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'.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

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

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...

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" ;)

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'.

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

Unknown said...

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

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 :)