The New Dominion

Survival Uyghur

From The New Dominion

Lesson One: Ordering Food

Introduction

Salam! and welcome to “Survival Uyghur”, The New Dominion’s series on speaking practical Uyghur. Starting today, you will learn how to do basic, useful things in real-life Uyghur. Along the way, you will develop a foundation in Uyghur grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation that will help you if you decide to pursue further study. Comments are very much welcome!

Today, we will begin with a very simple action: ordering a plate of polo, the Uyghur signature dish. This is all. You will learn to order the food, which will probably show up all but automatically at your table a short time later. In the meantime, you will start to get an inkling of the way Uyghur works as a language. We will return to this dialog in Lesson Four, when things will make more sense. Let’s begin! Bashlayli!

Dialogue: Ordering Polo

(It’s lunchtime! You’re walking down the street, past a long row of little restaurants, and you see your target: a big , metal bowl, tilted jauntily, filled with steaming, yellow rice with spangles of carrots, onions, and lamb or beef. Go in and sit down.)

You say to the server: “Bir polo yäymän.”

That is all. If all goes well, your food will arrive momentarily. Don’t worry about payment, for now – at most places, polo is exactly 8, 10, or 12 RMB. If your server seems anxious, try handing them a 10 yuan bill. If that doesn’t work, try repeating:

“Bir polo yäymän.”

Pronunciation

How, exactly, do you say that? A good way to remember it, at first, is to say, “Beer polo? Yay, man!”

That’s not quite right, but it will get the job done.

To be more precise, pronounce the phrase thusly:

bir – This is like the English word “bit”, but with a rolled r at the end. It doesn’t actually sound like “beer”, although saying it that way should be more or less understood. Means: “one”

polo – Unlike the English sport “polo”, the emphasis here is on the last syllable: poló! It’s like “Olé!” Means: polo, the thing you want to eat

yäymän – Just like “Yay, man!” (Those ä symbols indicate something like the hard a sounds in English: cat, rat, bat; also like may, stay, hey…) However, this is also like “Olé!”: yäymän! Means: “I eat”

Now repeat after me: “Bir poló yäymän!” Finish strong on that last syllable!

Grammar

Let’s understand how this sentence works.

“Bir polo yäymän.”

If you’re one of those really literal language learners, you could think of it as “One polo eat I!” It breaks down like this:

bir polo is literally just “one polo”. Just “one polo”, and that’s fine.

yäymän is a little more complex. It’s a verb. yä- is your stem for “to eat”, the y in the middle says we’re in the present or future, and män is simply “I” or “me”. This suffix is absolutely necessary for the verb – and for you – to be understood. We will return to this grammar point soon.

If you’re slightly less literal-minded, you could translate this as “I’ll have one polo.” You may be wary of telling someone, more literally, “I’ll eat one polo,” but, rest assured, it’s entirely acceptable and, indeed, expected.

Dialogue Repeat

“Bir polo yäymän.”

For advanced learners

I know some of you – like me – want to be hot-shots when you’re learning a language. So, you can jazz things up a little by telling your server:

“Män bir polo yäymän.”

Come back next week for Lesson Two: Peace Be Unto You!