Roundup: Language Corner

Oh hi!

So, one of the things I’ve been doing in my newsletter is a Language and Culture Corner where I write about some of my favorite Turkish phrases. These are the ones I’ve shared in my newsletters so far over the past year. Until I’m figuring out what I’m doing with this space (the web-only version), I thought it would be fun to do a roundup of these.

Enjoy.

LANGUAGE CORNER: The Aries stubborn edition

"Înadim inatdır, kıçım iki kanattır" literally translates to "My stubbornness is my stubbornness, my ass is two wings."

This is an expression used to express an excessive level of stubbornness. I call it the "Drunk Berrak" level.

LANGUAGE CORNER: Don't gossip edition

"Başkasının yalancısıyım" means "I'm someone else's liar" which is an expression used to gossip without taking any responsibility.

So, the way you use this phrase would be "[insert gossipy tidbit here] but I'm someone else's liar..." 

LANGUAGE CORNER: What I would've shared in last week's newsletter if I was sober

"Çakırkeyif" translates to "winepleasure" which is another word for tipsy, or what enjoying life in a beautiful, half-drunk state.

So, basically, how I was feeling all of last weekend in Napa.

Çakır actually means wine in old Turkish.

LANGUAGE CORNER: Nazar değmesin 🧿

In Turkish, when something goes wrong for someone, they say that the “Nazar” touched him: “Nazar değdi”.

So, today's expression is "şeytan kulağına kurşun" which literally translates to "lead to devil's ear," a phrase used after something that could go wrong works out without any problems.

LANGUAGE CORNER: It's my life

Today's expression is one that I should use more often. "Keyfimin kâhyası mısın?" translates to" are you the butler of my pleasure?" which is how you respond to people who can't mind their own business.

LANGUAGE CORNER: Which came first: The bird or the country

Today's language corner comes courtesy of my friend Chris Penn, who sent me a message a few weeks ago saying that the turkey the bird is, in fact, named after Türkiye. Which I forgot about until I was having dinner with one of my best friends on Friday, and he and I started going down a Wikipedia path on origins of country names. So, thanks to his digging, here's how turkey the bird got its name.

And it has to do with another bird: The guinea fowl, which is native to eastern Africa and was imported to Europe through the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul sat on the silk road and became a critical meeting point for commerce between Asia and Europe.

Because guinea fowl came from the Turks, Europeans called the guinea fowl the turkey-cock or turkey-hen. Turns out, when the settlers came to America, they confused the bird native to America with the guinea fowl, but there's a bit of literary history as well. The North American bird was mentioned in Henry IV and in A Christmas Carol. So, when Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, the turkey was already a staple of Christmas dinner, so it was a natural choice for Thanksgiving dinner as well.