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Turkic Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 17 of 56 23 February 2010 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I heard or read that the speech of Turkmen in Iraq is indeed a form of Azeri. Turkmeneli, a satellite TV channel, uses standard Turkish of Turkey as well as Arabic in its broadcasts, however. Edited by William Camden on 23 February 2010 at 3:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 18 of 56 15 March 2010 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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From what I'm reading, they seem to be as distant as the Romance languages are from each other... Or is the distance more like among the Arabic dialects?
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 19 of 56 18 March 2010 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps more like the Slavic languages. These are grammatically similar in most cases, but they can differ quite a bit in vocabulary.
Turkic languages geographically distant from one another are quite different. Turkish, Azerbaijani and perhaps Turkmen are quite similar to one another. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| a.k.a. Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5364 days ago 7 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, French, Mandarin | Message 20 of 56 20 March 2010 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is a great thread, but it would be nice to step back a bit further, to find out more about the OTHER stepping stone to the languages of the region: Persian. If you were taking on Central Asia as a newbie, and had a choice of Persian or Turkish, which of the two languages is an easier stepping stone -- Persian or Turkish? And WHY? They obviously lead toward different parts of the region -- Pashto from Persian, and so on. Would it be easier to master Persian than Turkish? Edited by a.k.a. on 20 March 2010 at 8:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5448 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 21 of 56 21 March 2010 at 12:55am | IP Logged | ||
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a.k.a.-
Your question is a good one. Learning Farsi unquestionably gives you a leg up on Dari (sometimes even referred to as Kabul Persian) and Tajik. (Pashto, however, is an Eastern Iranian language, and quite divergent from the Persian languages that came from the Western group.) But the place where Farsi is really helpful is that not only does it give you a start on Dari and Tajik, but it gives you a wealth of the Perso-Arabic vocabulary that has slipped into the Central Asian Turkic languages. If you were interested in conquering Central Asia linguistically, it's a tough call whether you'd be best off starting with the Persian languages or the Turkic ones. Farsi may well be the better bet, especially since it's a lot closer to Tajik than Turkish is to Uyghur. However, your final question gets to the heart of this: "Would it be easier to master Persian than Turkish?" It's not that Farsi lacks exoticism. But I think that for language geeks, Turkish and the Turkic languages have a special appeal precisely because they diverge from the Indo-European languages in dramatic ways. The elegance of vowel harmony, the illusory logic of agglutination... that the Turkic languages are, or might be, or might at least appear to be, harder to master than another Indo-European language is the point. It's kind of like learning the Avatar language Na'vi - it's the challenge of something completely different that first piques the interest, not practical questions about what you're going to do with your learning when you're done. If you want to speak the languages of Central Asia, I'd start with Farsi. But if you want to learn a completely different way of putting together your language-based thoughts about how the world goes together, I'd start with Turkish. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 56 21 March 2010 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||
I'd pick Persian. It has a simpler grammar (reminiscent of English, although with a different word order) and a long history of excellent literature. It's also exerted influence on languages from Arabic to Hindi. It's also Indo-European, though so many of the words have been borrowed from Arabic that this will be of minimal help. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cintonik Pentaglot Newbie Turkey Joined 5361 days ago 4 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Turkish*, Azerbaijani, English, Uzbek, Turkmen Studies: Uyghur, German, Kazakh, Kyrgyz | Message 23 of 56 23 March 2010 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Turkic languages (or Turkic dialects) have many common words. Until the beginning of the 19th century, all Turkic people had only two literal languages: Ottoman Turkish and Chagatai Turkish. Chagatai Turkish was known as Türkiy til (Turkic language) and it was not very different from Ottoman Turkish. After the foundation of the Soviet Union, Turkic tribes began to have different literal languages (based on their local dialects) and they began to be called Azeri nation, Turkmen nation, Kazakh nation and so on.
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| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5652 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 24 of 56 23 March 2010 at 5:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Everything depends on what you want to do. If you want to read widely, from medieval texts (or before) to modern, if you want to understand many of the cultural roots of the area, if you want to learn the Perso-Arabic script (which was used for most (?) Turkic languages until the 20th century, as well as for Persian, Tajik, Dari, etc.), and if you want the (small) comfort you might gain from Persian's Indo-European heritage, then consider learning Persian. I've been very happy with it.
My opinion is that Persian's "simpler" grammar is a bit of a myth. Yes, it looks simpler based on an initial survey, sort of like English seems to have a simple grammar. But Persians have taken that simplicity and played with it until it's riddled with ambiguity, subtlety, a huge vocabulary, and a long legacy that keeps referring back to itself in ways that the reader must understand. Not unlike authors who write in English! Admittedly, I read mostly classical literature in Persian, so maybe my view is warped, but it is not easy going, for the most part. Knowing all the words and all the grammar only gets you part way to the meaning. If you want a non-Indo-European language, if you want to concentrate on things Turkish rather than things Persian, if you are interested in a rich and growing modern literature (e.g., Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk), and if you enjoy the sound of Turkish vowel harmony, then go with Turkish. Either way, you'll enter a new universe, both of which can offer many lifetimes of fascination. I think that anyone really interested in Central Asia will eventually need to learn Persian, Turkish, and Arabic--at least. So, the sooner you get started, the better. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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