Farsi, Turkish and Arabic

[Bouji]

It is often claimed that the three languages are similar. As someone who can recognize the odd few words, because I picked up Hindi/Urdu during my time in India, I find this interesting because they all sound so different, but are reputed to be similar.
I can hear similarities between Turkish and Farsi but not so much with Arabic. Also, Arabic sounds vastly different in different parts of where it is spoken; Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates being the examples with which I am familiar.
Someone once told me Turkish was Arabic in western script, but this sounds wrong because the languages, when I hear them sound very different.
To my ears Farsi sounds almost like an oriental language, which is odd.
Can anyone clarify the true similarities and differences between the aforementioned languages?

 

[globetrotter]

I can tell them appart, but I couldn't tell you what the diffrences are. I am pretty sure that Turkish isn't a semetic language, while arabic and parsi are.

 

[skalogre]

FAIK there are indeed similarirtes. Farsi and Turkish more than Turkish and arabic although up until Attaturk's refiorms and the Young Turk's movement in the early 20th century Turkish was written in the arabic script. My understanding is that the arabic script is - somewhat - akin to Chinese ideograms in that it is not phonetic. Written the same around the arabic world but the spoken language does not correlate exactly.

Edit:
I think Globe is right. I have heard Turkish many many times and it sounds very little like any arabic dialect I have heard.

Edit 2:
Don't forget that the people who call themeslves today Turks are not native to modern-day Turkey necessarily - the Turkic people came from central Asia, they were nomads for most of their history, mostly up until their incursions to Asia Minor in the 13-14th century (iirc). There is also a mixture of Kurds, Greeks, descendants of the Hitities, Armenians et.c.

 

[Bouji]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

I can tell them appart, but I couldn't tell you what the diffrences are. I am pretty sure that Turkish isn't a semetic language, while arabic and parsi are.

Thanks for the information.
I'd just like to flag up "˜Farsi' and "˜Parsi' are different things.
Farsi: The current official language of Iran
Parsi: Persians, who immigrated to the Indian sub-continent over a thousand years ago, and their language. They are a prominent business community in Mumbai. The Tata family is Parsi
I was speaking in reference to Farsi, just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.

 

[Bouji]

Thanks for the info. What does AFAIK mean?

Originally Posted by skalogre

AFAIK there are indeed similarirtes. Farsi and Turkish more than Turkish and arabic although up until Attaturk's refiorms and the Young Turk's movement in the early 20th century Turkish was written in the arabic script. My understanding is that the arabic script is - somewhat - akin to Chinese ideograms in that it is not phonetic. Written the same around the arabic world but the spoken language does not correlate exactly.

Edit:
I think Globe is right. I have heard Turkish many many times and it sounds very little like any arabic dialect I have heard.

Edit 2:
Don't forget that the people who call themeslves today Turks are not native to modern-day Turkey necessarily - the Turkic people came from central Asia, they were nomads for most of their history, mostly up until their incursions to Asia Minor in the 13-14th century (iirc). There is also a mixture of Kurds, Greeks, descendants of the Hitities, Armenians et.c.

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by Bouji

Thanks for the info. What does AFAIK mean?

as far as I know

 

[Bouji]

Originally Posted by skalogre

as far as I know

I see. I'm trying to put up some mp3 samples of the three languages, does anyone know how I can do this?

 

[bachbeet]

One of my roommates in college was from Persia (as he preferred to call it). He was from Shiraz. His brothers would visit at times and I really liked listening to the language.

 

[jmath]

Farsi belongs to the Indo-European language family, similar to Urdu/Hindi. Arabic ofcourse belongs to the Semitic language family while Turkish belongs to I believe the Turkic language family. All the three languages are unrelated to each other. However since each uses vocabulary from each of the others to varying degrees, they somethimes sound similar.

jmath

 

[Bouji]

Originally Posted by jmath

Farsi belongs to the Indo-European language family, similar to Urdu/Hindi. Arabic ofcourse belongs to the Semitic language family while Turkish belongs to I believe the Turkic language family. All the three languages are unrelated to each other. However since each uses vocabulary from each of the others to varying degrees, they somethimes sound similar.

jmath
Yes, a quick list of words which I know are used in more than one of the said langauges:

Khalas (Arabic and Urdu) = End/Finish
Ana (Farsi and Arabic) = I
Bos (Farsi and Arabic) = Look
Inta (Arabic and Turkish) = You
Waqueel (Farsi, Arabic, Hindi and Urdu) = Lawyer
Khatil (Arabic and Urdu) = Truth
Hindustan (Farsi, Hindi, and Urdu) = India
Parande (Farsi, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi) = Bird
Deraxt (Farsi, Arabic, and Urdu) = Tree
Dil (Farsi, Urdu and Hindi) = Heart
Gardan (Farsi, Arabic, and Hindi) = Neck
Ghaaram (Arabic, Farsi, Hindi and Urdu) = Warm
Naam (Arabic, Farsi, Hindi and Urdu) = Name

I barley know any Turkish.

 

[Nonk]

I thought "Barsha" was Arabic for a lot?

Have I been saying something really stupid!

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by skalogre

AFAIK there are indeed similarirtes. Farsi and Turkish more than Turkish and arabic although up until Attaturk's refiorms and the Young Turk's movement in the early 20th century Turkish was written in the arabic script. My understanding is that the arabic script is - somewhat - akin to Chinese ideograms in that it is not phonetic. Written the same around the arabic world but the spoken language does not correlate exactly.

Edit:
I think Globe is right. I have heard Turkish many many times and it sounds very little like any arabic dialect I have heard.

Edit 2:
Don't forget that the people who call themeslves today Turks are not native to modern-day Turkey necessarily - the Turkic people came from central Asia, they were nomads for most of their history, mostly up until their incursions to Asia Minor in the 13-14th century (iirc). There is also a mixture of Kurds, Greeks, descendants of the Hitities, Armenians et.c.



S,

arabic script is sort of phonetic, it is just pronounced differently in differnet parts of the arab world - think of T and D and C and S in the various latin and germanic languages.



B - yeah, I was refering to Farsi. in Hebrew (and I am guessing in arabic and possibly farsi) farsi is called "Parsi", which is, I am also guessing, where the zoroasters got their name in India, so when I think of the language, I think of the term Parsi - but you are right, in English it is pronounced "Farsi".

 

[tutee]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

yeah, I was refering to Farsi. in Hebrew (and I am guessing in arabic and possibly farsi) farsi is called "Parsi"

In Arabic you can actually pronounce "farsi" because "F" sound or as they call "fay" is there. However, "Parsi" would turn into "Barsi" because "P" turns to "B" since there is no P in arabic. For example, Pepsi in Arabic is sounded like "Bebsi".