# şadi



## Xence

Hello everyone,

As I explained in the Indo-Iranian forum, this word (_shadi_) is used in a few Arab countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Irak, Koweit...) to mean _monkey_.
Since it's neither an Arabic word, nor likely a Berber one, a few hints have led me to its probable Turkish/Persian origin.
And, by the way, I have stumbled on this definition in a Turkish website :


> *şadi*
> 
> maymun (farsca, şadi)
> 
> şadi



So, I would be grateful if someone could confirm this use in Turkish language and give any appropriate reference.

Regards.


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## Gemmenita

Hello Xence and welcome here!

Yes _shadi_ is a Persian and also Azeri word (Şadlıq / -i in Persian = - lıq in Azeri) and I doubt that it would be Turkish, since once I saw some Turkish people who didn't know the meaning of Shadi, however maybe it would be known by our Turkish friends in this Forum and we can wait for their replies.

Now below you can find the first word in Azeri and the word in parenthesis is its pronuciation in English and then I have written the Persian equivalent and then the  meaning in English and then the Turkish equivalent.

Şad (shâd) = _Shad_ in persian = happy = mutlu, sevinçli in Turkish
Şadlıq ( Shâdlik) = _Shadi_ in persian = happiness = mutluluk, sevinçlilik in Turkish

But as far as I know, the first word 'şad (shad)' exists in Turkish and Turkish people know it.

Now the word Şadi (Şadlıq) has two usages in Azeri as well as in Persian:

- as a noun : Shadi is good. (= being shad)
- as an activity : We do Shadi in weddings. (= the activity of laughing, dancing, clapsing and any performance showing happiness and being happy...)


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## PorFavorDama

Hey there, 

As a native Turkish speaker, I had never heard of that word (şadi) before. But as *Gemmenita *mentioned, we know and use the word "_şad_" in some certain situations (E.g "_Ruhu Şad Olsun_"). I can't think of any other example with "şad" in Turkish.


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## Muttaki

Gemmenita said:


> once I saw some Turkish people who didn't know the meaning of Shadi


It is rather the case of people in Turkey don't know Turkish actually. I didn't know the word either. But apparently it exists in all Turkish dictionaries and books.

There are two _şadis_ in Turkish both of whom is written as شادی. One is Persian and the other is Arabic. The former means "joy and happiness" rather than "joyful or happy" which is _şad_/شاد. The Arabic one means a servant in the court and also refers to a kind of Janissaries in the Ottoman army.

As an example to the Persian _şadi_ in Turkish:

_Milletin büyük bir tarab u şâdî içinde îlân ettiği şey devr-i intibâhımızdır._ (Cenap Şahâbeddin)


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## Rallino

That moment when I don't even know what _tarab_ means. TDK doesn't have it.

Some words die. There's nothing to do about it. "Şadi" is simply a word that has obviously fallen out of usage.


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## PorFavorDama

Muttaki said:


> _Milletin büyük bir tarab u şâdî içinde îlân ettiği şey devr-i intibâhımızdır._ (Cenap Şahâbeddin)



The poet "Cenap Şahabettin" you quoted from had lived between 1870 and 1934. So, do you really think the language and the words used would remain the same? Language is something that develops in time.


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## Muttaki

PorFavorDama said:


> The poet "Cenap Şahabettin" you quoted from had lived between 1870 and 1934. So, do you really think the language and the words used would remain the same?


If you can't read and understand a book or a poem from a hundred years ago, that's not a natural change in a language. Did you know that an educated English man can read and understand Shakespeare perfectly, who lived almost 500 years ago?


PorFavorDama said:


> Language is something that develops in time.


In the Turkish case what we have is not a "development" at all, we rather have a systematic eradication of the Turkish language.


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## Rallino

I don't agree with that.

I don't believe people used or knew the word _şadi_ even before 1934. There was a high degree of diglossia in this land, which wasn't the case for England. In my opinion, what caused the diglossia is that poets would freely use words from Persian and Arabic that they personally liked without taking into account whether or not it was an established word within the country. Shakespeare, on the other hand, wrote everything using the same words that your average Joe used in his everyday life.

I remember many years ago when I was in high school, my literature teacher talked about a grocer's account book (veresiye defteri) from 1600s that was extremely comfortable to read. So there is that. But I haven't seen't seen the document myself. But if it's real, it helps put things into perspective.

By the way, diglossia was present mainly in poetry. We don't see the traces of diglossia in novels. For instance, both Halide Edip Adıvar (1884-1964) and Mehmet Rauf (1875-1931) lived more or less in the same period as Cenap Şahabettin, and we can easily read their works.


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## Xence

Many thanks to all of you for your valuable contribution. I am happy to see the topic opening to an interesting debate about language evolution, diglossia, etc.
A special thanks to Gemmenita. I much appreciate your welcoming and your detailed explanation.


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## Gemmenita




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## Muttaki

Rallino said:


> I don't believe people used or knew the word _şadi_ even before 1934. There was a high degree of diglossia in this land, which wasn't the case for England. In my opinion, what caused the diglossia is that poets would freely use words from Persian and Arabic that they personally liked without taking into account whether or not it was an established word within the country. Shakespeare, on the other hand, wrote everything using the same words that your average Joe used in his everyday life.


According to TDK Tarama Sözlüğü _şadi _existed since much before 1934. And more importantly it meant "monkey" @Xence, have a look at this. I had to write down _"şadı" _in Tarama Sözlüğü for the word to appear.

About Shakespeare you are totally wrong. He didn't use at all the same words people used at the time. On the contrary, he brought into English thousands of new words some of which he himself had coined. And today 30% of all English words are French. Shakespeare is said to have used around 30,000 words in his writings, this can no way be an average Joe speaking.


PorFavorDama said:


> The poet "Cenap Şahabettin" you quoted from had lived between 1870 and 1934. So, do you really think the language and the words used would remain the same? Language is something that develops in time.





Rallino said:


> I remember many years ago when I was in high school, my literature teacher talked about a grocer's account book (veresiye defteri) from 1600s that was extremely comfortable to read. So there is that. But I haven't seen't seen the document myself. But if it's real, it helps put things into perspective.


There are things that we can read and completely understand of course. We find many verses of Karacaoğlan or Yunus Emre for instance well comprehensible. So, one should ask at that point to @PorFavorDama, why so? Karacaoğlan lived in the 17th century, more than 200 years before Cenap Şahabettin but we understand Karacaoğlan. So if the language changes as much as you assumed, if it is natural to assume not to understand Cenap Şahabettin's verses just because he lived before 1934, why on earth can we understand Karacaoğlan who lived in the 17th century?


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## Xence

Muttaki said:


> According to TDK Tarama Sözlüğü _şadi _existed since much before 1934. And more importantly it meant "monkey" @Xence, have a look at this. I had to write down _"şadı" _in Tarama Sözlüğü for the word to appear.


Thank you very much Muttaki. This is exactly the kind of evidence I was looking for.
The fact is this word couldn't have passed into Algerian dialect except during the Ottoman period, as it's the case for many other Turkish words which are still used in our daily life. A lot of them were gathered in 1922 by an Algerian scholar in his "_Mots turks et persans conservés dans le parler algérien_" (you can download a PDF copy here).


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## Muttaki

Xence said:


> Thank you very much Muttaki. This is exactly the kind of evidence I was looking for.
> The fact is this word couldn't have passed into Algerian dialect except during the Ottoman period, as it's the case for many other Turkish words which are still used in our daily life. A lot of them were gathered in 1922 by an Algerian scholar in his "_Mots turks et persans conservés dans le parler algérien_" (you can download a PDF copy here).


Thanks a lot for the book. It really looks interesting to me.


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## ahocan

Muttaki said:


> It is rather the case of people in Turkey don't know Turkish actually. I didn't know the word either. But apparently it exists in all Turkish dictionaries and books.
> 
> There are two _şadis_ in Turkish both of whom is written as شادی. One is Persian and the other is Arabic. The former means "joy and happiness" rather than "joyful or happy" which is _şad_/شاد. The Arabic one means a servant in the court and also refers to a kind of Janissaries in the Ottoman army.
> 
> As an example to the Persian _şadi_ in Turkish:
> 
> _Milletin büyük bir tarab u şâdî içinde îlân ettiği şey devr-i intibâhımızdır._ (Cenap Şahâbeddin)



You are right Muttaki. We,TUrkish people, really dont know our own language. We cannot understand the language used 50 years ago. We cannot read the novels,newspapers,documents etc. before 1928. Our alphabet has been changed, our words have been eliminated by the Turkish Language Association. Our history, our literature, our art....all in Ottoman Turkish(persian,arabic and turkish) but we dont know Ottoman Turkish.


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