Apparu!

A mysterious return to oneself, consciousness or a voice deep within — these are the themes Günay Pirizadə is experimenting with. This song in Azerbaijani is enchanting with an ethnic feel and a modern production. For Turkic Lyrics there are a couple of points that we wanted to take up.

Azerbaijani is as close to Turkish as it gets. However, this text proves you can easily miss a point by simply relying on this similarity.

For example:

• tapa bilmədim “I couldn’t find” is made of the verb tap- “to find”, but in Turkish the same word means “to worship”. In most other Turkic languages it means “to find” (cf. Chuvash tup-).
• bəxtimdən! “That’s luck” may be misheard as a repetition of baxdım mən, because no similar phrase is used in Turkish. In fact the word baht is rarely used, and if it is it is usually in set phrases such as kara bahtim “my bad luck”.
• səhra “desert” is another antiquated word for Turkish which uses çöl instead.
• Özümə qayıt “Come to me” is confusing because the word özüm is not used in the meaning “me” (but it is in other Turkic languages), and also the word kayıt- “to return” is so seldomly used it gets confused with the noun kayıt “record”.
• Turkish speakers may be surprised to learn that məni də sal yada actually means “recall me”, and not to be confused with ‘Ne olur ki, beni de sal ya da’ “please, release me or”. Here all the words are common for both languages, but the set phrase ‘yada salmaq’ “to release into memory” is not, and the word ‘yad’ “memory” is not commonly used in Turkish.
• gözləməsən’ “if you don’t expect” in Azerbaijani, but in Turkish ‘gözlemesen’ means “if you don’t observe”.
• ‘Necə sənsiz darıxır bu adam’ contains the verb “darıx-“. Interestingly, of all the Turkic languages it is only used in Chuvash as tarăh- with a similar meaning “to be upset”, but not exactly in the same way.
• adam in Azerbaijani, unlike in Turkish is used to mean ‘person’ regardless whether male or female.
• Also, it is not common to refer to oneself in 3rd person, that is why our editor just changed ‘Necə sənsiz darıxır bu adam…’ “Look how much this person misses you” to ‘Ne kadar özlerim seni’ “Oh how I miss you”.

Languages diverge over time. Quickly they acquire modalities, which are impenetrable if you just rely on one of them to understand the other.

How interesting did you find this song, what is your experience with “false friends” in Azerbaijani or Turkish. Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

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