Learn about diminutives in Turkish
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are diminutives and how are they formed in Turkish? |
| Dilek: And are they commonly used? |
| Michael: At TurkishClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Meryem is playing with her dog, and when the dog gives her its paw, she says |
| "Good doggie!" |
| Meryem Atli: Akıllı köpecik! |
| Dialogue |
| Meryem Atli: Akıllı köpecik! |
| Duman : Hav hav! |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Meryem Atli: Akıllı köpecik! |
| Michael: "Good doggie!" |
| Duman : Hav hav! |
| Michael: "Woof woof!" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In Turkish, words can change shape in order to convey extra information about the size or the appearance of something, or the way the speaker feels. This result is achieved by adding certain suffixes to the words. In this lesson, we'll focus on "diminutives" or |
| Dilek: küçültme ekleri |
| Michael: which allows for describing something as smaller, and more often to show affection and sometimes compassion and pity. The most common suffixes used for creating diminutives in Turkish are: |
| Dilek: -cık, -cik, -cağız, -ceğiz |
| Michael: Let's see the diminutives from this lesson's conversation. Do you remember how Meryem says "Good doggie?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Meryem Atli: Akıllı köpecik! |
| Michael: Here, the suffix |
| Dilek: -cik |
| Michael: is added to the word "dog" or |
| Dilek: köpek |
| Michael: and the resulting word shows the speaker's affection. Let's give another example. |
| Dilek: Kızcağızı bulamadım. |
| Michael: This means "I couldn't find the girl." The word "girl" or |
| Dilek: kız |
| Michael: is in its diminutive form or |
| Dilek: kızcağızı, |
| Michael: which means "poor girl" and shows the feeling of the speaker. Let's give another sample sentence where the diminutive suffix adds more affection to the noun. |
| Dilek: Babacığımı çok özledim. |
| Michael: meaning "I missed my daddy very much." Here, the original word for "dad" is |
| Dilek: baba |
| Michael: We added the suffix according to the vowel harmony rules so it is |
| Dilek: -cık |
| Michael: Here we also have the possessive suffix "my" |
| Dilek: -ım |
| Michael: And, remember, in Turkish, if a word ends with a hard consonant and takes a suffix starting with vowels, it gets softened. So the letter |
| Dilek: -k |
| Michael: becomes |
| Dilek: -ğ |
| Michael: And the word becomes |
| Dilek: babacığım |
| Michael: meaning "my daddy." |
| Michael: Diminutive suffixes are also used with adjectives giving them a different nuance, like when in English an adjective is modified by words like "nearly, almost, or like." |
| The suffixes used for adjectives are |
| Dilek: -ımsı, -imsi, ımtırak, imtırak |
| Michael: Let's hear an example |
| Dilek: Yüzün sarımsı görünüyor. |
| Michael: "Your face looks yellowish." Here, the adjective "yellow" or |
| Dilek: sarı |
| Michael: is used as |
| Dilek: sarımtırak |
| Michael: which translates to "yellowish," but it indicates that the color is not exactly yellow but almost looks like it. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: In Turkish, the suffix |
| Dilek: çiğim |
| Michael: is used with proper nouns to make them more friendly and casual. For example: |
| Dilek: Ali'çiğim |
| Michael: "my dearest Ali." You can start your conversation or letter with this, to mean that the other person is very dear to you. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Dilek: Hoşçakalın! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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