A brief history of plural word...s - John McWhorter

Translator: Nazarbek Nazarov Reviewer: Azizbek Nazarov

There are a lot of ways

Biz gapirayotgan til,

this marvelous language of ours,

g'aroyib ingliz tili, juda ko'p

English, doesn't make sense.

g'alati narsalarni o'z ichiga oladi.

For example, most of the time

Masalan, deyarli doimo

when we talk about more than one of something,

nimanidir ko'plikda aytganimizda,

so'z oxiriga -s qo'shamiz.

we put an S on the end.

One cat, two cats.

Cat - cats [mushuk - mushuklar].

But then, there's that handful of words

Lekin ko'plikni boshqacha namoyon

where things work differently.

etadigan so'zlar ham bor.

Alone you have a man;

Bitta erkak — 'man',

if he has company, then you've got men,

agar ko'plikda bo'lsa, ular — 'mеn'.

or probably better for him, women too.

Shu kabi, ayollar — 'women',

Although if there were only one of them,

va agar bitta ayol bo'lsa,

it would be a woman.

biz uni 'woman' deymiz.

Or if there's more than one goose,

Bitta g'oz — 'goose',

they're geese,

ko'plikda esa — 'geese'.

but why not lots of mooses, meese?

Lekin bitta los — 'moose' bo'lsa, nega ko'plikda

Or if you have two feet,

'meese' emas? Agar ikkita oyoq —

then why don't you read two beek

'feet' bo'lsa, nega ko'p kitoblarni biz

instead of books.

'beek' demaymiz?

The fact is that if you were speaking English

Aslida biz 1000 yil oldingi

before about a thousand years ago,

ingliz tilida gaplashganimizda,

beek is exactly what you would have said

kitoblarni ko'plikda o'zi

for more than one book.

'beek' degan bo'lardik.

If Modern English is strange,

Zamonaviy ingliz tili g'alati bo'lsa,

Old English needed therapy.

eski ingliz tili esa umuman aqldan

Believe it or not,

ozdiradi. Ishonasizmi,

English used to be an even harder language

o'sha paytlardagi ingliz tili o'rganish uchun

to learn than it is today.

hozirgidanam qiyinroq bo'lgan.

Twenty-five hundred years ago,

2 500 yil oldin,

English and German were the same language.

ingliz tili va nemis tili bitta til bo'lgan.

They drifted apart slowly,

Vaqt sayin ular bir-biridan

little by little becoming more and more different.

ajrala boshladi, borgan sari o'xshashliklari yo'qola bordi.

That meant that in early English,

Eski ingliz tilida xuddi

just like in German,

nemis tilidagidek

inanimate objects had gender.

jonsiz predmetlarda 'rod' bo'lgan.

A fork, gafol, was a woman;

Sanchqi — 'gafol' — ayol 'rod'li edi,

a spoon, laefel, was a man;

qoshiq — 'laefel' — erkak 'rod'da,

and the table they were on, bord,

stol esa ya'ni 'bord' —

was neither, also called neuter.

o'rtacha rodga kiritilgan edi.

Go figure!

O'zingiz ajrating!

Being able to use words

So'zlarni nafaqat nimani

meant not just knowing their meaning

anglatishiga qarab, balki uning

but what gender they were, too.

qanday rodda ekanligini bilgan holda qo'llash zarur edi.

And while today there are only about a dozen plurals

Bugungi kunda o'nlab ko'plik anglatuvchi

that don't make sense,

g'alati so'zlar bor:

like men

and geese,

'men',

'geese'.

in Old English, it was perfectly normal

Oldinlari esa barcha sanoqsiz otlar

for countless plurals to be like that.

ko'plikni shu kabi so'zlar bilan ifodalagan.

You think it's odd that more than one goose is geese?

Bitta g'oz - 'goose', bir nechtasi 'geese' ekani g'alatimi?

Well, imagine if more than one goat

Tasavvur qiling, bitta echki — 'goat',

was a bunch of gat,

ko'pi — 'gat',

or if more than one oak tree

bitta eman daraxti — 'oak',

was a field of ack.

ko'pi — 'ack'.

To be able to talk about any of these,

Siz oxiriga -s qo'sha olmasdingiz,

you just had to know the exact word for their plural

nutqda ularni qo'llash uchun esa

rather than just adding the handy S on the end.

ularning ko'plik shaklini bilish kerak bo'lardi.

And it wasn't always an S at the end either.

Ko'plik shaklini yasashda eski

In merry Old English,

ingliz tilida -s dan

they could add other sounds to the end.

boshqa qo'shimchalar ham bo'lgan.

Just like more than one child is children,

'Child' ning ko'pligi 'children' bo'lganidek,

more than one lamb was lambru,

bitta qo'zichoq 'lamb', ko'pi 'lambru',

you fried up your eggru,

bitta tuxum 'egg', ko'pi 'eggru'

and people talked not about breads,

va bir nechta non 'breads' emas,

but breadru.

'breadru' bo'lgan bo'lar edi.

Sometimes it was like sheep is today -

Ba'zi so'zlar ko'plikda umuman o'zgarmagan,

where, to make a plural, you don't do anything.

masalan, zamonaviy so'z "qo'y"ni keltirsak — bitta qo'y

One sheep,

— 'sheep',

two sheep.

ko'p qo'y — 'sheep'.

In Old English, one house,

Qadimgi ingliz tilida

two house.

uy — 'house', ko'p uylar — 'house'.

And just like today, we have oxen instead of oxes.

Bugungi kunda "ho'kizlar" so'zi 'oxes' emas, 'oxen' bo'lganidek,

Old English people had toungen instead of tongues,

qadimgi insonlar tillar 'tonguen',

namen instead of names,

nomlar — 'namen' bo'lgan.

and if things stayed the way they were,

Va agar o'zgarishlar sodir bo'lmaganida,

today we would have eyen instead of eyes.

bugun biz ko'zlarni 'eyes' emas 'eyen' deyishimiz mumkin edi.

So, why didn't things stay the way they were?

Xo'sh, nega bunday o'zgarishlar ro'y bergan?

In a word, Vikings.

Vikinglar.

In the 8th century, Scandinavian marauders

VIII asrda Skandinaviya maroderlari

started taking over much of England.

Angliyaning katta qismini egallashadi.

They didn't speak English,

Ular inglizcha emas,

they spoke Norse.

norveg tilida gapirishgan.

Plus, they were grown-ups,

Ustiga-ustak, ular katta

and grown-ups aren't as good

yoshda bo'lgan. Ularda esa

at learning languages as children.

bolalardan farqli o'laroq, til o'zlashtirish

After the age of roughly 15,

qiyin. 15 yoshdan keyin

it's almost impossible to learn a new language

yangi tilni o'rganish va unda har xil

xatolarsiz, ravon,

without an accent

and without slipping up here and there

to'g'ri so'zlasha olish

as we all know from what language classes are like.

deyarli ilojsizdir. Vikinglar ham

The Vikings were no different,

unchalik zo'r bo'lishmagan va shu

so they had a way of smoothing away

sabab ular ingliz tilini

the harder parts of how English worked.

mushkulliklardan xalos qilishga harakat qilishgan.

Part of that was those crazy plurals.

Masalan, ushbu ko'plik shakllaridan.

Imagine running up against a language

Tasavvur qiling, bir tomonda

with eggru

'eggru'

and gat

va 'gat',

on the one hand,

bir tomonda

and then with other words,

'-s' bilan tugaydigan

all you have to do is add 's'

ko'plikdagi soz'lar,

and get days

'days',

and stones.

yoki 'stones' kabi.

Wouldn't it make things easier

Doim '-s' ni ishlatish

to just use the 's' for everything?

osonroq emasmi?

That's how the Vikings felt too.

Vikinglar ham shunday o'ylashgan.

And there were so many of them,

Ular ko'pchilik bo'lgan

and they married so many of the English women,

va ularning ko'pi ingliz ayollariga uylangan.

that pretty soon, if you grew up in England,

Shunday ekan, tez orada bir avlod ko'z oldida

you heard streamlined English as much as the real kind.

osonlashtirilgan ingliz tili asl ingliz tili bilan bir vaqtda foydalanila

After a while nobody remembered the real kind any more.

boshlandi, sal o'tib asl ingliz tilini unutishdi ham.

Nobody remembered that once you said doora

Oldingi so'zlarni hech kim eslamasdi, masalan,

instead of doors

'doors' o'rniga 'doora',

and handa instead of hands.

va 'hands' o'rniga 'handa' deyilganini.

Plurals made a lot more sense now,

Hozirda ko'plik ancha tushunarliroq,

except for a few hold-outs like children

'teeth' kabi ba'zi saqlanib qolgan so'zlarni

and teeth

that get used so much

hisobga olmaganda.

O'rganib qolishganlari

that it was hard to break the habit.

sabab, ularni o'zgartirishdan ma'no ko'rishmagan.

The lesson is

Xulosa shundayki,

that English makes a lot more sense than you think.

ingliz tili aslida siz o'ylagandan ko'ra mantiqiyroq.

Thank the ancestors of people

Kelib chiqishlari Kopengagen va

in Copenhagen and Oslo for the fact

Oslo shaharlariga borib taqaladigan bu

that today we don't ask for a handful of pea-night

insonlar tufayli, hozirda biz 'pea-night' demaymiz,

instead of peanuts.

'peanuts' deymiz.

Although, wouldn't it be fun,

Lekin xilma-xillik uchun bularni

if for just a week or two,

ham mashq qilish

we could?

mumkin edi, shunday emasmi?