# ёк



## Emil100

Hello,
I hope somebody could explain what the small word "ёк" means. I found it on http://www.kp.ru/daily/25754.4/2739768/ 
It is a newspaper article about a Russian tourist in Turkey. He was arrested and locked away by the Turkish police due to almost nothing. Finally, Turkish authorities found he was innocent, and the Turkish police had got the ticket for his flight back to Russia.  

Context:
Турецкие охранники входят шумно, отдают команды: «Завтра в 6 будь готов, летишь». Через три часа: «Завтра в 6 не летишь». Потом: «Мы купили тебе билет». Затем: «Билет *ёк*». И так несколько раз за день. Качели. Туда-сюда. От радости - к отчаянию.


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## morzh

ёк - означает "нет". В противоположность "бар" - есть. (не знаю про турок, но во многих тюркских языках это так)

Sorry, in English

yok - means "don't have" (I don't have a ticket, no ticket)
bar - have (I have a ticket, there is a ticket)

In many turkic languages it is so, though cannot vouch for Turkish.


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## jazyk

> bar - have (I have a ticket, there is a ticket)
> 
> In many turkic languages it is so, though cannot vouch for Turkish.


It's var in Turkish.


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## Emil100

I see - thanks a lot for your assistance!


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## alevtinka

I've seen similar structure in Tatar language:

juk - there is no, non-existence of

bar - there is / are, to exist, to have


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## morzh

It is said by some that many Turkic languages (like Oghuz languages, where Turkish belongs) are so close they are highly mutually intelligible. And even outside groups they are somewhat mutually intelligible.


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## Albertovna

It should be йок, not ёк.
A Tatar loan-word in the Russian language. Most often used humorously.


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## ahvalj

Albertovna said:


> It should be йок, not ёк.


I see. Йок. Йож. Йолка...


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> I see. Йок. Йож. Йолка...


Traditionally, this word in Russian is transliterated as йок.


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Traditionally, this word in Russian is transliterated as йок.


Traditionally, there was no «ё» sign in the typewriter. Now I have «ё» in all my keyboards.


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> Traditionally, there was no «ё» sign in the typewriter. Now I have «ё» in all my keyboards.


Tell this Dostoyevskiy.


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## ahvalj

Just have told. They both agree. 

By the way, what is even a theoretical advantage of preferring «йо»? Instead of one letter with a diacritic we get two, of which the first one has a diacritic anyway. No sense.


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## Maroseika

Yes, no sense. Just a tradition. 
Any special reason to change tradition and make the word less recognizable and differing from the one used in Russian literature since long ago?


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## ahvalj

Yes, of course — the orthographic cosistency: яма - ель - ёж - юг, мясо - мель - мёд - люди. Actually, this is how it all should have worked since 1783. A sufficient time for everybody to get used to it, isn't it?


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> A sufficient time for everybody to get used to it, isn't it?



No, it is not the case. Otherwise, let it be Ёшкар-Ола, Ёханнесбург, бедный Ёрик?


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## ahvalj

Exactly, this is the only way to write these words according to the principles of the Russian orthography (except Ёхан*н*есбург).


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## Maroseika

So you suggest to start writing ёк, ёд,  ёг and Ёрик?


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> So you suggest to start writing ёк, ёд,  ёг and Ёрик?


Yes, of course. The only subtle problem I see is the change in alphabet position for a few alien personal and location names. By the way, people should forget that «й» can be written word-initially, otherwise we have such nonsense writings as «Йесперсен, Йенс» etc., where «й» means nothing at all.


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## Albertovna

Отто Есперсен, but Йенс Якоб Берцелиус. A tradition


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> Yes, of course.



I see.
Hope, this will never happen. Preservating traditional writing is much more important to the most of natives than saving ink.


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## ahvalj

Albertovna said:


> Отто Есперсен, but Йенс Якоб Берцелиус. A tradition


Отто Есперсен was a linguist, so fortunately everything was OK with him, but other Jespersens are not so lucky:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=йесперсен&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> I see.
> Hope, this will never happen. Preservating traditional writing is much more important to the most of natives than saving ink.


That "traditional writing" is most probably not older than the letter «ё» — I strongly doubt that in the 18th century they wrote any word with an initial «й». In any case, I am strongly for «ё».


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## Maroseika

Tradition of a couple of centuries old is quite a reputable tradition, isn't it? Especially taking into account that 99%+ of the Russian literature arose during this period. In such case 'not older than ё" means  "since the beginning of time".


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Especially taking into account that 99%+ of the Russian literature arised during this period.


I may be totally wrong, but I have read somewhere than during half of this period the orthography was somewhat different from now. Some strange letters were present here and there. If so, Lermontov and Dostoyevsky would have been probably more shocked by something else than the writing «Ёшкар-Ола» alone... By the way, which exactly words starting on «йо» were so important in the traditional Russian literature?


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## Sobakus

Can't help but express my support for *ahvalj *


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> I may be totally wrong, but I have read somewhere than during half of this period the orthography was somewhat different from now.


You want one more reform? Or just cutting off the next piece of the tail every leap year? 
The share of literate natives in Russia today is many-manyfold more than on the eve of the Reform'1918. Besides, people use to study their native language only at school, and you want them to ajust their knowledge of orthography every how many years?
And what for? Where is the profit?




> By the way, which exactly words starting on «йо» were so important in the traditional Russian literature?


Йок, Йорк, йод, etc, etc. Not too many? This is exactly the reason to leave it as it is.
And who said 'important'? Just used.


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Йок, Йорк, йод, etc, etc. Not too many? This is exactly the reason to leave it as it is.
> And who said 'important'? Just used.


I may add the rather recently changed «чорт», which was 1.000.000 times more frequent, I guess. What a loss for the cultural tradition!


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## Maroseika

ahvalj said:


> I may add the rather recently changed «чорт», which was 1.000.000 times more frequent, I guess.


Very well. And so what?

Well, I think we can stop here, we already understand the point of view of each other very well. When orthography changes some day, we'll have no other choice than follow it. But as long as Йокогама and йод are in the dictionaries and йок is the only form being used in our literature, I don't see any reason to change this practice in the individual manner, if we want to keep writing in correct Russian.


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## ahvalj

Maroseika said:


> Very well. And so what?


The culture managed to survive this somehow.


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## morzh

Do y'all even understand you've created a huge off-topic over...well....nothing? It is absolutely unrelated to the actual question.


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## ahvalj

I honestly think such discussions make this forum much more interesting to the readers. I mostly read branches dealing with other languages because of this and not because I am seeking answers to some minor questions.


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## morzh

Tell it to the moderator. As long as the discussion is germane to the question asked, they do not mind. Otherwise it is solely when they miss it, that they don't close it. Usually they do. And I thin they are right to do so. These discussions are for the learners, not for the learned. And the learners should be able to quickly find what they need and not to "dig through tons of verbal ore".
In other words - this is not the forum for us to have fun. It is for them, not for us, really. Took me awhile to understand this, but I think, this is good.


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