ChaghatayDid lessons 4-6 of
An Introduction to Chaghatay. They deal with many important topics, like pronouns, possession, present and past tense. This means there is quite a lot to learn but nothing I found very difficult
per se. All these suffixes look alike though, which is both a blessing and a curse
There is a very decent amount of sentences to practice with in the exercises at the end of each lesson, which is great. From lesson 7 on, authentic texts are introduced and exercises disappear, which is a shame in my opinion. Lesson 7, for instance, deals with approximately twice as much vocab than lesson 6, but makes you read less than half as many lines. I wish the author had included a couple a paragraphs with made-up sentences in lessons 7-16 too.
I have also been getting some additional practice by reading G. Raquette's
Eastern Turki Grammar. Schluessel paid homage to Raquette's pioneer work by modeling lessons 1-6 of his
Introduction on the beginning Raquette's
Grammar, which means the vocab lists are basically the same up to a certain point (lessons 6/IX) and you can use Raquette's exercises and explanations to supplement the
Introduction.
Gösta (Gustaf) Raquette (1871-1945) was a Swedish missionary who spent many years in
Kashgar. His
Grammar deals with the language as spoken and written in Xinjiang in the early 20th c. Since Schluessel also uses early 20th c. Xinjiang sources in the first lessons, the two books paint a nearly identical picture so far.
The only differences I have noticed are:
- vocalisation sometimes differ (Raquette uses the
Yarkand pronunciation, while I guess Schluessel may be going for a more Classical Chaghatay scheme?)
- sentences with
dur/emäs and
bar/yoq in Raquette seem to use
dur a lot more (A B
dur, A B
emäs dur, A
bar dur, A
yoq dur), while the
Introduction says and shows that it can be left out. Again, is this a difference between early 20th c. Xinjiang and a broader Chaghatay?
- negation of the present is different. Raquette gives
ber-mäs and Schluessel
ber-mäy-dur for "he doesn't give". I have done some searching and it seems one of these is the Aorist while the other is the Present-Future tense. Depending on context, both can indeed mean "he doesn't give".