|
 |
Tajiki | ||
Tags: Asian Languages | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6776 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 14 16 October 2007 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I was thinking about languages I might learn next. And Arabic was definitely on the short list of potential candidates - like it seems to be on many people's lists. However, then I realized, that Persian can perhaps be a way to ease the study of Arabic, with Persian(Farsi) being Indo-European language and having a relatively simple grammar. And the more information I look up on Persian, the more fascinating the language is in itself. And then I found out that Tajiki language - the language of Tajikistan can perhaps make things even easier: Tajiki is written in Cyrillic alphabet, but from what I found out, Tajiki is very similar to Persian - some people go as far as calling it the same language, while others call them dialects. So, by learning Tajiki, one would pretty much learn Persian with Cyrillic script, and needless to say, that would make it easier in the early stages as it forgoes the often-feared Arabic script. Also, the Cyrillic used for Tajiki doesn't omit vowels - or at least represents them better than Arabic, which should be useful for a beginner student of the language. Since a lot of people know Cyrillic, I wonder if learning the Tajiki-Persian is easier for them than learning the Persian of Iran. Needless to say, whatever lexical differences there are between Tajiki and Persian proper would probably be the Tajiki words borrowed from Russian and that would be cognates of international words like "republic", etc - which should also make things easier in theory. A lot of people come from countries which use Cyrillic alphabet and yet many other people on this forum either studied one of the Cyrillic languages or at least invested a couple of hours to learn the Cyrillic script so maybe Tajiki can become a gateway to the East, of sorts, as it would probably be easier switch to Arabic script later when you know the language itself.
Perhaps someone who is familiar with Persian, Tajiki and/or Arabic can comment on this. I am mainly interested in two questions: 1) how realistic is it to learn Tajiki - with its Cyrillic alphabet, and then make a switch to Arabic script and the Persian? 2) Just how helpful would the knowledge of Persian would be to someone who is learning Arabic? I know the grammars are not even close, but I've heard many of the words are similar between the two. I wonder just how big this lexical overlap is - 20%, 40% or 60%? I don't expect accurate numbers, but a guesstimate by someone who is familiar with both languages would be interesting to see. Edited by Russianbear on 16 October 2007 at 4:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7145 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 2 of 14 16 October 2007 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm hardly an expert, but starting with Tajiki makes sense, since the Cyrillic alphabet is definitely easier to get used to than the Arabic script. Tajiki has some verb forms and other grammatical forms derived from Turkic (presumably Uzbek), though, so it is a bit different from "standard" Persian. (I'll let others argue over the "language versus dialect" issue.)
Since you know Russian, you can use Russian sources to learn Tajiki, but there are now some good textbooks in English as well. One is: http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Tajiki-Azim-Baizoyev/d p/0415315980/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4508425-7636914?ie=UTF8&s=b ooks&qid=1192570253&sr=8-1 Another is: http://www.amazon.com/Tajiki-Textbook-and-Reader/dp/18812657 22/ref=sr_1_4/102-4508425-7636914?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=119257 0483&sr=8-4 This latter teaches both alphabets, and tapes for it are available through the publisher, Dunwoody Press. (They have their own website, and amid a lot of other materials for different languages, they also publish a Tajik-English dictionary and a smaller Tajik-English vocabulary book.) Finally, there's an expensive but very thorough reference grammar that also uses both alphabets: http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Reference-Grammar-Handbook-Ori ental/dp/9004143238/ref=pd_bbs_4/102-4508425-7636914?ie=UTF8 &s=books&qid=1192570669&sr=8-4 You can look inside the first and third of these books on the Amazon/US site. Additionally, Indiana University has produced some materials for Tajiki, including some that are usable on-line: http://www.indiana.edu/~celcar/ (Their web-site is not all that easy to navigate, you have to click on just about every link there to see what they have, and the materials look to me to be more gimmicky than substantive, but they do have some on-line clickable picture "dictionaries" where you can hear the pronunciation of the words shown.) ADDENDUM: Re the benefit to learning Arabic from learning Persian first, you'll pick up a fair amount of Arabic vocabulary, but it's hard to estimate in terms of percentages. I would expect that if you develop a LARGE Tajiki/Persian vocabulary, including "learned" words, you'll have a substantially easier time at learning Arabic, but you have to be aware as well that in some cases the Arabic words borrowed into Persian are used in ways different than in Arabic. Someone else who's studied the two languages may be in a better position to comment on the degree of "discount" you'll get in learning Arabic if you already know Persian. In any event, good luck. Edited by daristani on 16 October 2007 at 5:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ElfoEscuro Diglot Senior Member United States cyworld.com/brahmapu Joined 6290 days ago 408 posts - 423 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 14 17 October 2007 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||
This is interesting. Uzbek has a large number of loanwords from Persian that appear to resemble Tajik more than Farsi or Dari. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kinoko Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6637 days ago 103 posts - 109 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, Japanese, Spanish Studies: German | Message 4 of 14 17 October 2007 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Why you don't just start studying the language you really want to study in the first place? Study a language which is your second preference in order to get close to the one you really want to study doesn't make a lot of sense. Do you really want to study Arabic? (I don't get the "it seems to be on many people's list" kind of reason anyway...). Or would you rather study Persian? If you want to study Tajik in the first place do it but if you like another language better just go for it. There's not such a thing as a language which is too difficulkt to learn, but expecially one shouldn't study a language only to get "closer" to the one one really wants to learn. Mastering to languages is still way more difficult than mastering one.Thus, start with your first choice, not your second. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6776 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 14 18 October 2007 at 10:13am | IP Logged | ||
daristani, thanks a lot for your input!
And I see nothing wrong with studying Tajiki-Persian instead of Persian even if I am more interested in Persian itself - simply because it seems like Tajiki is not that different from Persian itself and I can get to a decent (intermediate?) level quicker if I studied the cyrillic version of the language instead of the arabic script. Like I wrote earlier, some people view Tajiki and Persian as the same language - or at least dialects of the same language- just with different writing scripts. So I don't think this is a matter of which language I want to know more - since it is pretty much the same language (at least as far as an outsider like me is concerned)- but what script to use in the early stages of the learning process. I did a little research and suggested that using the Tajiki dialect of the language would lead to faster acquisition of the language in the long run because of the familiar script and the fact I can almost read Tajiki script without any study at all. Whether my suggestion is valid or not - I leave to experts on the language to decide. daristani seems to agree that it is a valid approach and if no other knowledgable people point out flaws in my approach, I will think I am onto something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Seth Diglot Changed to RedKing’sDream Senior Member United States Joined 7225 days ago 240 posts - 252 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Persian | Message 6 of 14 18 October 2007 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I've been toying with the same sort of thing myself.
It's definitely of help IF you realize that there will be something of a switch when going from one to the other. It is unfortunately not the case that Tajik differs from Farsi in Russian loanwords only. There are many words in Tajik that are simply different (or are used differently, in different contexts, etc.) than in Farsi. Several grammatical aspects differ--even phrase structure to a bit. I think you'll have to decide if you want to learn Tajik well, and then cash in on most of Farsi when you decide to switch to it, OR if you'd prefer to sort of combine them. The lack of audio-based self-study materials for Tajiki is also dissapointing, though Michael Hillman's "Tajiki Textbook and Reader" is thorough (if not easy) source for learning to read and understand it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arashjoon Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6333 days ago 31 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English*, Persian* Studies: French | Message 7 of 14 10 November 2007 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | ||
|
1) Not a bad idea, however the accent of Tajiki will be very odd-sounding to, say, an average person in Tehran. In other words you will develop a distinct accent if you start with Tajiki, and it may be hard to fix. If you truly believe that it having the Cyrillic script will make it easier for you, go right ahead.
Speaking to an Iranian acquaintance in Tajiki will get you understood, don't fret as far as vocabulary goes. There is no superiority complex among speakers of the Persian dialects, though they often jokingly mock each other's intonation. 2) Low. The Iranian handwriting style of the Arabic script is quite different to an MSA speaker and they would have a bit of a hard time deciphering it. The amount of Arabic in Persian, I believe, tends to be overstated by a lot of people. Words related to spirituality/religion, due to both nations being Islamic, are probably the only Arabic words you will come across in Persian. Learning Persian will not give you an Arabic discount worthy of the trouble. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 8 of 14 11 November 2007 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||
You would get at least as much "Arabic discount" from Turkish, which is in Roman script and has quite a few Arabic loanwords. But if you're interested in Arabic you should study it directly. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
