Lessons · 5 of 18

Saying no

One small syllable turns any verb negative — plus the word for "is not".

To say no, slip ma (or me, matching the vowel family) in right after the stem — before everything else. The tense and the personal ending then attach to that negative stem exactly as they would to a plain one:

• barmadım — I didn't go (bar + ma + the past you know)
• barmayma — I'm not going / I don't go (the present)
• kelmedi — he didn't come
• bilmeyme — I don't know

The open future has one small twist: with ma its r becomes z — barmaz "he won't go", kelmez "he won't come" — and the personal endings then attach as usual: barmazma "I won't go". A Karachay poet left us a perfect line to remember it by: ne bolsa da unutmazma — "whatever happens, I will not forget."

tüyül — the word for "is not"

The firm future refuses differently. Instead of ma it borrows the word tüyül — "is not" — placed after: barlık tüyülme — "I'm not going (it is not the plan)."

tüyül also negates plain statements about what things are, and it carries the same personal endings. A real proverb shows it at work: awruw ölüm tüyüldü — "illness is not death." Things could be worse, says the proverb; the verb system agrees.

That's the whole system: ma inside the verb, tüyül after everything else. You now have past, present, two futures, and the power to refuse all of them.

One caution: each half of barlık tüyülme is attested on its own, but we have not yet found the two together in a text. The engine builds it by pattern; treat it as very likely rather than settled.