Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 November 18

= November 18 =

Turkmen SSR constitution
Hello guys, I've found a cover of the Constitution of the Turkmen SSR. But it is written in Arabic.

Can someone help me to re type the writings on the cover (in Arab script)? Especially on what's written on the bottom of the underlined word and on the top of the bold word.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 07:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The white vertical gaps in the large word qanuni are considered quite ugly (very poor typography)... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]]
 * The third word in the top line is presumably duma, while the first word above qanuni is jamhuriya ("republic"), while the first word below qanuni is a transcription of Russian konstitutsiya "constitution". I'm not sure I can say too much more when I don't know either the Turkmen language or enhanced version of the Arabic alphabet used to write Turkmen... AnonMoos (talk) 14:39, 18 November 2018 (UTC)


 * It's arabic script, but written in Turkmeni. The word in brackets is "konstitutsiyasi", i.e. "the constitution of". The main title reads "Turkmenistan satsial shura jumhuriyatinak du'ib qanuni", likely meaning "the law setting up the social council of our republic of Turkmenistan", but I'm guessing from the little Arabic, Turkish and Russian words I'm familiar with. I can't make out the underlined part (too many letters that are used solely for Turkmeni). At the bottom, in the final line, the first word is Ashgabat (i.e. the capital), and likely a date, finishing in 1926 yil (the year 1926). Xuxl (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The context strongly suggests that the underlined part is a Turkmen translation of Workers of the world, unite! -- although it doesn't match either of the translations cited in our article on Emblem of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, the third word is definitely dunya for "world". --My another account (talk) 19:50, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, and the middle word in the bottom line is Paltaratski, the name of Ashgabat in 1919--1927 --My another account (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The last word in the second bottom line must come from Persian "نشری" - Publication. The third word in that line should be "Committee". --Soman (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And just before that: اجرااییه, which must stem from Persian اجرایی, which is still used for "Executive" in Uzbek today as ijroiya. So perhaps "Executive Committee Publication". --Soman (talk) 21:18, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * And if we look at File:Emblem_of_the_Turkmen_SSR_(1924-1937).svg (which uses Latin letters for Turkmen, even thought it appears in Arabic letters on this cover) the word "Bytin" is used. This is seemingly the second word in the top line? --Soman (talk) 21:31, 18 November 2018 (UTC) "butin" means "entire" in modern Turkmen, so "butin dunia" would be "the entire world". Presumably the first word would be "workers", the last "unite". --Soman (talk) 21:37, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Finally, comparing the image to the cover of the Russian Constitution from 1929, I'm pretty sure that Turkmenstan satsial shura jemhuriyeting duib qanuni (qunstitutsiasi) is Turkmen for "Fundamental law (Constitution) of Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic". --My another account (talk) 21:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

The full answer is this:

Note that some Arabic words are obsolete in modern Turkmen and the spelling was different.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:27, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

As for the underlined phrase in the top "Workers of the World, Unite", you kinda have the solution in the image you posted below: http://heraldicum.ru/uzbekstn/images/const1.png The word for "unite" used in the Uzbek SSR constitution also appears in the Turkmen version, but in Uzbek it is the last word, in Turkmen SSR constitution the first. --Soman (talk) 18:06, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, the main obstacle is that they wrote br- instead of bir- (that is as it was/is actually pronunced colloquially). They also used the polite obsolete form -iňiz instead of -iň. Plus they didn't use the world proletariat, but instead the actual word is poormen, which I couldn't figure out initially (the scan is of low quality). I took a Turkmen-Russian dictionary in Cyrillic for reference, plus a Turkish and an Arabic dictionaries, so actually no need to refer to Uzbek (which is not even of the Oghuz branch). I just did the transcription and it was enough.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)