As a contributor to this great idea of Brian's, I want to focus a little on the various dialects of the Uzbek language. For my first entry, I'd like to talk about the Uzbek suffix -cha. Although people frequently use the word til ("tongue" or "language") to refer to languages, such as O'zbek tili (the Uzbek language) or Ingliz tili (the English language), the suffix -cha is frequently used in everyday speech to refer to languages. It literally means "in the _____ way," such as:
O'zbekcha (O'zbek + cha) = Uzbek ("in the Uzbek way")
Inglizcha (Ingliz + cha) = English
Ruscha (Rus + cha) = Russian
I think that -cha is a wonderful suffix because you can use it to denote dialects and to turn any noun into a way of speaking. This means that you do not need to make a distinction between a "full" language and a "mere" dialects or privilege one over another.
Toshkentcha = the language of Tashkent
Xorazmcha = the language of Xorazm (a region in western Uzbekistan)
People do say Xorazm shevasi, which is used to mean "the Xorazm accent/dialect." However even the word sheva itself comes from the Persian words for "tongue," not exclusively meaning "dialect/accent."
I find -cha to be especially nice because you can use it to turn any noun into a dialect or language. When I lived in Uzbekistan, my friends noticed that I used the words yaxshi ("good"/"okay") and rahmat ("thank you") a lot. Once a friend started playfully mocking me by saying these two words frequently. She turned to me and said:
"I'm speaking Katherinecha!"
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Brief Announcement - New Change
I'm excited to see this grow, and being a fairly new blog, I'm not sure this counts as a significant change. I've decided to recruit my Uzbek colleagues to collaborate on this website. I suppose I had originally intended on something similar, but I think it's much easier to make this place dynamic from the start.
After spending a year (when I did show up to class) with them, it's hard to imagine not doing anything Uzbek without having them around. Plus, they're all much more knowledgeable about Uzbek than I, so expect to see articles, big or small, on a variety of topics in the near future!
Feel free to introduce yourselves, everyone.
After spending a year (when I did show up to class) with them, it's hard to imagine not doing anything Uzbek without having them around. Plus, they're all much more knowledgeable about Uzbek than I, so expect to see articles, big or small, on a variety of topics in the near future!
Feel free to introduce yourselves, everyone.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Lesson 1: The Alphabet
Given that I still have all my course packs (which is one of the few resources I have) and that my memory isn't horrible, it's not hard to recall how it was first taught. Our professor skipped the alphabet or what type of sounds are available, and jumped straight into word formation, introducing a variety of suffixes that formed different nouns and verbs. Looking back, that's not a bad way to go. Eventually, we would learn more about the usages of each suffix, and the variations that they accompanied.
The book (or course pack) was a little wordy though (as am I), and there was a little too much historical information for my taste (i.e. etymology). As a linguist, I can appreciate wanting to understand how words came about in order to full understand their current usage, but I think that should be optional when just learning how to write and speak a language. The language is difficult enough without being inundated with other information.
So, instead of starting with word formation, I'd actually just like to start with the alphabet. Without going into the background, Uzbek has two writing systems: Latin and Cyrillic.
While Cyrillic is important to know, given the amount of Uzbek literature that uses it, I'll mostly use Latin, since it's easier than trying to figure out how to insert Cyrillic in here.
In order, the Latin alphabet for Uzbek is as follows:
A K X
B L Ts
V M Ch
G N Sh
D O E
Ye P Yu
Yo R Ya
J S O'
Z T Q
I U G'
Y F H
Please note that each 'letter' in the alphabet is more of a representation of the sound made. Latin is actually a transliteration of Cyrillic (which in turn is a transliteration of Arabic, but I'm just guessing here). The equivalent Cyrillic character for each letter would actually be a single letter with a diacritic or cedilla.
What's also important to note is that some symbolic representations in Cyrillic have no meaningful equivalent symbol in Latin. They are indicative of how that particular word should be articulated, but I have yet to figure out how every sound in Uzbek is articulated.
Anyhow, that's it for now.
I think I may be worse than the book.
The book (or course pack) was a little wordy though (as am I), and there was a little too much historical information for my taste (i.e. etymology). As a linguist, I can appreciate wanting to understand how words came about in order to full understand their current usage, but I think that should be optional when just learning how to write and speak a language. The language is difficult enough without being inundated with other information.
So, instead of starting with word formation, I'd actually just like to start with the alphabet. Without going into the background, Uzbek has two writing systems: Latin and Cyrillic.
While Cyrillic is important to know, given the amount of Uzbek literature that uses it, I'll mostly use Latin, since it's easier than trying to figure out how to insert Cyrillic in here.
In order, the Latin alphabet for Uzbek is as follows:
A K X
B L Ts
V M Ch
G N Sh
D O E
Ye P Yu
Yo R Ya
J S O'
Z T Q
I U G'
Y F H
Please note that each 'letter' in the alphabet is more of a representation of the sound made. Latin is actually a transliteration of Cyrillic (which in turn is a transliteration of Arabic, but I'm just guessing here). The equivalent Cyrillic character for each letter would actually be a single letter with a diacritic or cedilla.
What's also important to note is that some symbolic representations in Cyrillic have no meaningful equivalent symbol in Latin. They are indicative of how that particular word should be articulated, but I have yet to figure out how every sound in Uzbek is articulated.
Anyhow, that's it for now.
I think I may be worse than the book.
Introduction to Uzbek
Hi, and welcome to my Uzbek blog. Here, I will attempt to re-teach and re-learn Uzbek to myself and anyone daring enough to read this. I welcome anyone who wants to collaborate and those of you who just love Uzbek. While my primary focus will be on grammar and conversational Uzbek, I'm open to anyone who would like to speak about any topic regarding the language, country, or Central Asia in general.
Why?
I decided to take Uzbek in order to fulfill a graduation requirement. It's not to say that I don't enjoy languages, because I really do. And after my first quarter of Uzbek in the fall, I kind of fell in love with it. Unfortunately, I did a mental check-out in the middle of my second quarter. Part of that was due to other commitments, and part of it was because the curriculum lost its cohesion. The class stopped examining grammar and lots its linear approach to the language.
The assumption was that we would all be able to keep up, but I was left in the dust. Many of my classmates (only five of them) had been to Central Asia before, or worked extremely hard at it (I probably could have done more, yes, but this is more my style). But even some of them felt like lecture had become a waste of time.
Now it's my last quarter, and I'm weeks away from graduating, finally (it's been a long five years). Maybe it's folly for me to try and learn it now, but I'm not willing to give it up or slowly forget all I've learned already because of varying circumstances. Uzbek is a wonderful language, and maybe I can share that same passion.
That being said, welcome!
Why?
I decided to take Uzbek in order to fulfill a graduation requirement. It's not to say that I don't enjoy languages, because I really do. And after my first quarter of Uzbek in the fall, I kind of fell in love with it. Unfortunately, I did a mental check-out in the middle of my second quarter. Part of that was due to other commitments, and part of it was because the curriculum lost its cohesion. The class stopped examining grammar and lots its linear approach to the language.
The assumption was that we would all be able to keep up, but I was left in the dust. Many of my classmates (only five of them) had been to Central Asia before, or worked extremely hard at it (I probably could have done more, yes, but this is more my style). But even some of them felt like lecture had become a waste of time.
Now it's my last quarter, and I'm weeks away from graduating, finally (it's been a long five years). Maybe it's folly for me to try and learn it now, but I'm not willing to give it up or slowly forget all I've learned already because of varying circumstances. Uzbek is a wonderful language, and maybe I can share that same passion.
That being said, welcome!
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