Monday, 15 February 2010

Random Turkish Fact #10

The Turks don't have a word for 'boy'. There is a word for 'girl' but Turkish males pass directly from 'babies' to 'men'.
Posted by Billfredo at 1:30 pm
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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nicely spotted...Checkout "oğlan" and "delikanlı" though ;)

2/16/2010 2:00 am
Billfredo said...

Yes, I've heard these but, from what I understand (which isn't a lot), "oğlan" means "son" and "delikanlı" translates to "crazy blood".

I was just checking Zargan.com and I see that, rather disturbingly, "oğlancılık" is down as "sodomy". Erm...

2/16/2010 1:01 pm
Anonymous said...

I don't mean to turn this into a didactic situation but it goes like this:

oğlu -> son of
oğul -> son (as in "the" son)
oğlan -> boy (as in "a" son)

delikanlı has no English counterpart as far as I know, zargan has many definitions the closest of which is "lad"+"young man" combined.

and then there is "oğlak" which is a young male goat. I leave it up to you to look up "oğlakcılık" ;)

2/16/2010 3:39 pm
Billfredo said...

I'm going to look up "didactic" first... OK got it. To teach. As a teacher, I should probably know that. Aaaaaanyway.

So, what's the verdict? Am I right? Is there a word for 'boy' or not? I'm talking about 'boy' as in young male not 'a son'.

2/16/2010 6:03 pm
Irreverent Italy said...

And in Italy, the Italians go from bambino to ragazzo...and then stay there!
They have uomo, but I don't think anyone truly believes that it's applicable.

FMaggi
http://burntbythetuscansun.blogspot.com

2/18/2010 3:42 pm
Unknown said...

No, you can say oğlan for boy...
it's ok.

2/18/2010 11:16 pm
Çağlar Önal said...

We usually use 'çocuk'. I know it means child but also it means a boy. If a girl say ' şu çocuğu gördün mü?', she means 'did you see that boy?'

hi btw :)

10/07/2010 10:06 pm

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