# Lütfen



## Bienvenidos

Hi everyone! How are you? This is my first trip to the German forum. 

Two simple questions: 

Lütfen

1) Is this word German?
2) Does it mean "please"?

I'm asking because I saw it in a post, as a part of a translation for "please close the door". The Persian/Farsi word for please is very similar to this one, so that's what got me thinking: are Persian and German similar? 

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Thank you. 

Saludos


----------



## sneeka2

Lütfen is definitely not German. "Lü*ft*en" would be, but it's not anywhere near "please". Sorry, wrong forum. 

I don't know if Persian is in any way similar to German. From what I've heard so far I don't think it is though.


----------



## Brioche

Farsi, like German, English and all the other languages of Europe, [except Basque, Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian] belongs to the Indo-European group of languages.

There are many cognates, but grammatically and phonologically German and Farsi are very different.


----------



## Lykurg

"Lütfen" means "please" in _Turkish_.

Since there is a large Turkish minority in Germany, the word might occur in a Turkish-German person's language.
It is no German word and will _not _be understood by most German native speakers.

But there are connections between German and Farsi, since both are Indo-European languages. 
Their relation should be stronger than either is to Turkish.


----------



## Chazzwozzer

I think confusion comes from the letter *Ü*. It's a letter in Turkish and U-umlaut also appears in German.

Lütfen simply means please in Turkish.

Like Lykurg said, Persian and German are much related than Turkish, because they both come from Indo-European language family, whereas Turkic languages are Altaic.


----------



## Bienvenidos

Turkish! Interesting.  Thank you all!

Saludos 

P.S. - There's a lot of threads about how similar Persian/Turkish are: due to centuries of trade/interaction, I believe these two languages are extremely similar, maybe not grammatically, but influentially.


----------



## Chazzwozzer

Bienvenidos said:


> Turkish! Interesting.  Thank you all!
> 
> Saludos
> 
> P.S. - There's a lot of threads about how similar Persian/Turkish are: due to centuries of trade/interaction, I believe these two languages are extremely similar, maybe not grammatically, but influentially.



Persian influenced every language spoken around Caspian region. To be more specific, another reason was how Ottoman literati impressed Persian literature before they got under the influence of French. Since then, Turkish has been getting less Persian but more French.


----------



## cherine

I think the Turkish word is another Arabic loan.
Some signs in Arabic have the same word لُطفًا luTfan, meaning please, although it's not very common.


----------



## Chazzwozzer

cherine said:


> I think the Turkish word is another Arabic loan.
> Some signs in Arabic have the same word لُطفًا luTfan, meaning please, although it's not very common.



Yes, TDK claims Arabic origin, too. It's very common in Turkish. In fact, the only way to say "lütfen" I don't what Turks used to say before "lütfen."


----------

