The New Dominion

Survival Uyghur

From The New Dominion

Lesson Nine: Go and Come Back

Introduction

Salam! and welcome to “Survival Uyghur”, The New Dominion’s series on speaking practical Uyghur. Last time, we began to look at the third person (he, she, it!). We also dealt with a basic question of transport: Does this bus go to Nanmen?

In this lesson, we will use more of the third person to talk about travel. In Uyghur, when you travel somewhere, you have to go there and come back.

But first, here’s your useful word for the day: Ärzimäydu! This means “You’re welcome!” and you say it in response to Rähmät! “Thanks!” Remember, the r in Uyghur drops out, as in a Boston accent. So, this sounds like ääzimäydu!

Try it out! Rähmät! Ärzimäydu!

Dialogue

At your university in Xinjiang, winter break has begun! (This will happen in January.) Your teacher asks you, Ricardo, where you are going on vacation, then asks about other students.

Adil: Ricardo, siz nägä berip kelisiz? Ricardo, where are you traveling to?

Ricardo: Bejinggha berip kelimän. I’m traveling to Beijing.

Adil: Luisa-chu? U nägä berip kelidu? And Luisa? Where is she traveling to?

Ricardo: Luisa Ghuljigha berip kelidu. Luisa’s traveling to Ghulja. [Note: gh in Uyghur is pronounced way back in the throat. See Lesson Six.]

Adil: Yuki-chu? Nägä berip kelidu? And Yuki? Where is he traveling to?

Ricardo: Yuki Yaponiyigä berip kelidu. Yuki is traveling to Japan.

Grammar

män, siz, u…: Let’s look at pronouns in Uyghur. The ones covered in Survival Uyghur so far are män “I,” siz “you,” and islar “you (plural).” The new pronoun, u, means “he,” she,” or “it.”

U takes the ending -du on verbs in the present-future tense: U mangidu. “She walks.” U ichidu. “He drinks.” U chay quyidu. “She pours tea.” U somyän yäydu. “It eats somyän.”

Really, it’s that simple. Let’s look again at last lesson’s verb table, this time with the pronouns written in:

berip kelimän: There a few ways your could approach the berip kelimän construction.

You could take it as a single verb: berip käl- “to go and come back, to travel.” It conjugates thus: män berip kelimän, siz berip kelisiz, islar berip kelisilär, u berip kelidu.

Really, though, we are combining two verbs: bar- “to go” and käl- “to come.”

To connect two nouns, we use wä. But, to connect two verbs, we add the suffix -ip to a verb stem, then follow it with another verb: V-ip V. This is like one of the uses of the “て form” of Japanese verbs. It’s also commonly found in other Central Asian languages. We will discuss this grammar in depth later on; for now, just get a taste of it!

Be careful with pronouncing berip kelimän! As a beginner, I always separated the words: Män berip… kelimän. Really, you should run them together, but keep the stress on the last syllable of each word: Män beripkelimän!

e’s and i’s: You may have noticed that the letters e and i are popping up where you might not expect them: käl- “to come” makes män kelimän, not män kälimän; bar- turns into berip, not barip, when you add the -ip suffix. Look for a special supplementary lesson on this soon.