# Persiani: I/men



## spakh

As far as I know I in Farsi is men. Am I right? If so in Turkish it is ben and it was men. m/b transformation. It is still men in Azeri and I wonder if it has something to do with Farsi men. If it has which borrowed from one another or is it just a coincidence?
Thanks in advance


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## Bienvenidos

In Eastern Persian (Afghan Farsi), I is "muh". In Iranian it is as you have written it, although sometimes it is transliterated differently.

Persian (Afghan)
Muh nuhruftum.
(I didn't go). 

Muh mikhorum.
(I'm eating)

Muh numifomum
(I don't know)

Muh ruftum.
(I went)

Muh úra guftum..
(I told him/her....)

Muh úra zungzudam
(I called her/him....)

Hope this helps.


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## konungursvia

Azeri and Farsi would be cousins, related to the Indo-European languages, so it's not a coincidence, though ben in Turkish is -- your language has little or nothing to do with the Indo-European tongues.


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## Outsider

But it's curious that Azeri also has a similar pronoun, even though it is a Turkic language...


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## MarcB

Yes men in Irani Farsi. also in Turkic Azeri,Turkmen,Kyrgyz and Uighur.
Hindi/Urdu mai.


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## roh3x2n

Bienvenidos said:


> In Eastern Persian (Afghan Farsi), I is "muh". In Iranian it is as you have written it, although sometimes it is transliterated differently.
> 
> Persian (Afghan)
> Muh nuhruftum.
> (I didn't go).
> 
> Muh mikhorum.
> (I'm eating)
> 
> Muh numifomum
> (I don't know)
> 
> Muh ruftum.
> (I went)
> 
> Muh úra guftum..
> (I told him/her....)
> 
> Muh úra zungzudam
> (I called her/him....)
> 
> Hope this helps.


well in (afghan Farsi) it is the same as Iranian. But they pronounce shortly.
like 
man = ma


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## spakh

konungursvia said:


> Azeri and Farsi would be cousins, related to the Indo-European languages, so it's not a coincidence, though ben in Turkish is -- your language has little or nothing to do with the Indo-European tongues.


 
Thank you all, but I could not get an exact answer to my question about a possible connection between Turkish and Farsi 'men/ben'.

konungursvia,
I understand Azeri, that is, Azeri is also my language and it is not an Indo-European language. It is an Altaic one.


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## Tisia

Hi every one

In Persian, "I" is "man" and is pronounced exactly as the English word '*man*' or 'wo*man*'. It isn't pronounced as 'men'. Actually "men" in Kurdish means "I" and is pronounced as in first syllable in "*men*tion".

Regards
Tisia


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## übermönch

The Uzbekh word is _men_ as well! Though, Farsi and Turki languages evolved differently, they're in a thight Sprachbund. Afaik, Old Persian did not have pronouns in nominative form. It might very well have been borrowed or evolved from the accusative pronoun. Darius used "mam" for "me"; in Middle Persian "man" already exists meaning "I".


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## SofiaB

So in Turk languages and Farsi and Kurdish it is the same or similar. Is there a relationship or a coincidence? Kurdish and Farsi are related languages but Turkic is not, except for borrowings.


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## Bienvenidos

SofiaB said:


> So in Turk languages and Farsi and Kurdish it is the same or similar. Is there a relationship or a coincidence? Kurdish and Farsi are related languages but Turkic is not, except for borrowings.



I would say that many words are "borrowed" between these languages. For example, we've found many similarities between Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi in previous threads. The impact of trade on language is a big topic and history, and it definitely can explain why these languages have specific words that are almost identical.


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## SofiaB

Bienvenidos said:


> I would say that many words are "borrowed" between these languages. For example, we've found many similarities between Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi in previous threads. The impact of trade on language is a big topic and history, and it definitely can explain why these languages have specific words that are almost identical.


I agree and also said they have borrowings but they are not in the same language families. Did a basic word such as I get borrowed?


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## spakh

Tisia said:


> Hi every one
> 
> In Persian, "I" is "man" and is pronounced exactly as the English word '*man*' or 'wo*man*'. It isn't pronounced as 'men'. Actually "men" in Kurdish means "I" and is pronounced as in first syllable in "*men*tion".
> 
> Regards
> Tisia


 
As far as I remember from conversations with my Kurdish friends I in Kurdish is 'ez /es'. Or Kurdish has two 'I's along with men?

BTW I agree with SofiaB that borrowing I makes no sense.


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## Tisia

spakh said:


> As far as I remember from conversations with my Kurdish friends I in Kurdish is 'ez /es'. Or Kurdish has two 'I's along with men?


 
Right. 'az/ez' also mean "I" but in Kurdistan of Turkey and some part of Kurdistan of Irak. In Kurdish provinces in Iran like Kurdistan and Kermanshah, we say "men".

Regards
Tisia


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## Alijsh

Until middle Persian, 1st singular personal pronoun has had two forms. One for oblique (*man*) and another for nominative (*az*). As you see, dear Kurds picked *az* and we picked *man*

*az* itself comes from Avestan *azem* that has been nominative form and *man* comes from Avestan *mana* that has been the genitive form.

So, Persian *man* has certainly Iranian origin and it doesn't come from Turkic languages.

In some southern dialects of Persian they say *mo*. I also see a similarity between *man*; English *me*; French *me*, *moi*; Russian *mne*


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## spakh

Alijsh said:


> Until middle Persian, 1st singular personal pronoun has had two forms. One for oblique (*man*) and another for nominative (*az*). As you see, dear Kurds picked *az* and we picked *man*
> 
> *az* itself comes from Avestan *azem* that has been nominative form and *man* comes from Avestan *mana* that has been the genitive form.
> 
> So, Persian *man* has certainly Iranian origin and it doesn't come from Turkic languages.
> 
> In some southern dialects of Persian they say *mo*. I also see a similarity between *man*; English *me*; French *me*, *moi*; Russian *mne*


 
Because all these languages are form IE language family, however Turkish has relationship with those ones.


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## Frank06

Hi,


spakh said:


> Because all these languages are form IE language family, however Turkish has relationship with those ones.


This is quite misleading. 'Related', 'relationship' etc. when applied to languages is normally understood as *genetically related*. (This 'genetically' itself is a figure of speech and has nothing to do with the genes of the speakers).
However, there is no genetic relationship between Turkish (or other Turkic languages) and Kurdish, Farsi, etc.

So, what exactly do you mean by 'relationships'? Lots of loanwords? Something else?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## spakh

I mean Turkish is not a IE language. So similarities between English, Frenc or Farsi are sensible but not those between Turkish and Farsi, etc.


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## aliveli

The question is interesting, yes; turkish and persian are from different language families so, they don't share the same origins. then this similarity bw. persian and turkic languages in the case of having same first person singular pronoun (men) must have an explanation. i think that pronouns are odd examples for borrowing words from other languages. my idea is that "men" is an originally turkic pronoun. evidence for this is that there are turkic languages in north eastern asia near to north pole region; like "yakut language" has "men" (something between "men" and "min") as same pronoun for hundreds of years and had no contact with persian to borrow words. also I dont know any other IE lang. which has men as first person pronoun. My explanation is that there are some other "cases" of persian first person pronoun (accusative, ) phonetically and coincidentally similar to turkic "men" and within the time period in which turkic languages and iranian languages influenced each other, this persian first person singular pronoun converged to turkic one. for more than at least  2500 year turks and persians lived within each other.


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## Frank06

Hi,


aliveli said:


> my idea is that "men" is an originally turkic pronoun. evidence for this is that there are turkic languages in north eastern asia near to north pole region; like "yakut language" has "men" (something between "men" and "min") as same pronoun for hundreds of years and had no contact with persian to borrow words. also I dont know any other IE lang. which has men as first person pronoun. My explanation is that there are some other "cases" of persian first person pronoun (accusative, ) phonetically and coincidentally similar to turkic "men" and within the time period in which turkic languages and iranian languages influenced each other, this persian first person singular pronoun converged to turkic one. for more than at least  2500 year turks and persians lived within each other.



Interesting, but can you back up any of these claims? And where do you think that Alijsh goes wrong in his earlier post?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Alijsh

Please note that 

1. it's *man* in Persian and not *men*
2. I only said that our *man* has Persian origin and is not a loanword. So, I didn't mean that Azeri Turkish *men* is a loanword from Persian. This similarity can be a coincidence.


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## Lugubert

One possibility for the _m_ words (which I don't take more seriously than absolutely necessary for the sake of argument) is that humans somehow find it natural to use a certain sound for a certain thing or phenomenon. We even have a nasal in some transcriptions during some periods for Chinese 'I': _ngo_. You can compare all the _m_ words for 'mother', _p/f/b_ words for 'father' etc.

Other sets of examples, which would seriously derail the thread, are all the _p/f/b_ words in different language families for 'blow', 'fly' and/or 'flower', _k_ words for 'cut' etc.


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