Word for the Travel Wise (08/31/06)

By the time you read this I should have made it well off my flight into Dushanbe. Over the next few weeks while I build in partnership with Habitat for Humanities Global Village program and journey through the land, I’ll be posting a word from various Silk Road countries. I’ll start with Tajik tonight, which should be somewhat familiar to some of you and explore lesser known lingos as we progress.

Today’s word is a Tajik word used in Tajikistan:

samolyot – plane

Tajik is the official language of the country and is closely related to the Persian (Farsi) language spoken in Iran. According to Wiki the most important Tajik-speaking cities of Central Asia are Samarkand and Bukhara which are located in present-day Uzbekistan. In addition to giving interested language learners a taste at some commonly used words and phrases, the Great Game Travel Company has excellent info and short trips for touring the city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Be sure to check out the list of words first. If you’re near the University of Washington look into their Near Eastern Language Programs. Lonely Planet has a pocket-sized phrasebook on Central Asian lingos worth packing along and several other book picks can be found by clicking here.

Past Tajik words: rohi safed, mailesh, rahmat / tashakkur