Can someone explain when the -esi suffix is used and what sort of cursing it denotes. Is it a matter of cursing out of frustration or putting a curse on someone or something???

I tried to use it in this practice text but seem to have got it wrong :-S

Greetings bod,
There is no such verb conjugation as -esi .It is incorrectly listed on winmekmak.

I have suggested Per Brännström to correct this mistake. I think it will be removed on next version. Per is curently working on the update.

The mistake was because of Geoffrey Lewis's book on Turkish grammar. He mixed up a verbal noun with a conjugation.

There are examples like "kör olası" etc. All these are adjectives. They are adjectives made from verbs. Therefore we call them verbal adjectives. Lewis mixed them with verb conjugations because in daily speech the noun that follows the adjective is usually dropped.

Lewis heard ordinary Turks saying :
"Kör olası" (blind becomingly, the one that shall becoe blind)
"kahr olası" (cursingly, damn, the one that shall be cursed)
"lanet olası" (cursingly, damn, the one that shall be cursed)

He asked what it was and they said it was cursing. So incorrectly he translated this like this:

"Kör olası" : May he/she/it become blind."
"lanet olası" : May he/she/it be cursed."

Now they look like full sentences and normal tenses.

Winmekmak, following lewis' example has again incorrectly suggested this:

"o ol-ası : May he/she/it become (cursing)"
(try olmak in -esi tense in winmekmak)

But these are incorrect. Olası is not a verb conjugation as it was suggested. It is an adjective that modifies a noun:

"kör olası adam" : the man who shall be blind

The poeple who were using it were just saying "that damn man", "that blood man" and "that man who shall become bling". It is not a full sentense.

In daily speech they dropped the "man" (adam) and just said "kör olası". This is the correct translation:

"kör olası" : the one that shall be blind

It is common to add passive. So we have:
"o gör-ül-esi"

Again this is not a sentence. It does not translate as "
he/she /it should be seen"

the correct translations is "that viewable"

another example:
sev-il-esi : that loveable

Anyway, you should use imperative of tamir etmek in passive.
Open program press F3 and type "edilsin" it will correctly show you what it is.

This is a verb conjugation: (imperative third person)

"lanet olsun" : Damn this. or > Let this be damn.
"kör olsun" : Let him be blind.
"gebersin" : let him die like a dog.
"tamir edilsin" : let it be repaired

These are verbal adjectives: (-esi)

"geberesi" : the (something) that shall be die like a dog
"lanet olası" : that damn (something)

-esi builds verbal adjectives:

Görülesi bir yer burası.
This is a viewable place. (a place that deserves to be viewed)

Lanet olası adam bütün paramı aldı.
That damn man took all my money.

Geoffrey Lewis's book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0199256691/202-0081509-2899036?v=glance&n=266239

He is know with his views opposite critics against our language reform and against Atatürk. In this book he argues that we should have left all the Arabic words and tenses, suffixes etc. He suggests that our language reform wasn't a great success.

I think the language reform was the biggest success in Turkish history for the last 800 years.

I have read an article by Geoffrey Lewis and he totally misunderstood everything.

charming

We would be smillar to Iran, Iraq or Arabia with the exception that the community in these countries understands the language they are speaking but we would not.

Ottomans didn't understand their language. Nobody could write or read it except talented professionals.

You had to pay somebody to write a letter for you. It took a few years to learn to write the language. Ottoman langauge consists of three languages that were mixed up.

Ottoman language was artificially created. Turkish existed before Ottoman Empire and Turks used to speak Turkish only. But then languages mixed, grammars mixed, tenses mixed and everything was a mess.

During Ottoman days literature, reading and writing wasn't ment to be for the public so they made it even more artificial and complicated on purpose.

There was a huge vocabulary and 3 times more suffixes that nobody could manage easily.

You need to understand that we build words from roots in Turkish. If you know the root then you can understand even the academical terms.

example:
bağ : tie, cord, string (this is the thing that you do make when you connect to ends of a rope)

bağlı: connected
bağımlı : dependent
bağlantılı : in relation with
bağımsız : independent
bağlaç : conjunction
bağlılık : faith
bağlantı: connection
bağlantısız : unattached
bağlamak : to tie

In Ottoman days the Palace and the public were devided permanently. They had different music, different art, different language, everything was different. Things like education and language wasn't for the ordinary citizens.

Another big problem was religion and traditions. Language has a huge effect on thinking. We think within the language. If you don't have the terms in your mind then you can't think. Try thinking analytically without words. Can you? All the terms in Ottoman langauge belonged to a traditional understanding of the World. They were full with secondary meanings and influences with religion.

Foreigners can never understand how Easterns think. Easterns don't think critically or analytically because of they have another way of thinking. The existense or terms in middle east languages is fundementally unsuitable to analytical thinking.

There was an artificial language that was rich but only with the terms for entertainment for the palace. Some intellectual pleasure can be gained in these details of Ottoman Language I agree. There are some sophisticated and tempting things related to its art and literature etc.

But the thing is that Ottoman Empire colapsed and after it collapsed why would the Turks keep the Ottoman language instead using Turkish?

There is nothing as Ottoman Language. Ottoman Empire was a Turkish state founded by Osman Gazi who was an Oguz Turk and its official language was the Turkish language.The Anotalia was known as Turkey in Europe then. So the word Turkey ("Türkiye" in Turkish) wasn't begun to use after the the republic of Turkey had been founded.What Atatürk, the founder of Turkish Republic, did was to convert the Turkish alphabet from the Arabic alphabet to Latin alphabet, but not the language. The changes that have taken place in Turkish since then are the alphabet and the vocabulary, but not the language itself or its structure.

The Turkish Language has been the official language of the Turkish states (sixteen Turkish states, the sixteenth is the Turkish Republic, were founded throughout the history.) since the first written tablets (known Göktürk tablets) in Turkish was found in the eighth century.The first written tablets in Turkish addressing the public was written on behalf of the statemen, Bilge Kağan and Kültigin as their own statements. The Turkish Language in these tablets was the official language of the state then. The state of Uygur which followed the state of Gokturk also used Turkish as the official language of the state.

After Turks had converted their Shaman religion to the religion of İslam in the tenth century the following Turkish states continued using Turkish as the official language. The first muslim state was Karahanlılar (followed the state of Uygur). The stateman, Kaşgarlı Mahmut who was a philologist, ethnographer, the first Turkish cartographer and topographer wrote Divanü Lügati't-Türk. He tried to emphazise the productiveness of the Turkish Language compared to Arabic and Persian. He also tried to teach Arabs and Persians Turkish in his the Turkish Language Grammar book,Kitâbu Cevâhirü’n-Nahvi Lügati’t-Türk.

A language is a living organizm. You can not interfere whenever you like and also can not decide which words to use or not to use by sitting at the table. The language does that elimination itself. It eliminates outdated uses or get some new words or uses into its body through borrowing or loaning from other languages or producing within its own body whenever it needs.

What's more, having some loan or borrowed words from other languages is not a disadvantage. Such words are considered as your own words in your language. It only matters in study of etymology. For instance; not any native speaker of English says that the words "sugar", "alcohol", "caramel" are Arabic words and lets throw these words into the garbage and produce new words instead.These words are all Arabic origins. (They are "şeker","alkol", "karamel" in Turkish).
Does any native speaker say that the words "baklavah","ayran","yoghurt", "khan", "doner", "tulip(from the the Turkish word "tülbent"), "turquoise" are not English, and give up using these words?.Doesn't it sound nonsense? He might say they are Turkish origins and sees nothing wrong to use them in his language. There are some other loan words in English from other languages: "tomato" (South American Aztec,origin "tomati"), "ketchup" (Chinise, origin "ke-tsiap"), "coffee"(Ethiopian, first produced in the region of "Kaffa")and etc.

Do you know that the recent updated Oxford dictionary with almost 700 thousand entries has covered the Turkish word "millet" which means nation? That's why it has covered the word "nation" Lawrance used that word in his memories. Most of the vocabulary of the English language is composed of Latin and Greek origin words. That's why it has about 600 thousand words in his languange and is proud of it.Is there a modern langugage which is pure hundred percent and doesn' have any loan or borrowed words in its vocabulary on the earth?

In Turkish there are lots of loan words from other languages we use every day. For example: tren, spor, kalem, kelime, telefon, televizyon,saat,kitap, etc. Wouldn't it be nonsense to say these words are not Turkish and throw them away?

Having a rich number of vocabulary in a language is an advantage on behalf of that language. We think through the words and express ourselves in spoken or written form through words. Our limits of thinking is related directly with the vocabulary we know and use. You can not think and express yourself through a language which is like a pidgin language, let alone think analytically.

In short nobody can decide which word or words to use or not to use in a language by sitting at the table. That would be contrary to the nature of a language. And such a frame of mind might stem from not knowing what the language is and how it evolves in time. A language is just a like tree. You can not interfere its natural cycle of life.

very well explained and also very true,language defines its own barriers and limits cannot be imposed on it.Words are entering our languages everyday,this is in essence the beauty of language,In all its forms,that no single individual or body can control it,it grows and develops itself,all we as users of language can do is assist in its development,and be pleased that we as human beings have the ability to not only use our languages for communication and assisting others to achieve their specific language goals,but we also have the capacity(gift)to learn and teach other languages too,for this we should be truly thankfulu.

Greetings,

Ottoman language was not Turkish. We call it "Osmanlıca". It is a different language with a different grammar and vocabulary than Turkish. I find it difficult to understand why others find it difficult to understand that Ottman Turkish was an independent language with other suffixes, tenses, vocabulary and everything.

During Ottoman days Turks have given up using Turkish. Instead they have gradually changed their language and created an artificial language called Ottoman Turkish. We can name it Ottoman Turkish instead Ottoman Language if it makes you happy.

The point is that Turkish has keept living purely in other countries while we had quit using it.

Ottoman Empire existed from 13th century to 20th century.

Until early 1500's in Ottoman Language Turkish was used. We can call this period "early Ottoman Turkish" as well. Anyway, early Ottoman Turkish (until early 1500's) was mainly Turkish only. Afterwards Arabic and Farsian started influencing it.

The vocabulary change was huge. 50% of the vocabulary became Arabic and Farsian words. If it had been only those forein words I would not call this an independent language but there was more.

Arabic and Farsian changed our grammar as well. New negative suffixes were introduced that we never knew before. New constructive suffixes were introduced. It was a whole new langauge with its own grammar different that the grammar before year 1500.

Ottoman Turkish was an artifically created langauge.

When the Arabic and Farsian started changing our there was resistance among Turkish artists and authors.

They rejected using Ottoman grammar rules and Ottoman language patterns. There were some new conjunctions that made sentences longer.

İntellectuals said they would keep using pure Turkish. With time Ottoman language spread over.

Only after centuries when we have quit using Ottoman language and when we returned to Turkish we were able to communicate with other Turkish countries again.

Todays Turks can not understand the Ottoman Turkish that was used between 1500-1900. Since we have quit using Ottoman Turkish and since we have returned to Turkish again we can understand some of the older texts.

First Turkish printed materials that were found refer to the 8th century. Here is a text that was found shaped on a stone that you see on the picture. It was written in year 732. Believe me we can understand this text better than anything from late Ottoman langauge.

http://www.ulkuocaklari.org.tr/kulturedebiyat/edebiyat/gokturkkitabeleri.htm