The New Dominion

Survival Uyghur

From The New Dominion

Lesson Four: To be, or not to be

Introduction

Salam! and welcome to “Survival Uyghur”, The New Dominion’s series on speaking practical Uyghur. Last week, we worked on purchasing small items, individually or in bulk. This week’s lesson is very simple: you will ask if something exists.

Let’s say, returning to our themes from Lessons One and Three, you want to eat or purchase something. What if you’re not sure they have it? You will ask: … barmu? Literally, “Does … exist?”

Before we begin, though, I want to teach you the most important word in this world: Rähmät. It means “Thanks.” It sounds a bit like “Rat mat!” Where the first t is, though, we hear a breathy h.

Dialogue One: Is there polo?

You: Polo barmu?

Server: Polo bar.

You: Män polo yäymän.

Grammar and Pronunciation One

We’re working with two new words today: bar and yoq.

The first of these, which you saw in the dialogue, is bar. It’s a very, very abstract word which means, in a sense, “exists”. The r drops off the end, making the vowel longer. Pronounce it: “baa”.

Uyghur word order is different from English word order: the subject (I, you, he, she, we) comes first; the object (me, you, him, her, us) comes second, and the verb (eat, take, run, squeeze) comes last. For short, it’s Subject-Object-Verb, or SOV. bar comes in the Verb position at the end of the sentence.

So, to say that some polo is “there”, you say Polo bar. “There is polo.” “Polo exists.”

The question form of this involves taking on our question suffix, -mu. Barmu?
Polo barmu? “Is there polo?” “Does polo exist?”

Dialogue Two: There is no polo.

Disaster. They’re out of your favorite Uyghur dish. What will you do?

You: Polo barmu?

Server: Polo yoq.

You: Somyän yäymän.

Grammar and Pronunciation Two

yoq is the opposite of bar. It means “Doesn’t exist” or “There isn’t”.

It’s used in exactly the same way. Let’s say there’s no cake, tort. You would say Tort yoq. “There is no cake.” “Cake does not exist.”

Remember that q is like a k, but way further back in the mouth. It’s a little clicking, popping, sort of choking/retching sound you make with your glottis, way back where the dangly thing dangles down. So, yoq sounds a bit like “yolk”, but with its k way further back.

Dialogue Combination

This next pair of dialogues will take things you’ve learned from the first four lessons and combine them into a useful, real-life dialogue. First, we’ll have a vocabulary list of useful words. Try using these words in the dialogues above, asking if they are available or not.

Vocabulary

somyän – short noodles, stir-fried in a pan

laghman – long noodles with something tossed on them as a sauce (spelled: längmän)

chay – tea, hopefully with cardamom or rose

qähwä – coffee

üch – three, the number

Dialogue One: At the Restaurant

In this dialogue, you go to your local eatery. You have met the boss, named Änwär, before. You want some polo, but it’s the afternoon, and they don’t have any ready, so you go for the laghman instead.

You: Häy, Änwär! Ässalam äläykum! Hey, Änwär! Peace be unto you!

Änwär: Wä äläykum ässalam. Tinchliqmu? And unto you peace. At peace?

You: Tinchliq. Siz-chu, tinchliqmu? I’m at peace. And you, at peace?

Änwär: Tinchliq. Rähmät. At peace. Thanks.

You: Polo barmu? Is there polo?

Änwär: Polo yoq… There is no polo…

You: Laghman yäymän. I’ll eat laghman.

Änwär: Bäsh koy… Rähmät! Five RMB… Thanks!

Dialogue Two: At the Store

In this dialogue, you walk into a store to get a bottle of iced coffee, but all they have is iced tea. You get some tea.

You: Qähwä barmu? Do you have coffee?

Seller: Qähwä yoq. There’s no coffee.

You: Qähwä yoqmu? There’s no coffee??

Seller: Qähwä yoq. Chay bar. There’s no coffee. There’s tea.

You: Chaydin birni alimän. I’ll have a tea.

Seller: Üch koy. Three RMB.

You: Rähmät. Thanks.