Pakistan and Turkey have always shared a close bond together as nations. This bond of brotherhood and friendship has lasted over an extended period of time. It was there before the formation of modern day Turkish republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923. In the aftermath of World War-I, he triumphed by securing heroic victories over enemies in the Kurtulus Savaşi (Turkish war of Independence) after the dissolution of Ottoman Empire.
The readers who remember the Khilafat Movement from their Pakistan Studies books and history lessons must be familiar with the assistance Indian Muslims gave to their Turkish brothers, before the formation of both modern day Pakistan and Turkey. Pakistanis not only share a close bond of Kardeşlik (Brotherhood) and Arkadaşlik (Friendship) with the Turks, but also many Urdu words with the Turkish language.
I’ve studied the Turkish language to become as fluent in it as in Urdu and English. While I was learning this beautiful language, I explored several words which were very familiar to me and didn’t seem alien at all. They are words and phrases from a foreign language, of a country which doesn’t share a land or maritime border with us and isn’t even in our geographical region, South Asia. After discovering all the familiar words common in Turkish and Urdu, I couldn’t resist the urge to narrate my experience of these common words between Urdu and Turkish language to my countrymen through this article.
Interestingly enough, the word Urdu itself is derived from a Turkish word “Ordu” which means army and there is a Turkish city too named Ordu on the Turkish Black Sea Coast.
The common Turkish words I am going to write about, don’t necessarily share the exact meaning with their Urdu counterparts. There may be some slight differences, but the relevance to Urdu meanings has remained in the following modern day Turkish words.
Let’s start with the Urdu word عاجز (Aajiz) whose Turkish counterpart is “Aciz” (c gives the sound of English J in Turkish) and it has the same meaning as the later عاجز (meaning merciful). Then comes the Urdu word دل عا (Aadil) which means the one who is just or does justice. Turkish has a common word “Adil” which has the same meaning as our Urdu word دل ع.
The Turkish word “Afiyet” is often uttered on Turkish dining tables before Turks savor morsels of their mouth-watering dishes like Boreks and Dolmas. A Turkish equivalent of French “Bon Appétit” is “Afiyetolsun” (Enjoy your meal) which has its Urdu counterpart ت عافی (Afiyaat) which means safety and is related to Turkish one which means health and appetite.
In Urdu, we have الؤ ا (Alaou) for a big fire and its Turkish equivalent with similar meaning is “Alev”, a Turkish feminine name. We have an Urdu the word بعض (Baaz: few) and Turks again have its equivalent in their Türkçe (Turkish language) “Bazı”. Both have similar meanings.
Turks also share the word جنت (Jannat: paradise) with us but they don’t write their language in Perso-Arabic script like Urdu in. They use a Latin script so they write this word with the same meaning as “Cennet”.
We also share a word that you often hear on Pakistani news channels these days; in sentences like “Jumhuriyat khatray may hai” (Democracy is in danger). For Democracy, Urdu has “Jumhuriyat” and the Turkish language has “Cumhurriyet”. In Urdu, we have چشمہ (Chashma) for fountain and in Turkish they have “çeşme” (Cheshmay) The ç in Turkish gives the sound of English Ch like in China and ş gives the sound of English Sh like in Shanghai while e here gives the sound of ay like in May.
In Urdu we use جملہ (Jumla) for sentence while in Turkish they use “cümle”. The ü in Turkish gives the sound of English oo, like oo in Booze. In Urdu, we have “Kitaab” for book and in Turkish they have “Kitap” which again reinforces and reiterates the close bond between these two languages.
How can I forget that we have Chaye in common as well? We call Tea “Chay” while the Turks call it “çay”.
We even have the curse words in common, like لعنت (Lanat) shares a similar meaning with Turkish “Lanet”. We also share the word for possibility امکان (Imkan). We have خوش (Khosh) for happiness and Turks have “Hoş”. We have بازار (Bazaar) for market and Turks have “Pazar”. We have شہر (Shehar) for city while Turks have “şehir”.
We have فلسفہ (Falsafa) for philosophy and our Turkish brothers have “Felsefe”. We have املاک (Amlaak) for property and Turks have “Emlak”. We have “Intikaam” for revenge while our Turkish biraders (Brothers in Turkish and is the same as Urdu “Biradar”) have “Intikam”.
We even have the word for love in common “Ishq” in Urdu and “Aşk” in Turkish. The word for forbidden is also common among the two languages: “Mamnu” in Urdu and “Memnu” in Turkish. These common words now remind me of that blockbuster Turkish drama Aşk-i-Memnu (Ishq-e-Mamnu) which became a big hit in Pakistan. There is hardly a soul who didn’t fall in adoration of Behlul and Bihter’s amorous duo paired with a twist of lechery, greed, envy, hankerings and agony in the wildly popular, modernized tale of surreptitious lust.
Urdu and Turkish language also share the word for Miracle in common which is معجزہ (Mujiza) in Urdu while the Turks use “Mucize”. Urdu names clor as رنگ (Raang) and Turkish calls it “Renk”. We also have the word for martyr in common. In Türkçe they call it “Şehit” and in Urdu we say “Shaheed”. Lastly, we have the word for Time in common which, in Urdu is وقت (Waqt) and in Turkish it’s called “Vakit”.
I hope those who read this article will relish it after astonishingly coming across several words we share with the language of our TürkKardeşler (Turkish brothers).
Courtesy: Dunya TV
External link http://blogs.dunyanews.tv/17136/the-vocabulary-shared-by-urdu-and-turkish-languages
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