A Story of Türkish Umaç Soup

Erkishi was very sick, he had nightmares all the time. When he opened his eyes slowly, a blurred image appeared in front of him, it was his wife, his wife who had been with him all those days. 

How are you, he whispered in his tired voice, how do you feel?

Erkishi asked in a low voice which of the seven days was today. 

Stronggun, his wife said. 

How many days have I been in bed, he asked. You haven't opened your eyes since the last day, his wife said. You were delirious all the time, she added, tense and thoughtful.

Erkishi thought for a while, last day, rest, first day, vigorous day... If today was a day of strength, then he had been in bed for five days. 

As soon as he saw the ominous person next to him at the gathering on the day of the Union, he knew he was sick. But it never occurred to him that he might infect himself. When he came home, his head was already spinning.

He asked his wife where we were. His wife said that when you lost consciousness on the last day, I called a lifeguard and they brought you here, to the union's psychiatric hospital. You gave me quite a scare, he added.

After some silence, he said he had made some gruel, would you like to drink it or should I bring it? He said it was from his beloved, umaç. 

He had no taste in his mouth, he didn't want anything, but a hot slurry of umaç would do him good. He also had a headache and felt a little dizzy. He must have been lying unconscious all this time. 

He sat up a little, his wife told him not to get up. At the same time she changed the wet towel on her forehead. Bring some if you want, he said, I have no taste, but I can't say I don't want hot umaça even in my present state.

His eye fell on his sister-in-law by the bedside. They had put it on her arm, and there was a dropping sound, snap, snap.

The nurse came by then and checked her temperature with a thermometer. She was aching all over, almost all her bones were in pain. Good, said the nurse, your fever has gone down, be our guest tonight, and tomorrow at midday, your specialist will be at the nursing home at sunrise, and then we will decide how many more days you will be our guest.

What's wrong with me, the man asked the psychiatrist. There is an epidemic these days, said the nurse, but it gets better quickly, so I think you will be out of the syphilitic village after seven days.

Is there any information here, the man asked. I'll get you some information, said the psychiatrist, you've been lying unconscious for a long time, see what you've missed, said the psychiatrist and left the psychiatric room with a smile.

His wife entered the room a moment later, carrying a bowl of hot bogus gruel. She held out the spoon with an uneasy look and asked him if he would eat it himself or if he wanted me to feed him. Erkishi said I would eat it. I miss it, he added.

Meanwhile, the caretaker entered the room with the information card in his hand. He pressed the on button and left it on the bed. On the way out, he said, "It smells wonderful," he added.

The man's wife said, "I'll bring you a container, if you like, I made it at home, with my own hands, bogus slurry.

Thank you, said the caretaker, I have eaten it, he repeated, to give you a taste.

Under the influence of the hot broth, Erkishi felt relaxed, his eyes slowly closed and he fell asleep. This time it was not nightmares, but beautiful dreams. 

His wife took the bowl of gruel and the spoon, put it on the side, covered him, dimmed the light, and herself lay down on the bed next to him. He was tired too. He had not slept for almost the whole seven days. His eyelids closed slowly and he fell asleep.

I don't know if you liked the story essay I wrote! 

Many of the words I used in the story are not current words. But I guess they are understandable. 

I don't know if I missed some, but I tried to write this short story using as many Turkish words as possible. 

Of course, some words are my own invention, let me tell you from the beginning. 

Especially the days of the week! 

I wrote another article on this subject a while ago, and I even asked you to write if you had any suggestions.

https://strasam.org/kultur-sanat-ve-egitim/kultur/haftanin-gunleri-1237

I really don't understand why we say week, week is derived from the Persian word seven, which means seven things.

If we want to call a seven-day period seven things, we can call it in our own language. 

Isn't "seven days" better, for example, instead of week? 

For me, at least, it makes more sense. 

The first of the seven days is naturally "the first day". In some cultures, the first day of the seven days is Sunday, but in today's modern world, I prefer Monday to be the first day. So the first day is Monday, the first day.

Tuesday, on the other hand, is the third day in Arabic, but I think it is the most vigorous day of the seven days. So I thought "vigorous day". 

Then the middle of the working days, Wednesday. The fourth day in Persian. I don't know if it's going to be in the sheet anymore, but I think it's the hardest day of the working days, so I called it "Güçgün". 

And then the middle of the seventh, "midday", the Persian word for the fifth day, Thursday, I think is the middle of the seventh. That's why I preferred to say "midday".

Now we come to Friday, I actually thought a lot about this, first I thought I should call it the day of gathering, after all Friday means the day of gathering. Then I thought that it shouldn't remind me of a dry crowd, and if it's about gathering, I thought it should be called "unity day", not for nothing, gathering for a purpose, gathering for a social meaning, "unity day"!

Saturday is not the day after something, it's the end of working days, the "last day". I think it makes more sense that way.

As for Sunday, I don't know whether you go to the market, stay at home or go to the movies. I call it a "rest" day.

I think it would be more understandable if these were the new names of the days.

I don't know how it sounds to you, if you like it, why not? Let's spread these seven day names. Since in the modern world we divide the days into seven strings, the whole world does so, then let's use Turkish names.

Why should the names of the days be in Arabic and Persian, what is missing from our language?

Of course, there is also the word "sayrı" that I use in the story.

In the etymological dictionary: It is mentioned as a Middle Turkish word, our ancestors used to use it as "sayru", meaning "sick".

It is also mentioned in the TDK dictionary, when I searched for "sayrı", for some reason they also noted it as an obsolete word, but they directly explained its meaning with a single word: "sick". 

In the explanations section of the etymological dictionary, it is written that it is thought to derive from the Old Turkish word "sandrı : delirium". 

This means that it was once in use among the people. 

Later, for some reason, we gave up using it and preferred the Persian word "hasta" instead.

Of course, there is also "konak", a Turkish word that is used a lot in old Turkish movies. 

Why hane when there is konak? 

Hane is already Persian for house, dwelling. The "hane" in "hospital" is more like a guest, like a temporary stay. 

Why "hane" when we have the original Turkish word "konak"? 

The words "konut", "konak", "konuk", which are derived from "guest", are all our own Turkish words. 

Instead of "hospital", I thought of combining "sayrı" with "konağı" and calling it "sayrıkonağı". Why not, why don't we call it that instead of hospital? 

Is hasta-hane very beautiful? 

We could also call it "Sayrievi", but "house" means a place where you live permanently, "mansion" seems more accurate to me for such temporary places. 

That's why I prefer "hospice", so I think it can be used instead of hospital, and it would be very nice! 

Likewise, "syphilitic room"!

Likewise "nurse"! 

After all, nurse is also a Persian word. And we have incorporated it into our language in a meaningless way. It means "milk sister", especially sister. It derives from the Persian word "milk" - "şır", "şıra", plant extract, plant milk, and "hem" is a preposition of conjunction. In other words, I think "nurse" is exactly the name we need for nurses. Instead of the Persian nurse, we already have a more beautiful word, "milk sister". 

I will watch the movie "Milk Brothers" by the late Kemal Sunal when I finish this article.

I also used the word "çav" in the story, which according to TDK means "sound". The sergeant's ciao. 

Çavuş is defined as "shouting" in the etymological dictionary, it is an old Turkish word, we use it in the army these days, platoon sergeant. I used "çav" in the story to draw attention to the sound instead of the voice, though the voice is also authentic Turkish. 

There is no further explanation in the etymological dictionary, they say it is a word related to call. Çav can also be a loud sound when you say "Bağırgan", see, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe I used it wrong. "The sergeant cawed" may mean that the sergeant called out loudly. So actually "voice" would perhaps be more appropriate in the story.

Life comes from "age", when nature comes to life in spring, the grass turns to age, it is a very old Turkish word. Hayat (life), ömür (life), can (life) are all foreign words, Arabic and Persian. The Turkish word for life comes from nature, it is the wet form of grass. Once upon a time we called it a lifeguard, now we call it an ambulance, I called it "lifeguard". After all, a lifeguard who arrives on time really saves lives!

I also said "to feel" instead of "to feel", feeling is an Arabic word, meaning hearing, emotion, sensation. I guess I could have also used sensing. "How do you hear? How do you feel?". Which one do you think sounds better? Now it seems to me that it might be better to be heard. I'll leave it to the linguists, but you can use sense or emotion instead of feeling.

I said expert instead of doctor, and sonasın instead of karar versin. Son is also Turkish, we derived it as result, sonamak can be derived as well. It means to bring to an end, to make a decision. Judging is a similar word, but it's a bit different, first we judge, then we sonar, we decide. Mine is just a suggestion, of course.

Let's talk about "bulamaç". Bulamaç is the Turkish word for soup. Unfortunately, it is a word we use a lot, but like many words, soup is Persian. It means salty aş, or mixed aş. The Turkish equivalent is bulamaç. Again, it is not understandable why we don't use it when we have a Turkish word. 

The last word I will mention is "UMAÇ ÇORBASI". 

Look, I don't know this exactly, it is a soup made in our region. 

Neither TDK nor the etymological dictionary has an equivalent, so it is also called "oğmaç soup", "omaç soup" or "ovmaç soup", although the meaning is not clear. It is a soup made by rubbing flour, so the name is actually authentic Turkish. There is a recipe on the internet. 

It is an exquisite soup, a delicious slurry. I recommend it to everyone.

I don't know if it will be as delicious as the one my mother used to make, but I'll tell my wife to make it for dinner, I'm craving it now.

And today I thought I would Turkishize our language a little bit.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.