# Uyghur/Uzbek/Turkish: mutual comprehensibility



## SofiaB

I know people from many turkic countries. Most say they can understand each other (at least 90%).These three use Arabic,Cyrilic and Latin alphabets respectively. The Uyghur say that they are in the original Turk homeland. Some say they all speak the same language but with regional differences others say they are not the same language but similar languages.What do you think? examples:
Uyghurqe
Bir kün yahxikurmeydighan bir hoxnisi Nasirdin Hojaning ixigini urup, exigini bir künlik ötnige berixini soraptu.
Uzbekqe
Bir küni,yahxi körmeydigen bir hoxnasi,nasirdin hojanin ixigini kakip, exegini birkünlik arindige(otnige) berixini sorapti.
Turkce
Bir gun sevmedigi bir komsusu Nasreddin Hoca'nin kapisini caldi; bir gunlugune esegini kendisine vermesini rica etti. Hoca:


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## badgrammar

Hello Sofia, I have been wanting to respond to your post, but I was hoping someone more knowledgeable than I would do it first.  But nobody did, so...

This is the beginning of a Hoca joke, in English it reads: "One day, an unwelcome neighbor whom Hoca did not like, knocked on the door and asked if he could borrow his donkey for a day..."

The similarities between the three texts are obvious, although the Turkish "g" in words like "gün" is a "k" in the other two languages.  In the first two you see the word "yahxsi", which I presume is "neighbor." In Turkish it is "komsu".  But in Turkish the word "yakin" means "close, near".  So a Turkish person would probaby understand "Bir yahxsi".

There is no X in Turkish as in the first two.  So I guess the word "Hoxnasi" is related to the "Ho?" which is "welcome".  Here again, similar, and I think it would be understood.

What I wonder though, and I cannot answer this question myself, is if it would have been possible to write the sentences differently to highlight their likeness.

For example, by finding a different Turkish elocution for neighbor, or finding a way work with or around the root word "kurmek/körmek"  ("görmek" in Turkish) which probably corresponds to "görmek" in Turkish., in the Turkish translation.  The same goes for the above "hoxni"/"ho?" thing...

Also, there is something interesting in the sentence structure that I think could also be changed to highlight the similarities.

In the Uyghurqe and Uzbek versions, there is no semicolon after the "knocks on the door".  Rather you see verbs that end with a -up/ip morpheme (ixigini urup/ixigini kakip), while in Turksih it is "kapisini caldi".

I know that in Turkish, when you use this -up/ip morpheme, it is like saying "and then", as in "the neighbor knocked on the door, and then...".  So I assume from this that the Uyghurque and Uzbek are using this same verb form, whereas in the Turkish, the author did not choose to use this phrasing, and put a semi-colon instead.  Hope that makes sense.

Anyway, I think that the three are very much alike, and also believe that the translations could be re-written to reinforce that (or even re-written to reinforce their differences...)

I would love to hear from someone else on the subject though, as I am making assumptions based on a very weak knowledge of just one of those three languages...


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## SofiaB

Badgrammar,
Çok tesekkur ederim. Good replies.


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## MarcB

please see this previous thread http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=76474&highlight=turk


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## badgrammar

Yes, I read that one, too.  Doesn't look like there are a lot of people on this forum that speak these Altaic languages.  That's probably because they are hanging around on other forums such as seslisozluk.com, which would be a great place to post this question and receive lots of interesting replies! 

Sagol!


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## Honour

Hello Sofia, We can mutually understand what we say with Azerbaijani people. As seen in your examples, uygur and özbek are also similar but i could say that i cannot understand the context without the turkish sentence up there.
The other point to mention is there is not a consensus over the subject if Azerbaijani is a branch of Turkish or a language. We some times call it "Azeri Türkçesi" (Azerbaijani Turkish) and sometimes "Azerice" (Azerbaijani)
The Uyghurqe, Uzbekqe and Azerbaijani are heavily affected from russian language and on the other hand Turkish is heavily  affected from Arabic, Persian and French. For example "republic" means "cumhuriyet" in turkish which comes from the , if i am not mistaken, Arabic word "cumhur" meaning (people). In azerbaijani republic means, "respublika" which  is obviously derived from republic.
 In bottom line, the situation is very similar to the portuguese-spanish similarity.


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## SofiaB

Hello all. Thanks for your input. It seems from the post that the eastern Turks can understand each other and western Turks better than west to east this is what people I know also say. So it appears that the many Turkic variants are the same language to some and related separate to others. Outside of this forum I am told that it is same or different due to social, political and national pride reasons as well as facility to be understood.
By the way my friends from Eastern Turkistan (do not use Xinjiang the Chinese name) say that they use as much if not more Persian and Arabic than the others and they are the last remaining Turks to use the Arabic/Persian alphabet.
They are persecuted by China and ethnic Chinese are being moved into their territory like the Stalin/Saddam repatriation policies.


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## avok

Hey, this is an old thread but I need to intervene.



badgrammar said:


> Hello Sofia, I have been wanting to respond to your post, but I was hoping someone more knowledgeable than I would do it first. But nobody did, so... Here I am
> 
> This is the beginning of a Hoca joke, in English it reads: "One day, an unwelcome neighbor whom Hoca did not like, knocked on the door and asked if he could borrow his donkey for a day..."
> 
> The similarities between the three texts are obvious, although the Turkish "g" in words like "gün" is a "k" in the other two languages. In the first two you see the word "yahxsi", which I presume is "neighbor."
> No, badgrammar "yahxi" must be the equivalent of the Azeri word "yahşi" which means "good, nice" etc. so "yahxi körmeydigen" must be "(yahşi) iyi, güzel görmediği" in Turkish of Turkey. So it, literally, means that Hoca doesn't see his neighbour nicely/ the neighbour does not look nice to Hoca, which means Hoca does not like him.
> In the given texts, the word for "neighbour" must be "hoxnisi", "hoxnasi" but they have suffixes so, the Turkish word for neighbour "komşu" must be "hoxna" and "hoxni" without suffixes. With suffixes, they mean "komşusu"
> 
> In Turkish it is "komsu". But in Turkish the word "yakin" means "close, near". So a Turkish person would probaby understand "Bir yahxsi".
> 
> There is no X in Turkish as in the first two. So I guess the word "Hoxnasi" is related to the "Ho?" which is "welcome". Here again, similar, and I think it would be understood.
> 
> As I said above "hoxnasi" must mean "komşusu" not related to "welcome".
> 
> What I wonder though, and I cannot answer this question myself, is if it would have been possible to write the sentences differently to highlight their likeness.
> 
> 
> In the Uyghurqe and Uzbek versions, there is no semicolon after the "knocks on the door". Rather you see verbs that end with a -up/ip morpheme (ixigini urup/ixigini kakip), while in Turksih it is "kapisini caldi".
> 
> I know that in Turkish, when you use this -up/ip morpheme, it is like saying "and then", as in "the neighbor knocked on the door, and then...".
> Yes you are right, Azeris speak the same way so when I watch Azeri news I don't understand if the news is over or not because they use this "-ip -ıp" suffixes for the past tense. I always wait for something else but they sudddenly stop. They say something like "Azerbaycan prezidenti gelip" and I say "yes, the president comes and then.....what?????" but they mean the president "came". That's it.
> So I assume from this that the Uyghurque and Uzbek are using this same verb form, whereas in the Turkish, the author did not choose to use this phrasing, and put a semi-colon instead. Hope that makes sense.
> 
> Anyway, I think that the three are very much alike, and also believe that the translations could be re-written to reinforce that (or even re-written to reinforce their differences...)
> 
> Yes...For instance in the text there is this word "ixigini" used for the Turkish "kapısını" but I guess "ixig" is the cognate of the turkish word "eşik" which does not mean "door" but "threshold"
> 
> I would love to hear from someone else on the subject though, as I am making assumptions based on a very weak knowledge of just one of those three languages...


 


> Originally Posted by *SofiaB*
> By the way my friends from Eastern Turkistan (do not use Xinjiang the Chinese name) say that they use as much if not more Persian and Arabic than the others and they are the last remaining Turks to use the Arabic/Persian alphabet.
> 
> I guess the languages of all muslim (or even non-muslim) Turkic peoples were influenced by Persian and Arabian


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## AbdulAhad

I am sorry, but the "uzbekqe" is completely incomprehensible here. It should be like this: 

O'ZBEKCHA
Bir kuni hushlamaydigan bir qo'shnisi Nasriddin Ho'janing eshigini taqillatib, eshagini unga bir kunga berib turishini iltimos qilibdi.


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