Being: endings, not a verb

5.1 No word for "is"

English joins a thing to what is said about it with am, is or are. Turkish has no such word. For "he", "she", "it" and things, the two stand side by side, as they have in every sentence so far:

For "I", "you", "we" and "they", an ending on the last word says who. öğretmen is "teacher", and öğretmenim is "I'm a teacher".

5.2 The endings, from "I am" to "they are"

Turkish has six words for the persons:

Each has its ending, and the ending goes on whatever word says what someone is. Here they are on four words, chosen so that the endings' vowel is i, ı, u and ü in turn: öğretmen, "teacher"; hasta, "ill"; yorgun, "tired"; üzgün, "sad".

-(y)Im and -(y)Iz take the buffer y after a vowel, as chapter 3 had it: hastayım, hastayız. -sIn and -sInIz have no brackets: their s is there after a consonant too. The glosses under these endings are the persons: I, you, we, you.PL, they.

-(y)Im and -(y)Iz start with a vowel after a consonant, so a word's last consonant softens before them, as in chapter 3: çocuk, "child", çocuğum, "I'm a child". Short words keep theirs: aç, "hungry", açım, "I'm hungry". (çocuğum is also "my child", with -(I)m: the two endings look the same here, and the sentence shows which is meant.)

Since the ending says who, the word for the person is usually left out: yorgunum is the whole sentence. It is said when it matters who, often to set two people side by side, or with de, "too":

On its own, Ben de is "me too".

The endings go on a place word with -DA as easily as on a noun. evde is "at home", and evdeyim is "I'm at home":

With "they", -lAr is often left out, and usually is when the sentence already has a plural word: Çocuklar evde, "the children are at home". Where nothing else says who, -lAr does:

These endings never take the stress, and leave it on the syllable before them, as mI does. That keeps two words apart that are spelt the same: öğretmenim, "I'm a teacher", and öğretmenim, "my teacher", with the ending -(I)m, "my".

They are worth learning well, since they come back. The verb's endings for what is happening now, in chapter 11, are these same five: yorgunum, "I'm tired", and geliyorum, "I'm coming", end alike.

5.3 değil: not

To say "not", put değil after the word. The personal ending then goes on değil:

The last vowel of değil is i, so its endings always have front vowels, whatever the word before it.

değil says that something is not so. To say that something isn't there at all, Turkish uses yok, from chapter 4:

5.4 mi: asking

To ask a question answered yes or no, put mI after the word, as in chapter 2. The personal ending then moves onto mI, which is written apart but said with the word before it:

With "they", -lAr stays on the word, before mI. mI ends in a vowel, so -(y)Im and -(y)Iz take their y after it: miyim, miyiz.

The answer says the word again, with its ending: Evet, yorgunum. Hayır, yorgun değilim.

A question with a question word takes no mI, as chapter 4 said; the personal ending goes on the question word itself. nasılsın?, "how are you?", is one: nasıl, "how", with -sIn. In the same way, kim, "who", gives kimsin?, "who are you?", and nerede, "where", neredesiniz?, "where are you?".

mI can follow any word in the sentence, and then it asks about that word. Ali evde mi? asks whether Ali is at home; Ali mi evde? asks whether it is Ali, and not someone else, who is. The personal ending stays at the end:

değil mi?, "not?", at the end of a sentence asks someone to agree, as English "isn't it?" and "aren't you?" do. It never changes:

5.5 -DIr, and when it's said

The "he, she, it" row has one more ending, -DIr. With D and I, it has eight forms: evdedir, okuldadır, yorgundur, büyüktür, kitaptır.

In everyday talk, a sentence about "he", "she" or "it" takes no ending: Ali evde is "Ali is at home". Adding -DIr does one of two things, depending on where it is used.

In writing, in the news, on signs, in definitions and textbooks, -DIr makes a plain statement of fact, said with authority:

In speech it more often makes a guess: "must be", "will be".

COP stands for copula, the grammarians' name for a word like "is". -DIr goes after değil as well, with the same two uses: değildir is "is not" in writing, and "probably isn't" in a guess.

In conversation, then, leave -DIr off unless you mean a guess. Put on every sentence, it makes talk sound like a textbook.

5.6 A first conversation

Emre and Zeynep meet at a friend's house. Everything they say is built from this chapter and the ones before it.

Saying where someone is, with -DA, is also the everyday way to say where they live: İzmir'deyim is "I'm in Izmir", and "I live in Izmir". Two words are new: ama, "but", and aile, "family". And genç, "young", softens before -(y)Im, as chapter 3 said most short words don't: gencim. Before -sIn it keeps its ç: gençsin.