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Corpus of Old Turkic

𐰼𐰢𐰃𐰾

ärmiş

Meaning:
was (apparently/reportedly)
An indirect or evidential past form of “to be.” It indicates that the speaker did not directly witness the situation but learned about it from another person, inferred it from evidence, or discovered it afterwards.

Word family

Formed from 𐰼 [är-] “to be” using -mış². The suffix -mış2 forms a participle (a special type of verbal nominal in Old Turkic) that typically presents an action or state as having occurred or been completed. It can be used nominally or attributively, but it can also function as the predicate of a sentence, where it can present information as reported by others, inferred from evidence, or unexpectedly discovered. In English, attributive uses correspond roughly to constructions such as “who has come” or “who has done …”, while predicative uses require a finite verb together with an evidential expression, for example “the person has apparently come”, “the person reportedly came”, or, in a past context, “the person had apparently come”.

In modern languages (12 / 22)

Select a region to see the cognate.
Language Cognate
Turkmen -miş²-
Turkish (Azerbaijan) imiş, -(y)miş⁴-
Turkish (Türkiye) imiş, -(y)miş⁴-
Salar No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Gagauz imiş, -miş⁴-
Crimean No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Uyghur -miş²-
Uzbek emiş-
Kazakh -mis²-*
Nogai No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Siberian Tatar No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Kyrgyz imiş-
Altai No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Alan No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Kumyk No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Tatar imeş-
Bashkir imeş-
Tıva No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Khakas No cognate has been entered for this language yet.
Sakha (Yakut, Dolgan) ebit-
Khalaj -əmüş-
Chuvash No cognate has been entered for this language yet.

* Meaning shifted

Examples

Irk Bitig: The Book of Omens

3

Bilgä Kagan inscriptions

12

Tonyuquq inscriptions

11

Kültegin inscriptions

13

El-Etmish Yabgu inscription

3

Biography of Xuánzàng

7

Altun Yaruk

1

Maitrisimit - A Buddhist Apocalypse

6

Translations

German:
war (offenbar/angeblich)
Russian:
был (по-видимому / как сообщается)
Turkish (Azerbaijan):
imiş
Turkish (Türkiye):
imiş