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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5822 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 1 of 6 02 February 2012 at 3:54pm | IP Logged |
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Does anyone know if there are many/any similarities between Arabic (MSA, I guess) and
Turkish? I know some of the basic differences (the alphabet/a lack of gender in Turkish etc), but what about the vocabulary? Do you get any kind of language-learning 'discount' knowing either of them (like you would with French/Spanish/Italian) or are they only weakly related now? Thanks for any help. Edited by crafedog on 02 February 2012 at 3:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Voodie Tetraglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 4808 days ago 17 posts - 40 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, GermanC1, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Written), Greek | Message 2 of 6 02 February 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged |
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Genetically they are not related at all (Arabic is a Semitic language, Turkish is a Turkic one). Grammatically they are very different as well - Turkish uses agglutination, while Arabic is mostly fusional.
But there still should be a lot of Arabic loanwords in Turkish, despite all the efforts of purists. At least in Azeri (which is closely related to Turkish) the amount of Arabic words is considerable, especially in fields like politics, science, religion etc. It works the other way around as well, if you want to learn one of Arabic dialects. For instance, in Egyptian Arabic there are quite a few borrowings from Turkish. As for the "discount", I wouldn't count on it too much. I'm sure, it will be easier to pick up the vocabulary. But before that you'll still have to struggle with the grammar, which is not easy both in Turkish and in Arabic. Edited by Voodie on 02 February 2012 at 4:31pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4893 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 6 02 February 2012 at 6:36pm | IP Logged |
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A friend from Egypt says he can just barely 'get by' in Turkey using loan words. My
impression is that it's similar to American English and Mexican Spanish. Enough words have crossed the border in both directions that you can make yourself understood on a basic level, but you'd be saying "amigo, taco, gracias" rather than an actual sentence in Spanish. I agree with Voodie: there's no "discount" here. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mauritz Octoglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5072 days ago 223 posts - 325 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Esperanto, French Studies: Old English, Yiddish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Icelandic, Afrikaans | Message 4 of 6 02 February 2012 at 7:45pm | IP Logged |
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Like others have pointed out, they belong to completely different language families and are just as separated
grammatically. However, and despite the purification of Turkish, there really is a lot of loan words from Arabic in the language. The thing is that the pronunciation of the words are often very different and most Turkish people are now aware of the the words being loanwords (there are many exceptions, of course, especially when words are spelled differently from standard Turkish rules or when suffixes aren't what you expect them to be). However, in my opinion, you won't be able to have much use of your Arabic when speaking Turkish. I have tried and even when a word has been borrowed into Turkish, people won't understand you. The only noticeable advantage that I got was that some words were very easy to remember. Nevertheless, I'm mostly talking about everyday conversations. If you know Arabic, are already fairly proficient in Turkish and want to talk about more advanced subjects (politics, religion etc), then it's often possible to guess the meaning of loanwords from Arabic or guess what a particular Arabic word would be in Turkish, but I would certainly consider this something that I seldom use. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Fazla Hexaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6266 days ago 166 posts - 255 votes Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 6 03 February 2012 at 10:11am | IP Logged |
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Well in my experience my previous knowledge of Arabic has helped me. Not maybe a lot, but definitely it helped me in some ways.
I will do some brainstorming and see what are some of the words I already knew when starting to speak Turkish: yani mesela mesil azim siyaset aziz nakliyat gayrimenkul hissetmek telaffuz tecavüz mastar fiil ders kitap sanduk şark aşk işgal meşgul mühim mümin hamile zina harariyet arzu talep ithalat ihracat iktisat dünya nezaket rakip rekabet hareket bina müdür ticaret tuccar alaka evrak ehliyet hüviyet elbise portokal tahammül sıhhi kalp ameliyat mağlubiyat feth etmek zaffer muhteşem müthiş makan mekan mahale şiir şair kalem şahsiyet mesuliyet devlet... that's after spending some 5 minutes brain storming... then let's not coung all the help it gives for older turkish with words like harp or hudut that you can still hear in some tarkan songs or on some old administration buildings. IMHO only and only vocabulary wise Arabic helps a lot, at least it did help me a lot. It also helps understand and remembering why and how şiir and şair ticaret and tuccar nazık and nezaket and such are intertwined. I have been studying Turkish with a Finn with no previous knowledge of Arabic, and my previous knowledge of Arabic has helped me and I definitely do remember words coming from Arabic more easily. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6276 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 6 of 6 13 February 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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Knowledge of Turkish vocabulary makes Arabic just a little bit more comprehensible. There is a discount, I think, but only a very limited one. Although I have never studied Persian, there is a limited discount there too - it shares some vocabulary with Turkish.
I once knew a Turk who managed to communicate fairly well with a Kuwaiti woman despite no knowledge of Arabic. I think he had an idea which Turkish words were Arabic origin, and he tried to base his conversation on those words. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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