Language observations
Jul 28th, 2007 by Oana
With no common language to draw on, I found Turkish quite difficult to pick up during the two weeks we spent there. We managed to learn a few important words (thank you, please, hello, etc.) but I noticed several words that looked rather familiar*! Yes, just like in Croatia, I found quite a bit of overlap with Romanian.
In no particular order, here are some examples (Turkish = Romanian = English):
- çorba = ciorbă = slightly sour soup, usually vegetable-based
- çoban = cioban = shepherd
- pastırma = pastramă = dry, smoked, salty & spicy meat
- kazan = cazan = metal cauldron
- sarma = sarma = cabbage or vine leaf roll
- kaymak = caimac = cream or milk skin
- güvec = ghiveci = vegetable stew
- oda = odaie = room in a house
- çöp = ciob = broken fragment
- çubuk = ciubuc = illicit income, bribe on the side
- bahşiş = bacşiş = tip (e.g. on a restaurant bill)
- köfte = chiftea = flattened meat ball/patty
- bostan = bostan = pumpkin
* Thanks to dexonline for confirming the etymology!
I also had a bit of a revelation when I realized that mavi (as in the brand of jeans) means blue! And deniz (as in Ali’s brother’s name) means ocean or sea!