Assolomu alaikum - Agglutination

Uzbek word structure, like in the other Turkic language, is agglutinative - which means that there are a lot of bound morphemes (affixes) bundled together synthetically into one word. For example, the Uzbek word 'ilojsizliklari' "their impossibility" is made up of :
iloj - possibility
siz - without, 'less'
lik - abstract morpheme 'ness'
lari - third person plural possessive affix

The Turkic languages have a crazy rich morphemic system compared to English's starved one. An easy way to think about it is to imagine that most words in Uzbek/Turkish/Karakalpak/etc are like the English 'antidisestablishmentarianism', super long but made up of distinguishable smaller parts which contribute to the meaning of the whole word.

Tense, mood, aspect, etc are all put together in the verb in this way. The verb boshlanmoq 'to start' becomes

boshlandim "I started"
boshlangan emish "Supposedly he started"
boshlanayapsiz "You are starting right now"
boshlanaman "I will start"
boshlanmoqchimiz "We want to start"

Just a taste of the wonders of Uzbek agglutination!

A Return to Form?

Well, uh, needless to say, I got so busy with the Uzbek class that I never got around to updating my newly established blog about it ever again. It was a fantastic class and I highly recommend the Critical Languages Institute for anyone interested in learning one of the less-commonly-taught Eurasian languages taught there.

I am now back at my home institution, Georgetown University, and studying Turkish. I'm also in a Central Asian History and Politics course, so it's a double whammy of the Silk Road. I'll try and be more dutiful about updating, especially all of the Uzbek materials I've amassed. I'll also post about Turkish and about the Turkic cultures of Central Asia in general, though I think I'll shy away from politics and current events editorializing here...

I'd like to give a (tiny) shout out to the best Blogger blog out there, in my opinion, on Central Asia: the fabulous Chirayliq by Tinet and Ainur, dedicated to the "handsomeness of Central Asian men".

Maqol

Quick post - one of my favorite Uzbek proverbs, meaning that 'Life was given for happiness':

Hayot quvonch uchun berilgan.

Bosh

Hello! This is Kalinka, an American student learning the Uzbek language at the Arizona State University Critical Languages Institute. I'm putting together 'Buxoro Wonderland' as a compendium of resources about the Uzbek language, and I'll post vocabulary wordlists, articles, links to video files, and linguistic notes along the way. Rahmat for stopping by!