# Bektaşi'nin biri



## modus.irrealis

Hi,

I recently decided to work my way through a real Turkish text (albeit one in a reader for beginners), and as luck would have it, I ended up getting stuck on the very first sentence, which is:

Bektaşi'nin biri kirli gömlekle gezermiş.

My first question is whether this means:

A certain Bektashi was said to go around with a dirty shirt.

My second question is why is it "Bektaşi'nin biri"? From what I've read about Turkish grammar (although this hasn't been much), I would have expected "bir Bektaşi" or "Bektaşilerden biri" (but this would be more "one of the Bektashi" right?). This construction is confusing me and it's making me think my translation is not right, so hopefully someone can help me out here.

Thanks


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## aslan

modus.irrealis said:


> Hi,
> 
> I recently decided to work my way through a real Turkish text (albeit one in a reader for beginners), and as luck would have it, I ended up getting stuck on the very first sentence, which is:
> 
> Bektaşi'nin biri kirli gömlekle gezermiş.
> 
> My first question is whether this means:
> 
> A certain Bektashi was said to go around with a dirty shirt.
> 
> My second question is why is it "Bektaşi'nin biri"? From what I've read about Turkish grammar (although this hasn't been much), I would have expected "bir Bektaşi" or "Bektaşilerden biri" (but this would be more "one of the Bektashi" right?). This construction is confusing me and it's making me think my translation is not right, so hopefully someone can help me out here.
> 
> Thanks


 
For the first question, I can say that Th translation is quite good.But We had better said A Bektashi was said to go around with a dirty shirt.

For the second question, As you said ,We can also say "bir Bektaşi" This usage is just a synonymous of "Bektaşi'nin biri" But the second one is preffered for the stories,jokes and fables.

We can t say "Bektaşilerden biri" As You said It means "one of the Bektashi" ...
By the way, Bektashies always become an object of jokes.In case You need, That s a link about them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bektashi

(I am not that good at grammer, So If I were you I would wait for other posts)
I hope It helps


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## modus.irrealis

aslan,

Thank you for your response. It clarified the situation for me.



aslan said:


> For the first question, I can say that Th translation is quite good.But We had better said A Bektashi was said to go around with a dirty shirt.



Just to explain this, it sounds odd to me (in English) to start a story with "A Bektashi..." which is why I added the "certain." Although, even more natural would be something like "There (once) was a Bektashi who was said to..." Would you think that that was an acceptable translation as well?


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## Amynka

Omg! I have read all the article about the Bektashis and you may bet on I will ask my Turkish teacher, tomorrow, about the whole story. Aslan, tesekkur ederim link icin, gercekten bu Bektasilerin masalini cok begendim. I will ask about the main grammar question too, hoping to be helpful to you, and I'll tell you which is the difference, exactly, next time.


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## badgrammar

It's almost impled, it's just part of the way things are said in Turkish : "(There was a guy named) bektasi, who...".  Your translation was not wrong with "a certain", but as precise and mathematical as Turkish is, it also recquires much reading between the lines...  You must understand the grammatical rules and then use a poet's imagination what's behind them.

I did not know that Bektaşis were often the butt of jokes, good info!

Iyi şanslar!


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## aslan

modus.irrealis said:


> aslan,
> 
> Thank you for your response. It clarified the situation for me.
> 
> 
> 
> Just to explain this, it sounds odd to me (in English) to start a story with "A Bektashi..." which is why I added the "certain." Although, even more natural would be something like "There (once) was a Bektashi who was said to..." Would you think that that was an acceptable translation as well?


 
Yes I think It is absolutely acceptable for the situation. For the first one, If You are not implying "a Bektashi" that wasn t talked about in the text It can be used "certain". I thouht You had used 'certain' for indicating a known bektashi.

I am not sure If I could tell you or not. But As I said before I am not that good at grammer. You may be interested in the links I gave; 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bektashi_jokes

http://www.bektashi.net/beliefs-jokes1.html


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## Chazzwozzer

Hi,

As it's said before, this is a begining of a Bektashi joke. So here's my translation:

*Bektaşi'nin biri kirli gömlekle gezermiş.*
_A Bektashi goes around with a dirty shirt._

In Turkish, we use *rivayet birleşik zaman**** when telling jokes, stories etc. Unlike Turkish, *simple present tense* is used for this matter in English.

Most of the Turkish jokes begin as *"X'in biri"* I believe *"Adamın biri"* is the most common one and I'd usually expect it went like *"Adamın biri, bir gün..." *_(One man, one day...)_


*Bir Bektaşi: *It's also used in jokes, Bektashi jokes in this context, as a begining line. Interestingly, I've just realized that if it's the main charecter we're telling in the joke, then it's Bektaşi'nin biri. If it's not the main chracter, then it's bir Bektaşi. So that's why it doesn't sound good to me when I say bir Bektaşi here instead. Wait, I'll need to think more about my discovery.


*Bektaşilerden biri:* If you use this, that means the joke has more than one Bektaşi and you've already mentioned about them in the beginning. Like *"Bektaşi'nin biri .... başka bir bektaşi ise.."*

**Rivayet birleşik zaman:*
I'm sorry that I don't how I'm supposed to refer to this tense, rivayet, in English.

*gezermiş*
*gez+er+miş*
*verb+simple present suffix+rivayet suffix*

This should not be confused with *duyulan geçmiş zaman* _(heard past tense?)_

_*gezmiş*_
_*gez+miş*_
_*verb+heard past tense suffix*_

_To sum up, rivayet birleşik zaman is a compound tense consisting of simple present and heard past tenses. It suggests an past event and almost always only used in jokes and of course in some special circumstances._

_So, if "X was said to go around ..." means, because I'm not sure, that somebody saw that Xwas going around and this is what joker is telling, then the translation is wrong. It can be right with gezmiş, but nor with gezermiş._
_ 

P.S: I can't think of any other word to use than A Bektashi here, sorry.

I hope it has been clear and helpful to you. By the way, I must say that this joke is hard to be for beginner level, really. 


Cheers,
Ekin
_


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## modus.irrealis

aslan said:


> You may be interested in the links I gave;



I was, thank you. The story I'm working through is similar although not as clever as some in those links - but that's probably why it was chosen for the reader.


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## modus.irrealis

Chazzwozzer said:


> Hi,



Hi, and thanks for your post, but it also raised a bunch of questions for me. About the tense, I have read that Turkish uses a present tense in this situation (and later on there's forms like "der", where English would use a past, but I also translated it as a past because later on it says

"Dostlarından biri ... demiş"

and "demiş" is a genuine past tense, right? But I understand your point about it really being a present.
 


> Most of the Turkish jokes begin as *"X'in biri"* I believe *"Adamın biri"* is the most common one and I'd usually expect it went like *"Adamın biri, bir gün..." *_(One man, one day...)_


_
_Could you, or anyone else, explain why you the X has the genitive singular? That was what was a large part of what was confusing me with this construction.




> _So, if "X was said to go around ..." means, because I'm not sure, that somebody saw that Xwas going around and this is what joker is telling, then the translation is wrong. It can be right with gezmiş, but nor with gezermiş._


"Is said to" here means that the speaker doesn't have direct knowledge of something (it's based on hearsay, e.g.), and "was said to" is just the past version -- the reference grammar I'm used calls rivayet the inferential. Does that sound about right?_





			I hope it has been clear and helpful to you. By the way, I must say that this joke is hard to be for beginner level, really. 

Click to expand...

_The reader comes with in-context vocab and grammatical notes, but as you can tell, it's still over my head. 

Also, do you know of a website that gives the grammatical terms in Turkish, because I'm interested in knowing how Turkish sees itself, so to speak.


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## aslan

> Could you, or anyone else, explain why you the X has the genitive singular? That was what was a large part of what was confusing me with this construction.


In general, If you talk about someone or something that you know before You should use  plural form For example;
There are men working on the streets and while you are watching themone of them came loser to you 
"Adamlardan biri buraya geldi" "One of the men came here" You already know these men. 
But when we say 
"Adamın biri buraya geldi" "A man came here" We don t know the man, It i the first time We saw him.
As Chazz said , It is quite common for jokker, storyteller etc. to start a joke or a story in this way;"Adamın biri"


> "Is said to" here means that the speaker doesn't have direct knowledge of something (it's based on hearsay, e.g.), and "was said to" is just the past version -- the reference grammar I'm used calls rivayet the inferential. Does that sound about right?


 
I think There is nothing wrong with the translation."was said to" seems ok to me



> Also, do you know of a website that gives the grammatical terms in Turkish, because I'm interested in knowing how Turkish sees itself, so to speak.


 
All we could find has already been listed in thread named Resources for other languages


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## modus.irrealis

aslan said:


> In general, If you talk about someone or something that you know before You should use  plural form...



It took me a while , but I think I finally get it. My grammar says that the singular in Turkish can denote a class as well as an individual, and would you say that this is an example of that?


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