# Persian: کجا used in the relative sense



## Qureshpor

_ز بس کو قد دلبر کردی* 
کجا *سروی بدید سجده کردی

*In this couplet the word kujaa appears to be a "relative" where as opposed to the "interrogative" where. Is anyone aware of any similar examples from Classical Persian literature involving kujaa?

I know that *__*چون as a relative is quite frequent., e.g.

*__چند پری *چون* مگسی بهر قوت
در دهن این تنه عنکبوت _

_صید را *چون* اجل آید سوی صیاد رود_

*I am not sure about the accuracy of the following, but I have taken this from a Persian grammar book.

*_*چه* باشد میسر بزودی فرست_


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## Qureshpor

QURESHPOR said:


> _ز بس کو قد دلبر کردی*
> کجا *سروی بدید سجده کردی
> 
> *In this couplet the word kujaa appears to be a "relative" where as opposed to the "interrogative" where. Is anyone aware of any similar examples from Classical Persian literature involving kujaa?
> 
> I know that *__*چون as a relative is quite frequent., e.g.
> 
> *__چند پری *چون* مگسی بهر قوت
> در دهن این تنه عنکبوت _
> 
> _صید را *چون* اجل آید سوی صیاد رود_
> 
> *I am not sure about the accuracy of the following, but I have taken this from a Persian grammar book.
> 
> *_*چه* باشد میسر بزودی فرست_



In the above examples,*کجا *and *چه*  are really *آن کجا* and  *آن چه*


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## Qureshpor

Any views, Morteza, Iman?


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## Qureshpor

QURESHPOR said:


> Any views, Morteza, Iman?


Recently I quoted the following couplet in one of the threads. It has the repetition of "kujaa kujaa" (kujaa here is not being used as a relative but as an interrogative). I suspect this might be an Indo-Persian style. Is this type of construction used in Iranian Persian? I don't know the poet's name. In Urdu, it is used as a pithy quote to describe a sad state of affairs.

تن ہمہ داغ داغ شد 
پنبہ کجا کجا نہم

Edit: I should add here that the couplet quoted in the very first post has one or two errors in it. Here is the correct couplet. It is by Fakharuddin Gorgani

*از بس کو قد دلبر ياد کردي
**کجا سروي بديدي سجده کردي*


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## Aryamp

Interesting there has been no reply to this thread!  ?
I don't know what you mean by "relative" vs interrogative. But on a whole it all boils down to the meaning capacities of these words.

For example here : *کجا سروي بديدي سجده کردي*   indeed کجا is the short form of هرکجا and  I could find similar examples from vajehyab website : 

کجا باغ بودی همه راغ بود
کجا راغ بودی همه باغ بود.
ابوشکور

به ایران همه خوبی از داد اوست 
کجا هست مردم همه یاد اوست
فردوسی

================
_چند پری *چون* مگسی بهر قوت
در دهن این تنه عنکبوت _

Here چون is an adverb and it means مانند (like)

_صید را *چون* اجل آید سوی صیاد رود_

Here it is a conjunction meaning _When

__*چه* باشد میسر بزودی فرست_
Here I think چه is used for چو , it is a rare usage I guess.
-------------------------------------------
کجا can also mean h_ow/when _specially in rhetoric questions like this famous poem of Hafiz : 
شب تاریک و بیم موج و گردابی چنین هایل
*کجا *دانند حال ما سبکباران ساحل‌ها


=====================
تن ہمہ داغ داغ شد 
پنبہ کجا کجا نہم

Here کجا is used in its interrogative capacity indeed and its repetition goes well with the repetition of داغ .
I couldn't find any other instance of کجا کجا in other poems but in persian it's common to repeat a word like داغ to indicate the characteristic of being dispersedly spread and ocurring in more than one place : لکه لکه     خال خال   
 Or sometimes it is used to make adverbs with a sort of emphasis on ooccurrence with repetitions: تند تند غذا خوردن    

So I think کجا کجا is there to go with داغ داغ and it creates a nice harmony.


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## Qureshpor

^ aaqaa-ye-Aryamp, I am most grateful for your detailed reply.

Where there is smoke, there is fire! Here "where" is relative.

Where are the days we once used to have?! Here it is of course interrogative.

The "kujaa" examples that you have furnished, I am not sure if the "kujaa" is the same as "har kujaa". "kujaa" (relative) is where, whereas "har kujaa" is everywhere or wherever. Please see this thread in relation to this matter too.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2096843

With regard to _*چه* باشد میسر بزودی فرست_ chih is the relative what and I think it is equivalent to aan-chih.

What is available, send quickly.

I had n't seen the repetition of kujaa as in  panbah kujaa kujaa niham. If you do come across any other similar examples, please let me know.

Once again, thank you. I shall point you to further threads of mine that have been neglected which need your expert attention!


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## Aryamp

It seems you're trying to find in persian an exact equivalent of a part of speech in english. But that does not work for me, I mean I do not feel the same about words and their functions in English and Persian.  It is really complicated but maybe I can provide an example just to demonstrate the complexity :
*چی *دوست داری همون کار رو بکن =  Do *what *you like!

Do the two words in bold have the same function ? it seems the answer is yes, W_hat _here is a relative pronoun right?  But for me these two words are really different.  In the persian version چی is really an interrogative however it's not asking a questin at all, if you read that with the right accent, it will sound like a totally rhetoric question , in other words the speaker is inviting the listener to answer the question for himself. If I translate that sentence from persian to english literally it will be something like : "What do you like,do that!"  But this hardly sounds eloquent in english so the best option would be to use the relative pronoun. I mean one has to keep in mind such differences between languages.

_◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►_
So going back to the subject of کجا here is what I find in Vajehyab : 

_حرف ربط)_ چون . هرجا. هر زمان : 
کجا رای پنهان شدن داشتی 
نگین را ز کف دور نگذاشتی .
مختصر هر کجاست .(برهان ). بمعنی هر کجا نیز آید. (برهان ) (ناظم الاطباء). هر جا. (غیاث اللغات ) (فرهنگ جهانگیری ). هر موضع. هر مقام . هر محل . هر جا که . در هر مکان که 

There are many examples given under this definition and they more or less show the same usage as found in your original example. 

Many times _where _and _wherever _really make little difference in meaning : where there is water , there is life <> Wherever there is water , there is life

or in Persian : 
هرکجا آب هست ، زندگی هست  <> جایی که آب هست زندگی هست

So that's why we can interpret کجا as both r_elative where _and wherever.  But indeed there are differences as well. For example : 

This is where we were yesterday <> این جایی است که دیروز بودیم 

Obviously now we can't change w_here _with _wherever_.  And this is exactly the kind of sentence structure for which I can find no persian equivalent with کجا functioning as جایی که   

That's why we're bound to interpret کجا  in all those given examples as هر کجا and not جایی که even though in most cases the meaning won't change in either case (Specifically we cannot compare usage of  کجا to how "where" is used in english language ). Also meaning-wise I prefer هرکجا over جایی که because it just sounds better in most cases. For example : هرکجا سروی بدیدی سجده کردی sound better to me than جایی که سروی بدیدی سجده کردی
A clearer example :_ 
به ایران همه خوبی از داد اوست 
کجا هست مردم همه یاد اوست
_
I somehow prefer_ <<Wherever there is people, there's talk of him (Everywhere people talk about him )
هرجا مردم هست صحبت او هست
 >>   

_over

 <<where people is, there is talk of him  _جایی که مردم هست یاد او هست>>

◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►◄►

_There are cases in which کجا is used in place of  که and you can tell if thats the case by replacing کجا with که  

_همان کن *کجا *با خرد درخورد
دل اژدها را خرد بشکرد

پشیمان شد از بد *کجا *کرده بود
دمار از دل خود برآورده بود.

همچو خورشید*کجا* لشکر سایه شکند
لشکر دشمن به زین شکند شاهنشاه .

_In all the examples above کجا is doing the job of که and can be replaced by it without any change in the meaning. So obviously these cases are different from those that کجا implies هر کجا


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## Qureshpor

^ Thank you very much indeed for such a detailed post. It is much appreciated.

I agree with you that one should not expect exact congruence from one language to another. However, I do find myself in a very fortunate position where I can skip from one language to another and then to yet another to find the best fits for Persian constructions. Let's look at your quoted sentence.

*چی دوست داری همون کار رو بکن = Do what you like!
*
In non-colloquial language this would be:

che duust daarii, hamaan kaar-raa be-kun.

Literally: What you like, do that very task/thing.

Idiomatically: Do what you like!

So, here for me, "che" is acting as a relative pronoun equivalent to "aan-che" and not an interrogative one. 

Yes, there are instances where "kujaa" (relative where) is equivalent to "har-kujaa" (wherever) but as you have rightly said, this is not always the case. One example that you have provided is a testimony to this.

کجا باغ بودی همه راغ بود
کجا راغ بودی همه باغ بود

Here "kujaa (where) is equivalent to "jaa'ii ke" (The place that = The place where). One can not replace "kujaa" with "har kujaa" or "har jaa", since we are talking about a particular place.

To replace "kujaa" with "jaa'ii ke" as  جایی که سروی بدیدی سجده کردی can not be correct. Because the original sentence could be translated as:

Where (ever) he saw a cypress tree, he would prostrate. (Here there is n't one cypress tree. This is apparent from the employment of the habitual past tense). With "jaa'ii ke", the translation would be: 

The place where he saw/would see a cypress tree, he would prostrate. This clearly is nonsensical as there was more than one place he came across a cypress tree.

This is where we were yesterday <> این جایی است که دیروز بودیم

Literally this translates to:

This is the place that we were yesterday = This is where we were yesterday.
_
به ایران همه خوبی از داد اوست 
کجا هست مردم همه یاد اوست

Wherever there is people, there's talk of him (Everywhere people talk about him )

هرجا مردم هست صحبت او هست
_
 I might translate this as: "Wherever there are people, there is talk of him" 

_جایی که مردم هست یاد او هست
_
The place that people exist, his memory is there = The place where there are people, there is his memory = Wherever there are people, he is remembered there. I agree the first choice is non-ambiguous. 

I need a bit more time to understand and appreciate the usage of "kujaa" shown at the end of your post.


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## Aryamp

That example of چی دوست داری  seems to have turned out to be an interesting one which clearly demonstrates the difference in our understanding of the language. For me there's no way چی could be interpreted the same as relative _what _in english. 

In english _What _can mean both چه and آنچه  , _What do you like? _and _What you like...   _mean different things.  
What you like, do that very thing = Do what you like

However in Persian I cannot at all make this shift 

_همون کار رو بکن *چه*(که)دوست داری ≠چه دوست داری ، همون کار رو بکن
_
Moreover , the equivalent of _"What you like, ..." _ in persian would be "... آنچه دوست داری" and this sentence must be read with a whole different feel and accent, but the way I feel and pronounce چه دوست داری is definitely that of a rhetoric question. 
Maybe you see چه differently because you feel the same about it as _what _in english but I have to say that feeling is wrong. 

کجا باغ بودی همه راغ بود
کجا راغ بودی همه باغ بود

Actually I wanted to include this as an example of a verse for which "_wherever_" would be a better translation than "where" because obviously this is *not *talking about a particular garden or a plain. Of course we would need more context to be totally sure but from the appearance of it , it's much more likely that the poet is describing a general situation rather than a specific known place.  To me it makes perfect sense to say  :  هرکجا باغ بود همه راغ بود

It seems you assume جایی که  would be better translated as "the place that"  and that it does not carry the same meaning as relative w_here,_ but that's a wrong assumption. Although its literal translation is "the place that"  but its usage and connotation is mostly the same as relative _where_. So جایی که سروی می دید سجده می کرد  is not wrong and implies the same thing as : " Where  he saw a cypress tree, he would prostrate"  

Nevertheless in this case I still think it's more pleasant and less ambiguous to use "هرکجا" in Persian and "wherever" in English! 

I guess we agree that in many cases there's little difference in meaning whether one uses "where/جایی که" or "wherever/هر جا که"
However as I said before I do not know of any case in which کجا  can only be interpreted as جایی که and not هر جا . Moreover the way I understand Persian language , I cannot take کجا to work the exact same way as English _where._ 

In all the examples given in Dehkhoda I can replace کجا with هرکجا or هر جا که  and it makes perfect sense to me, and that's presumably why Dehkhoda has not included جایی که as an alternative.


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## Qureshpor

It is indeed true that I am interpreting the "chii" in *چی دوست داری همون کار رو بکن* as "relative". Having said this, I am fully aware that in colloquial language (and even in the Classical language) this use is very unlikely. But, this is how I see it for the time being. It is possible that with further contemplation, I might get in tune with your thought process. The only example of "che" that I have found is the one I have already quoted. Normally for the relative one would expect "aan-che" and if we use this in your sentence _همون کار رو بکن *چه*(که)دوست داری _it will be fine.

For جایی که my first reaction would not be the relative "Where" for which it would be the relative "kujaa" (which of course no longer exists in the modern language)  but "The place that". However, I can accept your instinctive feel for it and I shall certainly bear this in mind.

I would appreciate very much if you could look at the thread below, which is really an extension of this one. You seem to be suggesting that "har jaa kih" and "har kujaa" are equivalent. This could be discussed in this thread.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2096843&highlight=wherever+everywhere

I will be honest with you. I did not completely follow your thought process in these three paragraphs. Perhaps, another reason for this discussion to be moved to the more relevant one.

"I guess we agree that in many cases there's little difference in meaning whether one uses "where/جایی که" or "wherever/هر جا که"

However as I said before I do not know of any case in which کجا can only be interpreted as جایی که and not هر جا . Moreover the way I understand Persian language , I cannot take کجا to work the exact same way as English _where._ 

In all the examples given in Dehkhoda I can replace کجا with هرکجا or هر جا که and it makes perfect sense to me, and that's presumably why Dehkhoda has not included جایی که as an alternative."


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## Aryamp

Obviously I can only speak for Persian spoken in Iran, found in literature and dictionaries, so I cannot comment on your personal interpretations or the way you feel or react about the language.  But I'm afraid we're falling into a circular reasoning here.



> For جایی که my first reaction would not be the relative "Where" for which it would be the relative "kujaa" (which of course no longer exists in the modern language)  but "The place that".



The function of "koja" was the topic of discussion and which was to be determined in all the previous posts but if you take it as your premise that (koja is relative 'where' which no longer exists)  and then reach a conclusion based on this premise, then the matter is settled.

As for the meaning of چه in that sentence,  a different thread is probably required and that's why I didn't mention it because I didn't want to talk about two parallel subjects in one thread , but we really need more context to judge.  I found that phrase only in this website and I don´t know Sindhi language and I can't comment on how Persian is used in Pakistan but I think on the whole we require more context and instances of usage in order to draw conclusions.

I'm sorry if you couldn't follow my reasoning, perhaps if you could tell me which part exactly you didn't understand I could try to explain a different way but I feel perhaps it's best to open different threads for different subjects to keep the discussion in focus. For example the meaning of جایی که and how it is used and how it should be translated perhaps needs its own thread and then whether هرکجا که and هرجا که  can be used interchangeably is a different matter.


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## Qureshpor

^ aaqaa-ye-Aryamp. Thank you for the time and effort you have put into answering my queries. I shall put some thought into this matter and start separate threads in order to make the most of the assistence provided by you and other friends in the Forum. So, watch this space as the saying goes!


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## mannoushka

Qureshpor, I think I'll just butt in, if I may, having made sure first I've skipped over all the previous posts! (Reason: A native speaker had better not resort to Grammar or borrowed knowledge to smooth out the difficulties the language poses to non-natives; rather, one should grapple with the grey areas of his/her own mother tongue the way an avowed lover shows love by putting up with the idiosyncracies of the beloved and is, in this way, even more captivated by her/him!)

The Persian word 'jaa', as we all know (!), means 'place', while 'kojaa' means 'where'. 

'Kojaa' can be a question word (eg. where have you been? 'kojaa boodi?'), an adverb when combined with 'har' (= 'any'), or it can, in an old literary sense, be a linking word (eg. 'kojaa naame oo Afaridun bovad, zamin raa sepehri homaayoun bovad', a line from Ferdossi, meaning, 'whose name is Afaridun, and who represents an auspicious heaven above earth'). Today, Iranian Persian speakers use the word 'kojaa' on its own only to ask the question 'where'. 

So, what now remains to be investigated are the words 'har-jaa', 'har-kojaa', 'hame-jaa'. These three words mean 'anywhere', 'wherever', 'everywhere'. 'Harjaa' and 'harkojaa' are sometimes used before a 'ke' (= 'that'), sometimes not, according to choice. The 'ke' only serves to lengthen the construction thus adding a subtle emphasis.

Examples:
'Harjaa (ke) beravi, donbaale to khaaham aamad. (= Wherever you go, I will follow you.) 
'Harkojaa (ke) baashi, khaaham aamad. (= Wherever you go, I'll go.)
'Hamejaa ba sagash miravad. (= 'She goes everywhere with her dog', meaning that wherever she goes, she takes her dog along.)

Finally, 'jaayee ke', 'aan jaayee ke', and 'aan jaa ke' all mean 'place where'. As you know, they are all linking words, and can be used interchangably. That these words can all mean 'wherever' as well has to do with the fact that in Persian, as you know very well, a common noun is strongly indefinite; even when there is a suggestion of definiteness in a particular sentence, the noun can still act independently of the intention of the speaker! Therefore in the line 'خدا کشتی آن جا که خواهد برد', the meaning of the words 'aan jaa ke' is both 'har jaa ke' and 'jaayee ke' (= the place where').

I hope I've managed to explain it all very clearly, comprehensively, and concisely!


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## Qureshpor

^ Thank you mannoushka for an extensive reply.

Would I then be right in saying that har-jaa and har kujaa both have one and the same meaning namely "Wherever"? It seems from your explanation that they also mean "anywhere". Correct?

Secondly, "aan-jaa kih", "jaa'ii kih" and "aan jaa'ii kih" all mean "The place where" as well as "Wherever". True?


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## mannoushka

I'd say the literal meaning of 'harjaa' and 'harkojaa' is 'anywhere'. But, yes, they can be used to convey the same sense as 'wherever' does in English. If you think about it, 'wherever' does convey a very close meaning to 'anywhere' in English. Perhaps it would be better not to trust the practice of thinking in English so much when it comes to learning the usage of words, because it can become very tricky (as there are rarely exact equivalents), and the result could mislead the learner. I think, from the way you put your question, that some of the difficulty may lie in the fact that literature takes liberties and treats words to suit its purposes. This is the whole point of literature, come to think of it. For its part, the language of day-to-day communication, too, takes liberties, perverts the language even. I could not presume to instruct you in how to work your way through the different usages or distinguish the subtle variances in meaning in either setting; all I could do to perhaps help, would be to say that the dominant tendency in literary Persian is to create esthetic effects, while the basic rule in vernacular Persian, as far as it's spoken in Iran, is a tendency towards shortening the words as much as possible. This is why, for instance, in spoken Farsi you do not often hear 'har kojaa'; the tendency is for us to say 'har jaa' to mean either 'anywhere' or 'wherever'. The answer to your second question is again yes. Let me use an example that does not have the word 'jaa' in it: If you hear a Persian speaker from Iran say: Aan roozi ke to az pisham beravi, faraamooshat khaham kard, what will you understand? Surely not that the person is referring to a particular date, saying 'I will forget you on that day (say, a week on Monday) when you are scheduled to leave my side'; what the speaker is saying, quite obviously, is 'I will forget you whenever you leave me'.


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## Qureshpor

Thanks. I shall ponder over this as there is quite a bit to digest. I will think of the sentence as..

The day you leave me, I shall forget you (altogether).

(If ever you leave me, I shall forget you...not...Whenever you leave me, I shall forget you. The latter, to my mind, does not make sense since the leaving is going to be on one occasion..not on multiple occasions.)


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## mannoushka

U R thinking in English, again, Qureshpor!!


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