TITLE: Cross Languages AUTHOR: Meltem Yakula Kurtman ABSTRACT: Meltem Yakula Kurtman is originally of Cypriot-Turkish background ARTICLE:

Cross Cultures indeed ! A fascinating study. How about cross languages? Let us see where we go when we sail through some languages. Shall we start with English?

It is said that English and German are similar languages. One might agree with this claim even if one doesn’t speak a word of German but listens carefully when in the presence of German speakers. Words like house, father, mother, brother .. are almost the same, and I am told the list is quite extensive.

Then we have the romance languages: French, Spanish and Italian. Those three are so similar that if one had a good knowledge of any one of them he or she can understand the other two, specially in written form. Portuguese is so close to Spanish that a Portuguese speaking person and a Spaniard can carry on a conversation while each speaks in his own tongue. Wow!

All the languages mentioned so far are basically European, therefore one might safely assume that there are similarities in their cultures, their mentality and so forth. How about a non- European language? How does one of them compare to English? Well, let’s see: I can think of some neat differences (note: no similarities) between English and Turkish, which happens to be my first language, or my “mother tongue”.

Can you imagine my amazement when I was introduced to the concept of le and la in a French class? I learned that the English decided they needed to refer to people in a genderized form, O.K.; but now I’m told the French were dividing all the things in the world into categories of males and females! Double WOW to this one. I am sure my little Turkish eyes must have popped out of my head. I still remember my amazement at a house being female and a garden being male. Another favourite of mine are the words ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’ in English. Turks are just amazed that the English use only two words to describe a total of six relationships. When we say ‘aunt’ in Turkish, the word is different for every relationship. There are separate words for your mother’s sister, your father’s sister, and yet another one if the lady is an aunt by marriage. Similarly, when we say uncle, we have a range of words: for mother’s brother, father’s brother, or an aunt’s husband. It seems as though Turks can live without gender description, but not without a relationship clarification.

Then we have words that are literally impossible to translate because the concepts do not exist in English. Thus, the word has to be explained not translated. In these rare cases though, what’s being reflected is the difference in the culture and not just the words that people use to communicate.

And what of the name “Turkey” as in the country, not the animal? Apparently when the Republic of Turkiye was formed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the name Turkey appeared in English only as a spelling error, and the officials at the time in the newly formed Turkish Republic decided to overlook it, in case pointing it out may have been offensive to the people who made the mistake. Hence, we now have a Republic of Turkey in English, while it was never intended to be that way. The present government in Turkiye is trying very unsuccessfully to correct this past mistake, but as the saying goes .. “old habits die hard”.

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 7 - Issue 1 - 1997. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.