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Arabic hyped up vs. Persian and Turkish? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 65 of 71 27 October 2010 at 2:13pm | IP Logged |
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The analogue between Standard German and Standard Mandarin seems pretty exact. If you can compare Arabic to German, you can compare it to Mandarin, too.
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| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5197 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 66 of 71 27 October 2010 at 3:41pm | IP Logged |
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@ari:
The more I've read your descriptions of Standard Mandarin, the more it seems to share alot in common with MSA, definitely. I'm still amazed by what you said about its status as a second language within China. And the Chairman Mao thing... haha. @doitsujin: I'm think our discussion is losing sight of the thread topic. The only reason I brought up Standard German was to show that MSA is more similar to Standard German than Interlingua (which is a claim I think your responses have mostly supported). The reason for describing what I understand to be MSA was to more clearly define the hypothetical Modern Standard Turkic, which in turn, I had brought up as a way to discuss the differences between Turkic and Arabic (i.e. the presence or lack thereof of a Standardized version), which is what this thread is about. I might be interested in discussing official languages's comparative "special-ness" and contrasting conlangs with "natural" languages, but I think doing so in another thread would be more appropriate. @everyone: I'm still interested in how Turkic and Arabic would compare if some sort of MST were instituted. It seems to me that would really level the playing field, which is what the OP was concerned with. 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 67 of 71 28 October 2010 at 12:03pm | IP Logged |
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Some Turkic languages are mutually intelligible. However, their development has been quite different from Arabic. Arabic is a number of often quite different spoken dialects, held together by a written language based on the language of Islam's holy book. There is no equivalent development with Turkic.
Turkey tries to encourage the knowledge and use of standard Istanbul Turkish by Turkic peoples outside Turkey. If there is an MST, it is that. But really, I don't think the comparison applies. Edited by William Camden on 28 October 2010 at 12:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Domi333 Tetraglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5140 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, French, Creole (French), Portuguese Studies: Turkish, Ancient Greek | Message 68 of 71 30 October 2010 at 10:35am | IP Logged |
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Azerbaijani and Turkish are quite similar and as others have stated the difference when it comes to Uighur seems to be larger! (I must say though that Azerbaijani looks simpler and shorter than Turkish but I can't judge too much because I've only seen one video about learning Azeri)
A MST wouldn't work because of the historical developments of the Turkic languages although there has been a Pan-Turkic movement and movement for economic integration of the Turkic countries. Consider as well that the purge of the Turkish language would serve to bring it even closer to those other languages. Edited by Domi333 on 30 October 2010 at 10:36am 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 69 of 71 06 November 2010 at 11:58am | IP Logged |
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Azerbaijani retains quite a few words no longer common in Turkish, Persian and Arabic-origin words, and also, I think, some old Turkic words not present in Turkish any more. In the USSR where northern Azeris lived, the alphabet changed and some Russian words entered the language but there was not the dramatic language change of the kind sponsored in Turkey.
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| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5576 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 70 of 71 06 November 2010 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
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Good point, but I imagine if one was studying with FSI as one's main text, one would be
placed at an advantage as the course still retains many Arabic/Persian words. This would be an advantage for increasing ability to speak with other closely related languages. Would knowing some Russian help one understand some of the Former Soviet Area Turkic languages? (My two main courses are Assimil's Le Turc sans peine, and FSI Turkish Basic I/II/III) 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 71 of 71 07 November 2010 at 4:16pm | IP Logged |
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I posted earlier about FSI Turkish vocabulary being old-fashioned, though I added later that a careful search did not find as many obsolete words as I had first thought.
Knowing some Russian would probably not do any harm, especially with literature dating from the Soviet period. In the case of a Turkic language like Yakut, a lot of abstract concepts were and perhaps are expressed with Russian loanwords (I remember seeing a Yakut translation of Lenin's State And Revolution in the Lenin Museum in 1984. The title was Gosudarstvo Uonna Revolutsiya - the first and third words were taken straight from Russian. However, this wholesale use of Russian loans for abstract concepts was probably not the case with languages like Azerbaijani or Uzbek). Edited by William Camden on 07 November 2010 at 4:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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