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[Lewis Collins' tortoise]

I'm trying to compile a list of Turkish words that non-native speakers of Turkish use in their everyday use of English in Turkey.

As in " I'm just off to catch the dolmush"

I'm interested in any examples you yourself use among other native and non-native speakers of English.

If you ever have cause to write them, how do you spell them?
Do you retain the original Turkish spelling or phonetically adapt them?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions, thanks.

[007]

[yaramaz]

I shop in bakkals and get beer at the tekel and catch the dolmus (dangly s var) and live in a sokak. I eat doner occasionally and tend to eat sutlac more often than rice pudding After 6 years, my daily (non-classtime) vocabulary is rather karisik, though mostly unintentionally. A lot of it is just from being constantly being surrounded by certain words or phrases- when I lived in the UK I adopted a lot of British terms for things that were quite different to my Canadian ones. The same goes for here.

[FGT]

Good question!

"bakkal" doesn't have an exact translation ("corner shop"/"Pakky" don't quite convey the same idea) - in my head it's spelt "bakkal" or perhaps "backal" - it's taken over so much I change the spelling (in my head) according to my environment but would find it hard to substitute it with another word. And then there's the idea of a person being a "bakkal" which adds another dimension.

"Afiyet olsun" is something which I frequently use in Turkish, albeit with foreign friends in Turkey. In England I would rarely say anything. Now a group of foreigners here when eating in one another's home regularly recite "Afiyet olsun", "Elenize sağlık" etc, even if nobody present is Turkish.

"Inşallah" is absolutely accepted into the lingo. Sometimes in texts to the UK I spell it "inshallah".

"Maalesef" seems better than "unfortunately".

"Ev" has a particular meaning within the group of friends who've bought their own.

"Bok" is used perhaps more freely than its English equivalent.

More pertinent perhaps are the sounds/gestures - raised eyebrows signalling "No", hand on chest signifying "No, thank you", (French accent) "Oeuf" meaning "Oh, how awful!" (or something similar). I could go on. These are the things that label us as foreign in our own land. Verbal language is much easier to alter.

We may not be fluent in Turkish (some of us are, I'm sure) but we are assimilated. Do any of our students pick up the equivalent traits or can they only learn that in an English speaking environment? I've had a few for whom the "v" sign would be an anathema but....

[yaramaz]

Just remembered:

Gecmis olsun- I find myself grasping for something to say when this phrase is called for and I'm not around Turkish speakers- quite a habit, along with kolay gelsin and afiyet olsun and all the masallahs and bismillahs and insa'allahs and the sey (shey) and yani and ooof interjections. They are all unconscious adaptations from years of repitition. I found myself having to catch my words when I went home at christmas for the first time in 4 years-- my family looked at me a bit bewildered after my first few upward nodded yoks.

[Lewis Collins' tortoise]

It is unusual for a second language speaker to replace verbs in their native speech. nouns/phrases yes.

The only example I can think of this is I have occasionally said something like "Let's topple this together" to my daughter, who is a native speaker of both English and Turkish, as in Toplamak-gather up.
Although this is the only example I can think of.

When I switch from Turkish to English the pronunciation of any word from Turkish changes too.

so Vapur (vahpoor)becomes (vapper) when I use it in English.

I think many of us have become desensitized to how we see and hear words in Turkish after being here for so long.

My Dad first came here and said to me
"What the bloody hell's this "Arce lik" thing I keep seeing mean?