# Turkish: hayır



## Joannes

Hi all,

Any ideas on how Arabic 'good(ness)' was turned into Turkish 'no'? If that is the origin at all.

Thank you for your thoughts.


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## HKK

*If* hay*ı*r is from Arabic, I'd guess the origin would be ghair (un-, not)


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## Chazzwozzer

Joannes said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Any ideas on how Arabic 'good(ness)' was turned into Turkish 'no'? If that is the origin at all.
> 
> Thank you for your thoughts.


Well, *"hayır"* is an euphemism for negative reply. The Turkish word for "no" is *"yok"*, which is also used in everyday Turkish very often.


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## sound shift

I don't know the etymology of "hayır" but I find it hard to believe that a linguistic community would need to import a word for a notion as fundamental as "no".

I find what Chazz says about "yok" interesting: when I was in Turkey, I used it when I wanted to say "no", but I was told that it was coarse and that I should say "hayır" instead.


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## Joannes

Chazzwozzer said:


> Well, *"hayır"* is an euphemism for negative reply. The Turkish word for "no" is *"yok"*, which is also used in everyday Turkish very often.


That's the explanation I've heard before but euphemisms usually have some semantic link, which I fail to see here. Do you happen to know if *hayır* was used in combination with *yok* at some point, perhaps?


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## Kurdistanish

*‘hayýr’* is probably borrowed from Persian. In Persian and some other Iranian languages we use the term *‘na xeyr’ *~ ‘no’ (formally, in a polite manner), sometimes the first part, *‘na’* ~ ‘no’, drops and the word *‘xeyr’* is merely used instead. The Persian *‘xeyr’* itself is an Arabic loanword which in this case its meaning has been changed.


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## Chazzwozzer

Kurdistanish said:


> *‘hayýr’* is probably borrowed from Persian. In Persian and some other Iranian languages we use the term *‘na xeyr’ *~ ‘no’ (formally, in a polite manner), sometimes the first part, *‘na’* ~ ‘no’, drops and the word *‘xeyr’* is merely used instead. The Persian *‘xeyr’* itself is an Arabic loanword which in this case its meaning has been changed.


All the etymological dictionaries I have consulted says the word comes from Arabic. Do you think you can prove this theory of yours?


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## sound shift

Even if the Turkish word "hayır" comes from Arabic, the question is how it came into Turkish.

The Turks passed through Iran on their way from Central Asia to Anatolia, two or three centuries after Iran was conquered by Arab armies. Thus the Turks encountered a Persian language that had been heavily influenced by Arabic. Many sources say that the Turks borrowed a great deal of vocabulary from Persian. Kurdistanish says above that Persian possesses the word "xeyr" and that it derives from Arabic.

Is it not therefore possible that "hayır" came into Turkish through contacts between Turks and Persians?


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## Joannes

Is خير used to soften (or 'formalise') a rejection in Arabic as well?


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## cynicmystic

I agree with Kurdistanish on this. Turks must have borrowed hayir from Persians, who had in turn borrowed it from the Arabs earlier. But, I also wonder about what was more commonly used prior to borrowing 'hayir'. Was it 'yok'?


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## Chazzwozzer

cynicmystic said:


> Was it 'yok'?


It was "yok".


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## ayed

Joannes said:


> Is خير used to soften (or 'formalise') a rejection in Arabic as well?


 
Yes, I agree with you, Joannes..When we want to say "no"(*Khair..Khair*)


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## Outsider

Joannes said:


> Any ideas on how Arabic 'good(ness)' was turned into Turkish 'no'? If that is the origin at all.


In English there is also the expression "Goodness, no!", which I could easily see being simplified to "Goodness!", and becoming a synonym of "No!"


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## Kurdistanish

I’m agree with you Sound Shift. Central Asian Turks in their way up to Anatolia just faced a Persian filled up with Arabic loanwords. There are significant Arabic terms and words in Turkish borrowed via Persian (an at hand example: mearif-ý islami ~ Islamic instructions). Also only in Persian (later other Iranian languages) we face such wide use of this Arabic word, ‘xayr’ (khayr), in meaning of ‘no’ (formally). It’s most likely this Arabic loanword borrowed from Persian.


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## Joannes

Outsider said:


> In English there is also the expression "Goodness, no!", which I could easily see being simplified to "Goodness!", and becoming a synonym of "No!"


 
Hehe, that's exactly the same construction I had in mind when I asked whether *hayır* was used in combination with a negator at some point. There's still a clear difference, though. *Goodness, no!* is used to strengthen the negation in English; a combination of some exclamatory interjection of surprise and 'no'. But you're still right: a word meaning 'goodness' needn't be and isn't always to be used in that sense, so *hayır* could have evolved like that. But the question remains whether it _was_ used together with a negation marker at some point. Otherwise I find this use of a word meaning 'goodness' very hard to imagine. Since not only the word but the whole use seems to be (indirectly) borrowed from Arabic...



ayed said:


> Yes, I agree with you, Joannes..When we want to say "no"(*Khair..Khair*)


... I wonder whether خير could also or at first (only) be used together with لا 'no' (or some other negator)?


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## Tangriberdi

cynicmystic said:


> I agree with Kurdistanish on this. Turks must have borrowed hayir from Persians, who had in turn borrowed it from the Arabs earlier. But, I also wonder about what was more commonly used prior to borrowing 'hayir'. Was it 'yok'?


Yes, Yok is pure Turkic counterpart/equivalent of Hayır. But many people in Turkey do not know about it.

Yok is still used for negation. But you can never hear the last k. Because it has dropped. Now yok means there is not or does not exist, and yo/yoo (derived from yok) means NO in very informal speeches.

Evet (yes) is also  not a Turkic word. It is a borrowing from Iranic languages. As far as I know it is a borrowing from  Parthian . Parthian "aivaed" came into Turkish as evet. 
In Anatolia people still use Ha, He, Ha ya He ya, a Turkic word Turkmen: Howa, Azerbaijani Ha, Kazakh Iya.
So, Borrowed Hayır is Yok or yo in pure Turkish.
And Borrowed Evet is Ha, He, Ha ya, He ya in pure Turkish.
But remember that pure ones are informal and daily words.


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## Babakexorramdin

Joannes said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Any ideas on how Arabic 'good(ness)' was turned into Turkish 'no'? If that is the origin at all.
> 
> Thank you for your thoughts.


 
What I think is this:

In Persian no is na. But it was thought to be rude to say Na alone. So they added Xeyr (good) to it., Sometimes only xeyr was used instead of na-xeyr.

The same logic might apply to Turkish. Yok is not very formal while Hayir is.


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## Mahaodeh

ayed said:


> Yes, I agree with you, Joannes..When we want to say "no"(*Khair..Khair*)


 
Not always, sometimes when you want to say yes you use khair as in "khair inshalla" (no need to say yes at all), which is used in Iraq, Syria, Jordan...etc.


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## cynicmystic

There is another peculiarity concerning negation in Turkish, and that is diil, which comes from 'degil'. I have no idea about how degil came to posses this position as a negation. Any suggestions?

Regarding some of the posts about the word 'yok', I would like to add that the word 'yok' is the opposing concept for 'var' (to exist), both of which verbalize themselves in the forms of yok+ol+mak & var+ol+mak. I think yok is the earlier Turkic root, whereas, both 'evet' & 'hayir' are late, and cosmetic borrowings.

And, before  end this post, it is worthe mentioning that, Turks use the -ma negation in daily speech as often as hayir, yok, or degil. 

yaptim/I did
yap+ma+dim/I didn't
or, yok yap+ma+dim, hayir yap+ma+dim

These are all forms of double negation.


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## Tangriberdi

cynicmystic said:


> There is another peculiarity concerning negation in Turkish, and that is diil, which comes from 'degil'. I have no idea about how degil came to posses this position as a negation. Any suggestions?


Değil is a result of evolution from tügil, an attested Old Turkic word. Meaning, nonextistent. It is made from Old Turkic verb root Tük- (tükenmek in modern Anatolian Turkish) which means to run out of, to become extinct, to be nonexistent. Tük+-il, a suffix which makes adjectives from verb roots. Tükil>Tügil : Means someting nonexistent, something extinct, something becoming extinct. And gradually that tügil lead to tegil>degil>değil> modern form değil (pronounced as dé:ill) and this form in Anatolia is gradually evolving into di:l


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## Grosvenor1

I was under the impression _değil _was yet another Persian loanword. Later today I will consult my Redhouse dictionary, which puts the letter P next to words of Persian origin, A next to loanwords from Arabic etc. It may be that some of the attributions are wrong.

I did check my Redhouse and there is no letter next to the word suggesting it is of non-Turkish origin, so it looks like it is a Turkic word and not a Persian or Arabic loanword.


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## cynicmystic

Cheers for sharing that Tangriberdi. It is very interesting. I had never made that connection.


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## Tangriberdi

Grosvenor1 said:


> ......... so it looks like it is a Turkic word and not a Persian or Arabic loanword.


Look like Turkic? ? I think Looking like is not the proper wording for the situation. It IS NOT A LOAN and IT *IS*  Türkic I wonder whether  you expect almost 90% of Turkish basic vocabulary to be of non Turkic origin? I do not think you do.
Degil is a basic word, so it has Turkic roots as I tried to explain


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## Tangriberdi

cynicmystic said:


> Cheers for sharing that Tangriberdi. It is very interesting. I had never made that connection.


It is very normal that you had not. Neither I had. Because the root of the word is not maintained in the word. It evolved into different sounds. It was an adjective in the beginning, now it is used for negation as an adverb I think. Only its meaning remained unchanged. Nonexistent and not.
But it is definitely related to the verb tükenmek
Tükenmek and değil (derived from Tükil).
That is the time passing and making things incomprehensible.


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## Grosvenor1

Tangriberdi said:


> Look like Turkic? ? I think Looking like is not the proper wording for the situation. It IS NOT A LOAN and IT *IS* Türkic I wonder whether you expect almost 90% of Turkish basic vocabulary to be of non Turkic origin? I do not think you do.
> Degil is a basic word, so it has Turkic roots as I tried to explain


 
Despite the language reforms which threw out a lot of Arabic and Persian words, words of such origin are still common in Turkish, including in the most basic parts of the vocabulary. _Ne_, which is "what", and also "not" in some contexts, is of Persian origin according to Redhouse. I don't expect Turkish to consist  purely of words of Turkish origin, any more than I expect English to be purely in Anglo-Saxon.


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## Tangriberdi

Grosvenor1 said:


> Despite the language reforms which threw out a lot of Arabic and Persian words, words of such origin are still common in Turkish, including in the most basic parts of the vocabulary. _Ne_, which is "what", and also "not" in some contexts, is of Persian origin according to Redhouse. I don't expect Turkish to consist purely of words of Turkish origin, any more than I expect English to be purely in Anglo-Saxon.


Thank you for your reply. But it is very sad to see that Your Redhouse is somehow a little bit misinforming.
Ne meaning What has Turkic and Altaic roots.
The structure "Ne...ne...." meaning neither ... nor... is actually of Perisan origin.
That is the confusion of your dictionary.

The Question word Ne is a modern form of Neme in Old Turkic. The form neme lives in Turkmen and Uzbek. This Ne/neme is only remnant of the words starting with N in Turkic. Turkic languages lost words beginning with N in the course of evolution from Altaic for some reason. That is why any Turkic word cannot begin with an N except Ne, Neden, Neye(Niye), Ne için(Niçin) Nere, Nece(Nice), Neli, Ne+ asıl(Arabic)=Nasıl. Nen: Object, Nerse:Thing, Nesne(Good, Thing).
All the words listed begin with an N and particularly they are made of Ne.

On the other hand, Ne with the meaning of what cannot be traced in Perisan or any other Iranic language because Iranic languages have the word PIE Kwet>Chet> (Che, Chi ) for Turkic Ne.

Ne... ne... meaning Neither... nor.... is Persian That is true. But do not confuse them.

Of course purity in languages is somewhat ridiculous because Languages live and interact. However, behaving a language as if it is full of loanwords is not true in most cases. Although A language has borrowings even for basic concepts , it is highly possible that it preserved its own words and concepts for informal speeches or reserved such words for more complicated meaning.
And Turkish is most probably one of the most preservative languages in the world by keeping its vocabulary 60% of Turkic stock even before Language reform. Today that 60% increased to 80%, however old habits stick, so people keep using words of non Turkic origin and as a result of linguistic imperialism many western words creep into Turkish through Turkish? media, loyal to their Westerner Lords.


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## Grosvenor1

Tangriberdi said:


> Thank you for your reply. But it is very sad to see that Your Redhouse is somehow a little bit misinforming.
> Ne meaning What has Turkic and Altaic roots.
> The structure "Ne...ne...." meaning neither ... nor... is actually of Perisan origin.
> That is the confusion of your dictionary.
> 
> The Question word Ne is a modern form of Neme in Old Turkic. The form neme lives in Turkmen and Uzbek. This Ne/neme is only remnant of the words starting with N in Turkic. Turkic languages lost words beginning with N in the course of evolution from Altaic for some reason. That is why any Turkic word cannot begin with an N except Ne, Neden, Neye(Niye), Ne için(Niçin) Nere, Nece(Nice), Neli, Ne+ asıl(Arabic)=Nasıl. Nen: Object, Nerse:Thing, Nesne(Good, Thing).
> All the words listed begin with an N and particularly they are made of Ne.
> 
> On the other hand, Ne with the meaning of what cannot be traced in Perisan or any other Iranic language because Iranic languages have the word PIE Kwet>Chet> (Che, Chi ) for Turkic Ne.
> 
> Ne... ne... meaning Neither... nor.... is Persian That is true. But do not confuse them.
> 
> Of course purity in languages is somewhat ridiculous because Languages live and interact. However, behaving a language as if it is full of loanwords is not true in most cases. Although A language has borrowings even for basic concepts , it is highly possible that it preserved its own words and concepts for informal speeches or reserved such words for more complicated meaning.
> And Turkish is most probably one of the most preservative languages in the world by keeping its vocabulary 60% of Turkic stock even before Language reform. Today that 60% increased to 80%, however old habits stick, so people keep using words of non Turkic origin and as a result of linguistic imperialism many western words creep into Turkish through Turkish? media, loyal to their Westerner Lords.


 
Well, it is fortunate that the Turkish language has vigilant sentries standing guard over its racial purity to protect it from the _gavurs. _


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## Tangriberdi

Grosvenor1 said:


> Well, it is fortunate that the Turkish language has vigilant sentries standing guard over its racial purity to protect it from the _gavurs. _


Amen men men men....
Every language has its own right to protect its purity even if not racially in this context but culturally and logically, as you would possibly agree. By the way, Thank you. Because , you inspired me to explain the etymology of another word: Gavur
Gavur is a colloquial (however,  somehow vulgar for those to whom are referred by using this word) word for non believer, particularly Christians. It is a corrupted or Turkicized form of Arabic word Kaafir which means the one who curses the God.. From the root kufr to swear, to curse.


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## avok

Grosvenor1 said:


> Despite the language reforms which threw out a lot of Arabic and Persian words, words of such origin are still common in Turkish, including in the most basic parts of the vocabulary. _Ne_, which is "what", and also "not" in some contexts, is of Persian origin according to Redhouse. I don't expect Turkish to consist purely of words of Turkish origin, any more than I expect English to be purely in Anglo-Saxon.


 
"Ne" (What?) is* totally* a Turkic word. The other one you mention is "*na*" not "ne" and it is Persian which means something like "non" as in "n*a* hoş" which can be translated as "not nice" "non-nice". 



Grosvenor1 said:


> Well, it is fortunate that the Turkish language has vigilant sentries standing guard over its racial purity to protect it from the _gavurs. _


 
Actually Persians and Arabs are "not" gavur.


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## Tangriberdi

avok said:


> Actually Persians and Arabs are "not" gavur.


S/he says that referring to my this sentence:.....................................and as a result of linguistic imperialism many western words creep into Turkish through Turkish? media, loyal to their Westerner Lords.


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## Mahaodeh

Can I impose and ask a question?  what does gavur mean?


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## avok

Mahaodeh said:


> Can I impose and ask a question? what does gavur mean?


 
Here


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## Frank06

*Hi all,

The question on 'hayır' has been answered.
This thread is closed.

Groetjes,

Frank
Moderator EHL*


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