"Sultan Ahmet camisi nerede?"
Translation:Where is the Blue Mosque?
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The key is that in Turkish when indicating possession, both the possessor and the possessed get case endings (i.e., "benim kedim, senin kedin, onun kedisi...). Since "Sultan Ahmet" has no case ending, we know right off the bat that this is not a phrase that shows possession; If we wanted to say "Sultan Ahmet's mosque" it would be "Sultan Ahmet'in camisi" with the "-in" suffix attached to the possessor, as Alex points out above.
Since we know that the "-si" suffix here is not indicating possession due to the lack of a possessive suffix on the possessor (Sultan Ahmet), we know that this suffix must be functioning in its other use: to indicate a compound noun.
Another example of this grammatical construction pointed out by orde90 farther down in this thread is "üniversite öğrencisi" which translates to "university student" or "student of the university." Again, since there is no possessive suffix here on "üniversite," we know that even though we see the "-si" suffix, this phrase does not indicate possession.
For those familiar with it, this compound noun grammatical construction is similar to the idhaafa (إضافة) construction in Arabic, or the izaafe (إضافه) construction in Persian.
I think the person asking meant why is Sultan Ahmet translated as Blue Mosque, why mot just Sultan Ahmet. They didnt mean to ask about possession.
Ah, yes! Thinking of it as an idafa construction makes it a lot clearer. Hadn't thought of that before. Thank you!
Sultan Ahmet is the name of the mosque, not the owner. It's like saying Churchill Hall.
sahiplik/-in hali = genitive case, not possessive condition :) Notice that it is not "Sultan Ahmet'in camisi," which has the genitive case (this would be Sultan Ahmet's Mosque). The -si is indeed a possessive suffix, but this is also used to make noun compounds in English (which unlike Turkish, has no possessive markers whatsoever)
Thank you very much. Is that also why su ‘water’ turns into suyu in the word meyve suyu ’juice’? Is suyu the genitive of su?
Suyu is the 3rd person possessive of "su" (his/her/its water). It's an irregular word. You'd expect it to be "susu" (like camisi) but it's "suyu". More on that here.
Si as a suffix can also mean "of". You would use it by describing something as something else. Example: chicken souo would be tavuğu çorbasi and not just çorba. Im sorry if im being confusing.
It's a very strange translation , the mosque of sultan Ahmet is in the translation the blue mosque
The Sultan Ahmet mosque is also nicknamed the Blue mosque. Both are accepted as correct.
Ok, but even if I can guess it, it's not my knowledge of Istanbul what should be tested!
@Birinux, yes, but at least if you go to Turkey, you'll understand what the "Blue mosque" means
That's right, but you may look at it as an extra information. Other languages courses have similar hints which could be considered as a part of the cultural background of the language being taught.
definitely not Ahmed, but Ahmet, this is how this name is spelled in Turkish.
Camii instead of Camisi is the older version, it is still in use, but nowadays "camisi" is used more commonly
I'd suggest Duolinguo should accept also "Sultan Ahmet's Mosque" or Mosque of "Sultan Ahmet" as an answer to this question, next to the "Blue Mosque". Otherwise, this answer is considered as wrong whereas it is word to word correct translation !
"Sultan Ahmet Mosque" is accepted. but "sultan ahmet's mosque" is wrong also grammatically, as the Turkish version is not "Sultan Ahmet'in camisi"; it doesn't belong to Sultan ahmet
Why " sultan Ahmet camisi " become " blue mosque " when it translated into English
Because the building is most commonly called "The Blue Mosque" in English and "Sultan Ahmet Camisi" in Turkish. We of course accept "Sultan Ahmet Mosque" as well.
in Arabic, we say مسجد السلطان أحمد, (The Sultan Ahmed mosque) In Turkish we say, "Sultan Ahmet Camisi" what I don't understand is how it becomes "Sultan Ahmed's mosque" in English... It's not Sultan Ahmet's private property!
I understand it is Sultan Ahmed's mosque, but why is "cami" with the possessive and Ahmet not? I think if it rather like "Where's Sultan Ahmet's mosque's (...)?
it's rather like Sultan Ahmet mosque. in turkish compound nouns are constructed this way
University student -> üniversite öğrencisi
student of the university or the university's student -> üniversitenin öğrencisi
since it's more like the first one we don't use -in ending with Sultan Ahmet name.
Same ending used, slightly different construct. Think of it this way:
taksinin şöförü: the driver of the taxi
taksi şöförü: taxi driver
When the POSSESSOR ending -(n)in is there, it's showing that there is a very close relationship between a specific possessor and specific possessed thing.
When ONLY the "possessed" ending is there -(s)I(n), it's showing a more abstract relationship between the words. That is, they use the same ending to mark a compound word, but without the POSSESSOR ending that would make it more specific.
So similarly:
Sultan Ahmet'in camisi: The mosque belonging to Sultan Ahmet
but
Sultan Ahmet camisi: Sultan Ahmet mosque (compound word)
Ok, got it now. Although, if I wanted to say "Where's the Blue Mosque's guard?", would it be "Sultan Ahmet camisi bekçi nerede?".
Sorry I keep asking OTHER things when you answer me somethingggg, but if I don't have something clear I break down.
Never a problem.
[Sultan Ahmet camisi]-nin bekçi-si nerede?
(obviously without the extra punctuation, just putting it there to clarify suffixes.)
So the mosque is known as Sultan Ahmet's mosque but more commonly as the Blue Mosque?
In Turkish, it is know as "Sultan Ahmet Camisi" and Turks even like to joke about people who call it "Mavi Cami" or "the Blue Mosque" :)
Neden "nerde" denir ama yazılamaz? Anlıyorum ki resmî Türkçe'de böyle yazılır, ama 'nerde' cevap olarak da kabul edilebilir bence.
Türkçede*
Türk Dil Kurumu "Nerde/Burda/Şurda/Orda"yı doğru kabul etmiyor.
meb.gov.tr'den:
13) İçeri, dışarı, ileri, şura, bura, ora, yukarı, aşağı gibi sözler ek aldıklarında sonlarında bulunan ünlüler düşmez: "içerde" değil içeride, "dışardan" değil dışarıdan, "ilerde" değil ileride, şurda değil şurada, "burda" değil burada, "orda" değil orada, "nerde" değil nerede.
Yes it means blue/mavi. It is a nickname given because of the blue tiles inside the mosque.
Now this word totally destroys my only hope of making learning vocabulary easier.
couldn't it be "camı"? No, it has to be "cami". ;)
first of all the word itself is "cami", so -i is not a suffix and doesn't need to follow the vovel harmony. and it is a foreign word (arabic) so in general it doesn't have to follow the rules
Ah, thank you. When reviewing the vocabulary, I noticed that many words themselves (no suffixes) actually do follow the vowel harmony, so I was a bit disappointed here. But if this is an Arabic word, it makes sense.
I urge you to read these two articles about the "Noun Compounding" in Turkish if you are confused: http://ielanguages.com/turkish-noun-compounds.html http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/nouns.htm (search for "Turkish Compound Nouns" section)
The answer isn't really correct for all those who don't know that the Sultan Ahmet Mosque is called the Blue Mosque by tourists.
I got this translation right but as a professional translator myself, I find "Blue Mosque" misleading. That is cultural information not an accurate translation of the phrase.