Zen and the Art of Agglutination

Note: This post is probably going to make little sense to most of you, as it will contain references to a variety of linguistic jargon and general nonsense that probably only Jon, Robb and Ilya will care about or understand. Furthermore, the only other language I'm acquainted with is Russian, and I will use it as a comparison throughout this post, and for those of you who don't know any Russian (once again, everyone but the three people listed above), it will probably be meaningless to you. Forgive me while I indulge in a bit of language dorkery.



So, 6 months into my adventure abroad and out of all the new, strange, exciting, and occasionally unspeakable awful things I've encountered, the one that stands out foremost as both a problem and solution on all fronts is language. Here the spoken language is Azerbaijani, aka Azeri, a member of the Seljuk branch of Turkic languages. It's most closest spoken relative is Turkish, with which it is mutually intelligible, meaning that even though they are two different languages a speaker of one can understand the other. It is also somewhat mutually intelligible with Uzbek and Turkmen, though not as clearly as with Turkish. Additionally, being in the Turkic language family it is also related to Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uighur, Tajik, Mongolian, and a bunch of other smaller languages spoken throughout Central Asia. It is not, however, related to the other langauges of the Caucusus. Georgian is a Southern Caucasian language, in a little family of its own, Armenian is an Indo-European language, therefore related (albeit loosely) to the langauges of Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Talish is spoken in parts of Southern Azerbaijan (aka Northern Iran), but its closest relative is Farsi (Persian).



Grammatically, Azeri is an agglutinative (uh-glue-tin-a-tive) language, meaning that it expresses meaning by way of suffixes added onto the end of words. For an English speaker, this is ridiculously complicated to learn at first, as there are dozens of suffixes which are used with all word types to represent different meanings. Additionally, these suffixes are all dictated by a rule present in all Turkic languages called "vowel harmony". All vowels in Azeri (a i ı o ö u ü, and an inverted "e" that won't display here) Are separated into four categories: round, unround, open, closed. The last vowel in a word dictates which vowel will appear in the following suffix. To complicate things further, various suffixes can be added onto words one after another, meaning that not only do you have to know the correct order in which to say these suffixes in order for your newly enlongated word to make sense, but you also have to take into account the category of the vowels in each previous suffix in order to say the following suffixes correctly. Here's a short example of how these suffixes are used to make sentences:



Biz=we; kitab=book; otaq=room: Bizim kitablarımız otağımızdadırlar= Our books are in our room.



The suffixes mean the following:



-im, -ımız= Possessive case, added to both the possessor and the object being possessed.

-lar= plural form

-da= Locative case, meaning (depending on context) in, at, on

-dır= Present tense third person singular of "to be"



As if this wasn't complicated enough, there are four other cases (ablative, dative, nominative, accusative) and a variety of other suffixes used in adjectives, participles, and other parts of speech.

The syntax isn't much easier either. Unlike English, with is a subject-verb-object(SVO) language, Azeri is a subject-object-verb (SOV) langauge. Therefore, verbs almost invariably come at the end of sentences, with very rare exceptions. This means that my natural inclination as an English speaker to put the verb before the object in a sentence makes me seem like a total moron when I try to speak Azeri. It's the equivalent of saying "I bread eat to like" in English.

The verbs themselves aren't that complicated though. There are no irregular verbs, putting it far ahead of Russian in terms of ease of conjugation and making English look like a grammatical trainwreck by comparison. All the conjugations for all the tenses (present, two past, two future, and a rough equivalent to past progressive) are regulated exclusively by vowel harmony and a couple of simple spelling rules. Overall, once you get the proper endings down for each of the conjugations you can easily conjugate any verb you find. Best of all, you don't have to worry about any of the perfective-imperfective nonsense and seemingly endless prefixes of Russian verbs (just imagine, in this language they only have ONE VERB for "to go"), or any of the ridiculous irregular verbs in English (buy-bought; swim-swam-swum; go-went, etc.) for which I always vehemently blame the French (see 1066 a.d. in any European history book).

Regarding vocabulary, it is mainly Turkish with a variety of borrowings from Persian, Arabic and Russian. The Persian and Arabic borrowings are clear enough, owing to their proximity and the spread of Islam. The Russian comes from 70 years of being under Russian rule prior to and during the Soviet Union. Fortunately for me, this meant that I already knew the vocabulary for all furniture, several food and a handful of other things when I arrived. However, the problems come when some people in certain regions prefer certain words in certain languages, and I have to figure out what they mean. The most common of these is "heshtat", the Persian word for "eighty" which is commonly used in place of the Azeri and Turkish "seksan". There's no telling how many times I overpaid for sodas and snacks at stores because I had no idea how much the guy was asking for.

One thing the Soviet legacy has left on this place is something I refer to as "cognitive dissonance of the foreigner", meaning that when Azeris see a foreigner, they automatically start speaking Russian to them, regardless of whether said foreigner knows it or not. This is not a problem for me, but I am one of only 5 Russian speakers out of over 100 volunteers in the country, and they are continually driven insane by sellers at the bazar who, in spite of being spoken to clearly and directly in Azeri, refuse to speak it back and insist that this white foreigner cannot possibly not understand Russian. Even I, when I approach people in stores or at the bazar, speak in Azeri, only to be responded to in Russian at least 1 out of every 3 times. It definitely keeps me on my toes, but it's also fun because since I похож на русском (look like a Russian) I can get away with claiming that I'm really from Moscow, which is generally less exciting to people here than being an American and therefore makes them leave me alone.

Finally, of all the common words in this language and various exclamations to and swearings upon Allah, there is one verb which drives me nuts: "chekmek". Nominally it means "to pull", but depending on context, it can also mean: to smoke, to weigh, to paint, to draw, to take a photo, and seemingly endless other meanings. Basically, if I don't know the right verb to say in a certain situation, I say this, and half the time I'm right. The only other sound I know which has more common meanings in Azeri is a car horn, which can mean, again depending on slight and variable context clues: hello, how are you, see you later, goodbye, coming through, come outside, answer the door, give me a call, on my way, move, or get the hell out of my way. It's too bad I don't have a car here, or I'd already be halfway to fluency.