Assalaumaghaleikum! (For those of you listening in, this is a greeting between Kazakh men--and yes, it is indeed "Kazakhified" Arabic.)hwhatting wrote:Glenn Kempf wrote:Kazakh (a Turkic language) normally expresses possession in a manner similar to that in Hungarian (a Uralic (Finno-Ugric) one), by using a possessive noun/pronoun plus an indication of existence or nonexistence.
For example:
(Mening) mysyghym bar = I have a cat.
(Mening) mysyghym zhoq = I don't have a cat.
Hi Glenn,
just curious: I met people (mostly Kazakhs with only little command of their native language and Russians trying to speak Kazakh) using the construction
Mende mysyq bar / zhoq = I have / don't have a cat
This seems to be a calque of Russian "u menya est' koshka / net koshki".
Did you also encounter this construction?
Sau bol,
Hans-Werner
I think I have indeed encountered the construction above, and yes, it does parallel the Russian, although I'm not sure that it's derived from it. In my fuzzy recollection of my Kazakh lessons, I believe that I encoutered both construction, but that the one I gave above was considered more "correct" (and literary), while the more Russian construction was considered more colloquial. (I think some of the other modal constructions have similar pairs--don't have my textbook with me, though.)
If true, it does provide an example of how languages can influence each other grammatically--even in the case of "native speakers."
Sau bol,
Glenn