# Persian: بم گفتن



## eskandar

What does بم or perhaps بم گفتن mean in the following sentence, from شازده کوچولو the Persian translation of Le petit prince ?

... بزرگ‌ترها بم گفتند کشیدن مار بوآی باز یا بسته را بگذارم کنار

I understand it must mean something like "to advise" because the French original is "Les grandes personnes m'ont conseillé de laisser de côté les dessins de serpents boas ouverts ou fermés ..." and the English translation "The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside ..."

However I wanted to be sure of its meaning and its pronunciation since for some reason I couldn't find it in the dictionaries I consulted.


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## HZKhan

Could it be the colloquial form of به من گفتند ?


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## eskandar

^ That's a good suggestion. I hadn't thought of it because I'd expect بم گفتن rather than بم گفتند (with terminal د ) for colloquial, but that may well be it. Thanks.


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## Treaty

It is short for به ام. It is also pronounced بهم (_behem_).


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## colognial

Hi. We also have, for the second person singular, بت (bet) or بهت (behet), both of which are contracted forms of  به تو (be to = 'to you'). Nice book choice, by the way, eskandar!


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## eskandar

Thanks! I'm well familiar with colloquial Persian and these contracted forms, actually; it just caught me off guard to see one printed in the midst of somewhat more formal language.


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## colognial

There may just be an explanation for the very colloquial form appearing "in the midst of somewhat more formal language", though I must admit a lot of what I'm going to say next is pure conjecture.

Among literary people there's always this debate going on about whether or not one could or should, when necessary, adopt the informal language without reservation. For various reasons, translators sometimes opt for a happy middle course by using a style where the language remains formal, but enjoys just a sprinkling of colloquialism here and there to allow the feel of a normal conversation to creep in, albeit imperceptibly. This is one reason only. Then there's this: the translator of Le Petit Prince may have wanted to capture the openness and familiarity that the Prince - who is in addition a child - shows towards his interlocutors.


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## eskandar

I don't doubt your point about translators taking liberties with colloquial language that they might not be able to get away with elsewhere, but the quote I began this thread with comes from the narrator addressing the reader, before the prince has even been introduced.


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## colognial

That might be the style being maintained throughout the text, plus the fact that the narrator evidently takes himself back in time to his childhood. Notice also the other token of informality in the same sentence, where the author says "گفتند ... بگذارم کنار", where in fact کنار بگذارم would have constituted the proper word order, albeit that بگذارم is not colloquial. So It's done like this, apparently: You don't go out of your way to corrupt the spelling of each and every word, but you make occasional deviations.


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## eskandar

Good point. Sounds about right to me!


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## fdb

In early New Persian poetry and prose the preposition “to” can be combined with the pronominal suffix for the 3rd person singular as baδaš (or paδaš; both written بذش) or baδiš (paδiš; بذيش), continuing Middle Persian pad, Old Persian pati. In modern Persian dialects you have then beš, and similarly bem “to me”, bet “to you” etc. By contrast, the modern literary language seems to eschew this kind of construction and uses the independent personal pronouns instead (Eastern Persian ba ō, Western Persian be ū).


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## colognial

fdb, a difference in pronunciation seems to exist between that which I'm used to and the one you use. "To me", for me, is _bem_, just as "to you" and "to her/him/it" are _bet_ and _besh_, respectively. I say _baam_, _baat _and _baash_ for "with me", "with you", and "with her/him/it", in that order. 

Also, could you please give an example from the Shaahnaame with any of these contracted forms? Thanks.


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## fdb

Thank you for this comment. I have rewritten my remark (no. 11); perhaps you will find it more acceptable in the present form.


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## colognial

It's extremely "acceptable", fdb, thank you indeed! Or perhaps I should say it's inspiring, because I'm now wondering: the Esfahani accent is full of "baishet"s and "baishesh"es; examples are:

I gave you that book:
Formal: _Ketaab raa be to daadam._
Informal: _Ketaab ro_ (or _Ketaabo_) _bet_ (or _behet_) _daadam._
Esfahani: _Ketaabo baishet daadam._

I told him: 
Formal: _Be oo goftam._
Informal: _Besh_ (or _behesh_) _goftam._
Esfahani: _Baishesh goftam._

(I'm not sure if Esfahani accent also has "baishem" for "to me". It sounds odd when I say it, so may be this particular contraction doesn't really exist in colloquial Esfahani.)

Question: could there be a connection? Is this 'sh' sound which is seemingly there for no good reason and is in fact against the rules of grammar perhaps a faint murmur left over from what was the correct form in those days of "early New Persian" (whatever that is - I'm shamefully illiterate about the origins of my own language -)?


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## Stranger_

Now I have a question if I may: Where the blue hell did the preposition "*si سی*" come from? For those of you who do not know about it, it is a preposition mainly (and perhaps solely) used in dialects spoken in Fars Province. Please bear in mind that the Persian spoken in Fars is the purest Persian. Therefore, it is very surprising that no one of the Persian classic Poets -even those coming from Fars- has used this preposition in his works and that none of the famous Persian dictionaries include it.

I did not open a new thread for it because it is no doubt relevant to the topic under discussion.

If we use "*si سی*" in place of "be/ba به", then those phrases you discussed above will become:

- behem → bem → *sim*
- behet → bet → *sit*
- behesh → besh → *sish*
- behemun → bemun → *simun*
- behetun → betun → *situn*
- beheshun → beshun → *sishun*

In fact, it is used a bit differently in some dialects, including mine. But most dialects follow this pattern.

I would also like to add that this preposition can replace "baraye/bar برای/بر" as well. So, instead of saying: "baraye chi?/bar chi? - Why?" one might say: "si che?" or even "esi che?"


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## fdb

Perhaps from sū-ye (older sōy-i, frequent as a pseudo-preposition in old texts).


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## colognial

I tend to agree with fdb. I have always imagined the two words as being one word. سو and سی must be variations. Stranger_, I think the word is لری, yes/no? I am not sure what you mean by saying the Persian spoken in Fars Province is the purest. What's pure to you? Do you mean to say there's not much Arabic mixed in? Isn't لری or whatever dialect it is you're talking about just one dialect among many others? In which case Maazani (مازنی) spoken in Maazandaraan Pronvince is also quite pure. I would really like to try to understand your point.


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## Stranger_

> Perhaps from sū-ye (older sōy-i, frequent as a pseudo-preposition in old texts).


This must be it, although I am still not totally convinced.

Dear colognial, I think it is better that we open a new thread to discuss this matter in some details because it obviously is off-topic.


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## Treaty

colognial said:


> Esfahani: _Baishesh goftam._



Interesting. But is it related to _be_? in Behbahani dialect, there is _vešā_ with the same usage:
_
vešā-t-am dā_ (I gave you).

I only had heard of _sī _as "for" but never as "به".  On the other hand, in southern dialects _az_ or simply _a_ is sometimes used instead of به. For example, in Behbahani:
_
a-mei dā _(He/she gave me).


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## colognial

_Baishesh_ means _be oo_. So, yes, there is a connection.


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## Derakhshan

colognial said:


> Esfahani: _Ketaabo baishet daadam._


The same exists in Jirofti (Kerman):

_ketâbiy-m *beyš-et* xari_ “I bought a book for you”

KERMAN xvi. Languages – Encyclopaedia Iranica

And I know that in Bandar Abbas they have _*bey* _with the same meaning.


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## Derakhshan

Stranger_ said:


> Now I have a question if I may: Where the blue hell did the preposition "*si سی*" come from? For those of you who do not know about it, it is a preposition mainly (and perhaps solely) used in dialects spoken in Fars Province. Please bear in mind that the Persian spoken in Fars is the purest Persian. Therefore, it is very surprising that no one of the Persian classic Poets -even those coming from Fars- has used this preposition in his works and that none of the famous Persian dictionaries include it.



*si* is widespread in Lori and Bushehri dialects. /u/ > /i/ is a rather common shift in southern Persian dialects. It is certainly from به سوی. The Tehrani واسه is derived from it too.

The preposition *vasoy* was used in Old Shirazi, see this poetry in Old Shirazi by 15th century poet Shams Pos-e Nâser:

_ɣonča sahar maɣaš nake češ a soy-e to toš nadī
tefl-en-o xvašdel-en bešel ɣar *vasoy-e* xo mē xanat_

Rendered in New Persian:

غنچه سحر مگر نکرد چشم به سوي تو [و] تورا نديد
طفل است و خوش دل است بِهِلَش اگر براي خود مي خندد

Another couplet:

_ʾabīr-e jeybon-e Belqīs hen ke vā hodhod 
*vasoy* Selaymon-e payɣambar az Sabā amdast_

عبیرِ گریبانِ بلقیس است که با هُدهُد
برای سلیمانِ پیغمبر از سبا آمده است

In Lari we still have *vasoy* as a preposition in this same form, today.


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## SoulCrusher

It means that "They told me"
But it is somehow informal Persian.


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