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Turkish language has a gossip tense

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Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Bulgarian there is "double inferential" mood, used to relate reported speech about the speaker . Usually used when the speaker got drunk and has no memory of the thing they did. a.k.a. "past forgotten" tense. The double inferential also reflects the fact that the witness account maybe inaccurate/exaggerated either because the witness(es) were themselves drunk or because they knew the speaker cannot dispute their a…

Is the purpose only when getting drunk and did it arise out of an alcohol culture? (If so, why doesn’t British English have more tenses) I often joke that Polish has several singulars and several plurals, because you know, 1-2 beers is singular, 3-4 is just tipsy, 4-6 is a real drink, but 4-24 is a real plural. But after 25+, you don’t remember so might as well restart from 0. But it’s a joke, because it applies to o…

I guess it's also used when one (usually disapprovingly) tells a story/accusation about themselves from a third party's perspective.

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK very few "Serbo-Croatian" words got adopted by Turkish/Ottoman - I only know of "kraljica". On the other hand - during ~500 years (within last ~625 years) that Ottomans occupied most of Balkans - many words stuck around to this day. For example: Jok, Jorgan, Džezva, Mašala ...etc

The ones that susprised me were more common things: kutija, čelik, sat, čoban, boja, budala, sanduk, pare... Hah, of course wiki has a pretty good list with even more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Serbo-Croatian_words_o...

> budala

:-)

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#234
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This not being a coincidence is the Altaic Family Hypothesis, which posits that Turkic, Mongolic and often also Japonic and/or Korean languages form a superfamily, sharing a common ancestor. The hypothesis is mostly discredited by present-day linguistics.

Is that the only explanation though? Could proximity explain things? It is my private theory that German and Polish having had so much geographic overlap explains some common features, despite being from different families.

I don't know to what extent this has happened with German and Polish. They are, of course, (somewhat distant) cousins in any case, both being Indo-European languages.

But it is often the case that geographically close languages influence each other -- the term in linguistics is "sprachbund". If one is entirely honest, a lot of languages have taken vocabulary or grammatical features from one or more languages from other language families, rendering the entire idea of a language "family" (the word is here evoked to imply a pure genetic lineage) kind of suspect to begin with. But it still is how linguistics is commonly done today.

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood you correctly, you just name them. The default is the concept, and most of the time people do not feel the need to separate some specific police force, because it's apparent from the context. Some specific police force aren't likely to expand their operations in the city. On the other hand, I think I may also be failing to explain this correctly because we are already at the limits of my English :)

Thanks, but you don’t need to explain how if you’re unsure. If you can just write one example in Turkish, of each case, so three total, most readers can probably puzzle it out with enough time using translation tools.

Abstract Concept of Police (e.g., law enforcement in general):

> Polis, toplumun güvenliğini sağlamakla görevlidir.

> (Police are responsible for maintaining public safety.)

Police Force as an Organizational Unit:

> Bu şehirdeki polis teşkilatı faaliyetlerini arttırdı.

> (The police force in this city has expanded its operations.)

Specific Police Force Within a Specific City:

> İstanbul polisi son zamanlarda çok aktif.

> (The Istanbul police have been very active lately.)

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkish also has an imprecative mood, specifically for wishing ill on third parties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprecative_mood On the other hand, a mood for well-wishing occurs in Sanskrit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedictive [EDIT: and Quenya? https://eldamo.org/content/words/word-1905928135.html ] On the gripping hand, AAVE actually has a richer tense-aspect-mood inventory than Standard American English:…

This was a fun and informative comment, thank you for sharing.

No wuckers

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#237
post #230
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the only explanation though? Could proximity explain things? It is my private theory that German and Polish having had so much geographic overlap explains some common features, despite being from different families.

German and Polish share a common ancestor.

It is something that can be said for any two languages ;)

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#238
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the only explanation though? Could proximity explain things? It is my private theory that German and Polish having had so much geographic overlap explains some common features, despite being from different families.

I don't know to what extent this has happened with German and Polish. They are, of course, (somewhat distant) cousins in any case, both being Indo-European languages. But it is often the case that geographically close languages influence each other -- the term in linguistics is "sprachbund". If one is entirely honest, a lot of languages have taken vocabulary or grammatical features from one or more languages from oth…

The basis for my very non-scientific observation is that I am a native Dutch speaker, who's conversational in German and has a Polish partner. German fits quite well in between Polish and Dutch in terms of features: Dutch has few, Polish has nearly all, and German has quite a few more than Dutch ;) Similarities between Dutch and German are more easily understood since they've a recent ancestor, but for Polish and German we must go back much further. Yet, my untrained eyes see a sort of continuity that seems to cross the language-family barrier, which could make sense because of that shared geography of German and Polish. I know that Poles have a history of fervent conversationalism that favors (grammatic) complexity, so perhaps it's a hobby that spilled over to German-speakers. Or vice versa (I know less of German cultural history).

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. "Polis (police), son (latest) zamanlarda (times, at) bu (this) şehirde (city, within) faaliyetlerini (operations) arttırdı (increased)." If I'm talking about a specific police officer, then I'd use "o", which means he/she/it/that. O geldi -> he/she/it/that arrived. O polis geldi -> that police arrived. Ona polis geldi -> police arrived to him/her (his/her place). polis geldi -> the police (has) arrived. O ba…

How do you differentiate between the abstract concept of police, the concept of police forces as an organizational unit, and the specific police force that exists within a specific city?

(Note: not a Turkish speaker, but the other language without the articles)

You don't need most of the time because it's evident from the context without any ambiguity.

You also need to know what English is quite lacking in the declension and inflection departments which do the heavy lifting in the other languages and often eliminate the need for a separate article words.

Re: Turkish language has a gossip tense

#240
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things—articles in English (the, a) are subtle as hell and extremely difficult to use correctly if you're not a native speaker. The way you can verb any noun is super interesting and productive. And having to memorize the idiomatic different meanings of a billion verb + preposition combinations (take up, take down, take over, take in, take away, take on) is a real treat for learners.

My Korean tutor said the same thing about “the”. I said “doesn't it just mean there is only one instance?" and he replied "the police". For the benefit of other folks wanting to follow up the "take off" thing: it's called a "phrasal verb".

I've always been taught that "the" is for when there's a single obvious instance you're talking about. There are many policemen and women, but if I say "the police" there's only really one likely candidate which I could be talking about.

"A man" is just some guy. If I say "The man" there's a specific guy I'm talking about and I expect you to know which one.

Did you know dutch has two words for "the"? One is generally for big or important things and the other for small or unimportant things. I'm sure people trying to learn Dutch love figuring out which you use when.

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