# İstanbul vara İstanbulluların ola kalaydı



## alchimist

Hi, I have some grammar questions and I hope you can help me 


Hemşehrimle kabakıyım emlak komisyoncusu üzerine konuştum

İ dont understand the word kabakıyım in here

İstanbul vara İstanbul ola kalaydı

What does vara and ola mean in this sentence and what means kalay in it?


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## murattug

I want to start with simplest part
kalaydı = kala idi

I dont know grammar but I can try define what means vara, ola, kala 
those are wishes very similar to "olsa" and "kalsa"

i didnt heard "kabakıyım" but there is "iri kıyım" which means "have big body"


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## trn142

ı think ,you misunderstood that "vara" and "kabakayım";ı had never heard it before.


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## alchimist

I don't know but these are sentences I found in a turkish story named Ev aranıyor from turkish writter Orhan Kemal

Ok I have the translatıon but I still dont understand how the sentences work:

Hemşehrimle kabakıyım emlak komisyoncusu üzerine konuşup  gülüşürken gözümüze çarpan perdeşiz pencereleri de kaçırmıyoruz

(thats the original sentence of the book but I didnt want to make it that long..anyway it means: I talked with my landsman about the estate agent and we made jokes about him as suddenly we saw windows wıthout curtains) not litterally translated

İ made a mistake in this sentence. İt means:

İstanbul vara İstanbulluların ola kalaydı (it means: we came to İstanbul and we suddenly understood that life in Istanbul is just an illusıon.....or somethıng like that

the whole dialogue is:

İmdrendiğimiz için ya tabi. Ha dedik biz de İstanbulda yaşıyan cennetlikler gibi olalım dedik...Arkadaş sen neyin nesini konuşuyon? İstanbul vara İstanbulluların ola kalaydı. Ne işimiz vardı İstanbulda?


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## CocoG

This dialogue seems very dialectal to me. 
_
İstanbul vara İstanbulluların ola kalaydı. _= _İstanbul varsın İstanbulluların olsun(du)._


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## alchimist

yes you are right it's very colloquial and that's not easy to me as a non-native speaker. Is it difficult even for you, CocoG?


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## CocoG

Without the background info, it was nearly indecipherable. And now as much as I understand it perfectly, I doubt I'd be able to translate it well, because it's very idiomatic and I can guarantee that some element will be lost when translated. My try: 
_
"(We should've) Let Istanbul belong to Istanbullians."_ or _"(We should've) Let Istanbullians have Istanbul."_ (I'm not sure if the word _Istanbullian _exists or not.) 

Also _"Let's leave Istanbul to Istanbullians."_ or _"We should've left Istanbul to Istanbullians."_


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## alchimist

thank you. Do you understand also the other sentence with kabakıyım or isn`t there enough background info?

by the way, is this really the way people in Turkey speak to each other in everyday life or is it just written in books or spoken by some groups of people?


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## CocoG

As the other members have pointed out, it's probably a dialectal or idiosyncratic version of _iri kıyım_.

Some elements of this dialogue are not an example of standard Turkish as far as I'm concerned. It's surely regional/dialectal.


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## murattug

CocoG said:


> As the other members have pointed out, it's probably a dialectal or idiosyncratic version of _iri kıyım_.
> 
> Some elements of this dialogue are not an example of standard Turkish as far as I'm concerned. It's surely regional/dialectal.



I agree totally.


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