In Tajikistan, “It’s A Thing” Is A Thing

Many in our Tajik classes are not too thrilled to be diverting attention to the local dialect of Persian here in Tajikistan.  As security studies majors, they see it as a little-needed language that will not help them outside of communicating with their host families here.  When their hair falls out because they couldn’t read the label on a shampoo bottle, the rest of us will be laughing, but in all honesty, I actually really enjoy our Tajik classes, partially because most of my language practice here is actually in Tajik, not Farsi, and partially because our Tajik teacher is so hysterically funny.

MASALAN (“for example” in Persian)

Whenever our Tajik teacher wants to give an example, she logically says, “for example.”  However, she tends to set it off very visibly from the rest of her sentences, like a declaration.  For example.  She sets it off like that.  It’s something that helps make her more easy to understand, and ironically enough, she is one of the easiest teachers for me to understand.  The class is right at my level, and that’s what makes it so awesome.

By far my favorite part of class, though, comes when she is discussing cultural things.  MASALAN.  When she talks about Tajik culture, she will often bring one of us up to demonstrate a concept, then explain the concept.  Then, after finishing explaining the concept, she will then say, “In chiz ast.”  It literally means, “This is a thing.”

For the readers who don’t know the phrase “it’s a thing,” or “is that a thing?” this is a slang phrase that has been thrown around for a few years now.  Usually it is used to refer to habitual things that one does in certain contexts that another person might not know about.  MASALAN.  “At school, before we graduate, when it gets really hot we all go and jump off the Weeks footbridge.  It’s a thing.”  Or, MASALAN.  “Why is that person wearing socks with sandals?  Is that like a thing here?”  Or, as my Tajik teacher might say, “In Tajikistan, men and women get married young.  This is a thing.”

My fake theory that this phrase very clearly entered English from Tajik also is based in the fact that the counterpart phrase, “That’s not a thing” also appears in Tajik.  MASALAN.  “Do people here run around in short shorts?” “No, that’s definitely not a thing here.”  “In chiz nist” has only come up a few times, but it is as equally entertaining to us when it does.

The reason this is so funny is probably because my teacher is definitely not in our generation, and definitely hasn’t studied English enough to know that the phrase “this is a thing” has the same meaning in the same context as it does in Tajik, but somehow they evolved completely independently.  Now we smile every time that she says “this is a thing.”  It’s a thing.

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