straight, even though everything about these words just required the same grammar rules I've been using. At the end of these weeks, Merve and I went over the accusative case (this case allows us to tell the difference between saying I am reading a book and I am reading the book; it indicates specificity for objects in a sentence).

Weeks 13-15:

At the beginning of these weeks I talked to Merve about the culture and history of the Grand Bazaar to help plan my final presentation. It was interesting to hear what Merve had to say about the Grand Bazaar because a lot of the information I was able to research was more focused on its history or tailored to tourists.

Telling time in Turkish is a lot more complicated than in English. Parts of it remind me of how to tell time in French, but more difficult. Like French, minutes that are between 31 and 59 are subtracted from the closest hour, so an approximate translation of 4:43 in Turkish would be "17 minutes until 5." Depending on if the minutes are before or after the hour emphasized, different vowel harmonies of the hour value have to be used. There are also different words for conveying "it is ___ o'clock" versus "... at ___ o'clock" that must be included (and saying "at" for time does not always match the locative case rules). I also learned words for the days of the week, months, and seasons. Interestingly, spring (ilkbahar) and fall (sonbahar) are almost the same word. "Bahar" means spring and can be used to indicate the spring season, but the prefix "ilk-" means "before" and "son-" means "after," which suggests the similarities between spring and fall weather. In the last couple of weeks, I learned about different Turkish holidays (Ramadan, a holiday for children, the Republic Day of Turkey, etc.), as well as other holidays that we also celebrate in the U.S. (Mother's/Father's Day, anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine's Day, etc.). I also learned how to use the words "before/after" and "since/for (a time/time period)." To use the word "after," you have to use past tense for verbs, so Merve also gave me a glimpse of how to use the simple past tense in Turkish.

Cultural Post 8

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 2:19pm

Turkish Delights: A Disney Short/Mickey Mouse Cartoon

Disney created Mickey Mouse shorts featuring the culture and language of different countries from around the world. In the short they created for Turkey, Mickey Mouse was a merchant at the Grand Bazaar (Kapalıçarşı) who sold Turkish delights. Because his Turkish delights were so delicious, Mickey stole the customers from other merchants (Donald Duck, who sold evil eye decorations, and Goofy, who sold instruments). I really liked how the short featured many aspects of Turkish culture and incorporated the Turkish language.

Turkish Cultural Features/New Words:

- One of the famous Kapalıçarşı gates (Nuruosmaniye Kapısı)
- "Afiyet olsun" ~ "Bon appetit" in Turkish
- A sign saying "Açık" = "Open"
- Turkish tea runners
- Goofy playing the bağlama, a Turkish string instrument similar to a lute
- Bosphorus Bridge, a bridge in Istanbul that connects Europe and Asia
- Turkish carpets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypnKKwlE670

Cultural Post 7

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 1:57pm

The Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Camii)

One of the most prominent architectural structures in Istanbul is the Blue Mosque. To enter, women must cover their skin and wear headscarves, and people have to take off their shoes. Services are also separated by gender. Inside the mosque is an impressive display of colorful mosaics with floral designs, stained glass windows and high vaulted ceilings. Unlike many Western European places of worship, the Blue Mosque is void of any idols. Throughout the mosque is Arabic calligraphy of sections of the Quran. Five times a day, a call to prayer is amplified from the minarets of the mosque. The call to prayer is always the same and is translated below:

God is Great
There is no god but God
Muhammed is the Prophet of God
Come to prayer
Come to salvation
God is Great
There is no god but God

Pictures from https://thetravelbunny.com/istanbul-blue-mosque/

Cultural Post 6

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 1:15pm

Turkey has a national holiday for children! National Sovereignty and Children's Day happens every year on April 23rd and was founded in 1920 to celebrate children, the future leaders of the world. During this celebration, children perform dances, recite poetry, and replace politicians in government to discuss and voice their concerns. Children from other countries are also sent to Turkey and hosted by Turkish families. These children from all over the world share their cultures and traditions with each other.

Cultural Post 5

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 12:40pm

Cappadocia (Kapadokya) is a region of Turkey located in the center of the country that is famous for its otherworldly landscape. Hot air ballooning is a popular tourist attraction and runs year round. A national park in Cappadocia, called Göreme National Park, is known for its fairy chimney formations that tower from the ground, formed from eroded volcanic rock. Cappadocia is also famous for its cave hotels and ancient underground cities.

Cultural Post 4

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 11:41am

Transcribing the nursery rhyme Ali Baba'nın Çiftliği (and correcting transcription):

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde küzelleri kuzuları var

Meh meh

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde inekleri var

Mö

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde holozları horozları var

Ü ürü ü

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde eşekleri var

A i Aiii

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde kedileri var

Miao Mıyav

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde köpekleri var

Ho Hav

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Ali baba'nın bir çiftliği var

Çiftliğinde tavukları var

Bukak Gıdak

Biye banıl Diye bağırır

Çiftliğinde Ali baba'nın.

Cultural Post 3

Posted by Claire Fuller on May 3, 2019 at 10:24am

Borek is a savory Turkish pastry that can be stuffed with different fillings, such as cheese, spinach, and meat (but there are also sweet variations). Börek can also come in different shapes, some of which have distinct fillings:

- Su böreği (water borek)—consists of large sheets of yufka dough layered on top of each other. The borek is then cut up into small squares

- Kalem böreği (pen borek)—used to be called sigara böreği (cigar borek). Kind of looks like an egg roll

- Gül böreği (rose borek)—Coiled into a spiral shape

One weekend during the semester I went to a farmers' market back home and ordered borek from a Turkish food stand! The attached pictures show that they are the gül böreği shape. One was spinach borek and the other was filled with meat. Very good!

^ Spinach (Ispanaklı börek)

Ground beef (Kıymalı börek)

Cultural Post #8

Posted by Brenda Lim on May 1, 2019 at 4:49pm

I just started a new Netflix original series called "첫사랑은 처음이라서", which means Because It's my first time having a first love. The drama is about these 5 young college students, each dealing with difficulties in their life. I think it is a great drama because it helps me learn about Korean culture and what the youth is dealing with. I will be looking forward to watching it during the summer.

SDLC 111 - Culture Post 8 S19

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 1, 2019 at 4:41pm

After last semester's cultural presentation, I was half-convinced to write a series of posts on the wild times of the early Turkish Republic’s hyper nationalism. One of my favorite areas are the Turkish Historical Thesis and Sun Language theory. Essentially, the Turkish Historical Thesis (TRT) stated that the Turks were the original inhabitants of Anatolia, and that the Hittites and Sumerians were proto-Turks. They eventually left Anatolia for Central Asia, and from there spread out again to bring civilization to Europe and China The Sun language theory is related to TRT and is essentially an attempt at creating goropisms (absurd etymologies) proving that modern words all descend from Turkic ones. Both of these theories are patently absurd and are rejected by all except a few fringe writers (websites following). While it’s easy to laugh at these theories, when looking at their contemporaries in American eugenics and Nazi racial science, they’re actually quite remarkable as an attempt by Turkey to combat European prejudices against Turkish academia and to create a place for Turkey in the world of intellectual history. As serious intellectual ideas, they don’t hold up, but as a piece of history, they fit into a broader story of Turkey emerging from the Ottoman Empire and trying to be embraced by the European community.

Sumerianturks.org

sunlanguagetheory.org

SDLC 111 - Culture Post 7 S19

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 1, 2019 at 4:40pm

Aside from a prolific poetry career, Rumi founded the Mevlevi order (also of Arabic-Ottoman Turkish origin), which is better known in English as the Whirling Dervishes. To explain them better, I should explain a little bit about Sufism. Sufis are fairly diverse in their practice, but one of the most uniting things is Zikir (dhikr in Arabic), which is a ritual focusing on reciting the names of God, short prayers, or verses from the Quran. This can be accompanied by by a variety of different rituals, including singing, music, meditation, inducing trances, incense, etc. For the Mevlevis, this is dancing, the Whirling in Whirling Dervishes. It’s called Sama (you thought you were going to learn Turkish… surprise! it’s all Arabic today… for this word, lengthen the final vowel and add a voiced pharyngeal fricative to the end). The origins are somewhat mythic, but my favorite story is that Rumi was walking through the markets in Konya and heard the goldsmiths chanting the shahada [i.e. “there is no god but God,” but in Arabic] and the rhythm of the hammers combined with the shahada (which is oftentimes recited during zikir) caused him to spontaneously start twirling and dancing. This sparked the most notable practice. I’m not incredibly familiar with the teachings, but the current order claims to be somewhat unorthodox in Islam. The order was banned by Atatürk during the secularization of the early Turkish Republic, but it still persists to some extent and is actually a small tourist attraction in some parts of Turkey.

Mevlevi’s performing Sama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TAOxkqup_k

SDLC 111 - Culture Post 6 S19

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 1, 2019 at 4:40pm

Aside from a prolific poetry career, Rumi founded the Mevlevi order (also of Arabic-Ottoman Turkish origin), which is better known in English as the Whirling Dervishes. To explain them better, I should explain a little bit about Sufism. Sufis are fairly diverse in their practice, but one of the most uniting things is Zikir (dhikr in Arabic), which is a ritual focusing on reciting the names of God, short prayers, or verses from the Quran. This can be accompanied by by a variety of different rituals, including singing, music, meditation, inducing trances, incense, etc. For the Mevlevis, this is dancing, the Whirling in Whirling Dervishes. It’s called Sama (you thought you were going to learn Turkish… surprise! it’s all Arabic today… for this word, lengthen the final vowel and add a voiced pharyngeal fricative to the end). The origins are somewhat mythic, but my favorite story is that Rumi was walking through the markets in Konya and heard the goldsmiths chanting the shahada [i.e. “there is no god but God,” but in Arabic] and the rhythm of the hammers combined with the shahada (which is oftentimes recited during zikir) caused him to spontaneously start twirling and dancing. This sparked the most notable practice. I’m not incredibly familiar with the teachings, but the current order claims to be somewhat unorthodox in Islam. The order was banned by Atatürk during the secularization of the early Turkish Republic, but it still persists to some extent and is actually a small tourist attraction in some parts of Turkey.

Mevlevi’s performing Sama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TAOxkqup_k

SDLC 111 - Culture Post 5

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 1, 2019 at 4:40pm

Growing up, Rumi was just the name of the guy who authored all the different quotes decorating one of the streets in my city. It wasn’t until well into my senior year of high school that I learned he was an amazing poet, and not until college when I learned that he was one of the most influential Sufis of all time. As a historical figure, his legacy is steeped in equal parts Arabic, Persian, and Turkish heritage - he was an ethnically Persian man who preached in Arabic and lived in Turkey. His name in Turkish is Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi. The first part of his name, Mevlana, means “our master” in Arabic, but is phonetically Turkish (yay! Ottoman Turkish). He was also known as “Hüdavendigar,” meaning great leader in Ottoman Turkish. Rumi in his name means “Rum,” one of the historical names for Anatolia used in various Islamic countries (and to some extant still in Arabic… Turkeys, the birds, are known as Dik Rumi… or Anatolian Cocks). Continued in next Culture Post

SDLC 111 - Culture Post 4 S19

Posted by Christopher Carl Rein on May 1, 2019 at 4:39pm

Orhan Pamuk is one of the most prominent Turkish authors, and my personal favorite (in particular the White Castle, Beyaz Kale). He is most notable for winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006 amidst a trial for insulting Turkishness. In 2005, Pamuk talked about the Armenian Genocide and Kurdish mass killings, and he was then sued by ultra-nationalists for insulting Turkishness and the Turkish army. The charges were dropped in January 2006, but were appealed and he was ordered to pay 6000 liras in 2011 for his “crimes.” Since the early 2000s, he has been a literatuer professor at Columbia. He is one of the most prominent writers and intellectuals on the “East-West” divide which informs and influences many of his novels.

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Note: this page contains paid content.

Note: this page contains paid content.