𐰼

är-

Meaning:
to be
Details:

är- is the copular verb ‘to be’. It occurs with a nominal, adjectival, or locative predicate to state what the subject is, what it is like, or where it is; it does not independently mean ‘to exist’, a function normally expressed by bār. It also served widely as an auxiliary with participles and other non-finite verb forms.

Although är- originally had a complete conjugational paradigm, its -r- began to disappear during the early medieval period, and many of its finite forms were subsequently replaced by corresponding forms of bol-/ol- (‘to become’) or tur- (‘to stand’). In the modern Turkic languages where bol-/ol- assumed these functions, its older meaning ‘to become’ expanded into the copular domain of ‘to be’, so that the same verb came to express both ‘to become’ and certain uses of ‘to be’.

As an independently conjugated copular verb, är- appears to survive only in Khalaj, Sakha and Northern Altai dialects; elsewhere, only parts of its paradigm remain, chiefly in fossilized, enclitic, or otherwise grammaticalized forms.

Word family

In modern languages

Select a region to see the cognate.
Language Cognate
Turkmen i
Turkish (Azerbaijan) i
Turkish (Türkiye) i
Salar i
Gagauz i
Crimean -
Uyghur -
Uzbek e
Kazakh e
Nogai -
Siberian Tatar -
Kyrgyz e
Altai -
Alan -
Kumyk -
Tatar -
Bashkir -
Tıva -
Khakas -
Sakha (Yakut, Dolgan) er
Khalaj ər
Chuvash -

Examples

Irıq Bitig
3
Bilgä Qagan
23
Tonyuquq
31
Kül Tegin
26
E1: Uyuq Tarlaq
1
El-Etmiş Yabgu
5
Boyla Qutlug Yargan
2

Translations

German:
sein
Russian:
быть
Turkish (Azerbaijan):
olmaq (imək feilinin əvəzi)
Turkish (Türkiye):
olmak (eskiden farklı 'imek' fiili)
  • Clauson (1972) An etimological dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish p. 193-194
    1 er- ‘to be’ (something, somewhere, etc.), necessarily accompanied by a Predicate; it cannot be used by itself to mean ‘to exist’ (for which see ba:r), but is often used as an Aux. V. after Participles, etc. of other verbs. In the earliest period it was conjugated completely, but the -r- began to be elided fairly early, and after that the tenses formed by attaching suffixes with initial vowels became obsolete and were replaced by the corresponding tenses of bol-/ol- in some languages and 1 tur- in others. However, some tenses, usually without the -r-, s.i.a.m.l.g. The unusual very early Gerunds(?) erki, erken, erinç are listed separately. Türkü viii; viii ff. including Man. and Yen. er-, ‘to be’, and as Aux. V., is very common: Uyğ. viii; viii ff. Man.-A, Man., Bud., Civ. ditto; in TT VIII spelt er- or, less often, e:r-, never ir-; e:se:r (for erse:r) occurs once: Xak. xi ol anda:ğ erdi: kaḏā kāna ‘he was thus’ Kaş. I 164 (erü:r, erme:k); a.o.o.: KB ditto: xiii(?) At. ditto; Tef. er-/e- ditto 78: xiv Muh. kāna i:di: and also erdi:; mā kāna ‘it was not’ yo:k erdi: and also deyü:l i:di: Mel. 19, 16; Rif. 99 (the alternative translations suggest that, in Muh.’s terminology, er- was the form used in Türkistan, i.e. late Xak. and i:- the form used in ‘our country’, i.e. early Az.); it is added that most tenses of ‘to be’ are supplied by bol-, er-/i:- surviving only in some: Çağ. xv ff. some individual forms, erdi, etc., are listed in Vel. 50-4 and translated idi, etc.; ‘to be’ is not listed as a Verb in San., but various forms like erdi, edi are listed among the Nouns: Xwar. xiii er- ‘Ali 27, 6; do. 35: xiii(?) er- ‘to be’, and as Aux. V. is common in Oğ.: xiv er- is common, Qutb 51; MN 66, etc.: Kom. xiv er- and more often e- occurs in CCI, CCG in various forms listed at length in Gr. 89-90: Kıp. xiii idi: (partially conjugated) is a Turkish word (lafẓa) corresponding to kāna Hou. 50, 11 ff.: xiv (under ‘alif alone’) idi: means both arsala ‘to send’ (see i:d-) and kāna; in the first sense it is conjugated (mutaṣarrifa), but in the second only in the Perf. (al-māḍī) İd. 7: xv there are three forms (luğa) for kāna e:di, idi:, -di: Kav. 27, 19 (with examples); idi, etc. are common in Tuh.