baseball bat simultaneously incomprehensible and aggressive. The White House press secretary’s excuses of the importance of baseball season fell on sceptical ears and the power balance between Obama and Erdoğan was construed as darkly as possible.
If Turks are easily offended, so too are newcomers to Turkey who are unused to the particular rhythm and nuances of Turkish conversation. There are several characteristic expressions and signs that, if one is not informed, range from the bewildering to the downright offensive. For a start, in place of ‘No’, there is a dismissive lift of the head or eyebrows, often accompanied by a sharp click of the tongue. This indescribablyrude-looking and -sounding gesture seems to imply complete disdain, as though the person in question cannot even be bothered to open their mouth to answer you. It is almost as common as actually saying ‘No’ and not in fact rude at all. Nestled amongst various Italian-style hand wavings, emphatic pinched fingers and so on, my absolute favourite Turkish gesture is the deliberate, double, palm-to-palm hand wipe, to denote something complete or finished. For example, ‘I never saw him again,’ or ‘She spent all his money!’ would be accompanied by this gesture to add gravitas and irrevocability.
Having only ever been spoken to in Turkish by my grandmother in early childhood, I was amazed to discover the usage of epithets and modes of address in a context outside the home. Canım , for example, literally means ‘my soul’ and was, I thought, extremely affectionate. So it is, but I quickly discovered that one applies it to anyone who isn’t actually your boss or father-in-law – to customers in a taxi, friends, strangers in the street, lovers or animals. I have decided that it is equivalent to ‘my dear’, although it still, somehow, retains its heightened significance for loved ones. That is one of the beauties of Turkish: the freedom you are granted to invest as much as you want into a language that is, fundamentally, laced with passion and affection.
Having addressed my big sister as abla throughout my life, I understood it to mean ‘big sister’. And so it does – but you can also apply it to any female, about the same age or older than yourself, whom you happen to encounter in an informal setting. I am abla to anonymous strangers, or the rather confusing ablacığım (pronounced ‘abla-jum’) – literally ‘my little big sister’, used affectionately. To friends I am Alevciğim(‘darling Alev’),and in a formal setting I am ‘Alev hanım ’ which cannot be satisfactorily translated into English but is equivalent to individualising ‘madam’ – ‘Madam Alev’, which is quite nice, if one doesn’t think of brothel owners. Alev, or any first name used by itself sounds rather bare and blank. Turks like to create a kind of relationship, whether formal or informal, with everyone they meet, and they do this initially through tokens of language before an established, mutual understanding is reached. Adding either an affectionate suffix or a respectful title to someone’s name shows the speaker’s good intentions, come what may, and establishes a vague power balance within which Turks feel more secure.
When I started travelling around Turkey, I discovered that, while Istanbul is a glorious mix of Turks from all over the place, there is a kind of cohesive, relaxed vernacular here which one does not always find elsewhere, especially not in more traditional or rural communities. For example, in Kayseri, a very conservative city in the middle of the Anatolian plain, I was no longer abla and my boyfriend was no longer abi (‘big brother’, or ‘mate’). Instead, he became hocam (‘my teacher’ – traditionally a teacher of the Koran) and I was yenge (literally ‘wife of my brother’). The latter conveyed respect to me – it would be politely assumed that we were married – while suggesting a brotherly camaraderie between
If Turks are easily offended, so too are newcomers to Turkey who are unused to the particular rhythm and nuances of Turkish conversation. There are several characteristic expressions and signs that, if one is not informed, range from the bewildering to the downright offensive. For a start, in place of ‘No’, there is a dismissive lift of the head or eyebrows, often accompanied by a sharp click of the tongue. This indescribablyrude-looking and -sounding gesture seems to imply complete disdain, as though the person in question cannot even be bothered to open their mouth to answer you. It is almost as common as actually saying ‘No’ and not in fact rude at all. Nestled amongst various Italian-style hand wavings, emphatic pinched fingers and so on, my absolute favourite Turkish gesture is the deliberate, double, palm-to-palm hand wipe, to denote something complete or finished. For example, ‘I never saw him again,’ or ‘She spent all his money!’ would be accompanied by this gesture to add gravitas and irrevocability.
Having only ever been spoken to in Turkish by my grandmother in early childhood, I was amazed to discover the usage of epithets and modes of address in a context outside the home. Canım , for example, literally means ‘my soul’ and was, I thought, extremely affectionate. So it is, but I quickly discovered that one applies it to anyone who isn’t actually your boss or father-in-law – to customers in a taxi, friends, strangers in the street, lovers or animals. I have decided that it is equivalent to ‘my dear’, although it still, somehow, retains its heightened significance for loved ones. That is one of the beauties of Turkish: the freedom you are granted to invest as much as you want into a language that is, fundamentally, laced with passion and affection.
Having addressed my big sister as abla throughout my life, I understood it to mean ‘big sister’. And so it does – but you can also apply it to any female, about the same age or older than yourself, whom you happen to encounter in an informal setting. I am abla to anonymous strangers, or the rather confusing ablacığım (pronounced ‘abla-jum’) – literally ‘my little big sister’, used affectionately. To friends I am Alevciğim(‘darling Alev’),and in a formal setting I am ‘Alev hanım ’ which cannot be satisfactorily translated into English but is equivalent to individualising ‘madam’ – ‘Madam Alev’, which is quite nice, if one doesn’t think of brothel owners. Alev, or any first name used by itself sounds rather bare and blank. Turks like to create a kind of relationship, whether formal or informal, with everyone they meet, and they do this initially through tokens of language before an established, mutual understanding is reached. Adding either an affectionate suffix or a respectful title to someone’s name shows the speaker’s good intentions, come what may, and establishes a vague power balance within which Turks feel more secure.
When I started travelling around Turkey, I discovered that, while Istanbul is a glorious mix of Turks from all over the place, there is a kind of cohesive, relaxed vernacular here which one does not always find elsewhere, especially not in more traditional or rural communities. For example, in Kayseri, a very conservative city in the middle of the Anatolian plain, I was no longer abla and my boyfriend was no longer abi (‘big brother’, or ‘mate’). Instead, he became hocam (‘my teacher’ – traditionally a teacher of the Koran) and I was yenge (literally ‘wife of my brother’). The latter conveyed respect to me – it would be politely assumed that we were married – while suggesting a brotherly camaraderie between
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