Sud

Today I was really proud of myself.  I bought milk from a store speaking only, ok mostly, Azeri, not without blunders however…

Me: Salam. Sud Var? Hello. Is there milk? (sounds rude but that’s the way they say it here)
Man: Su? (points to water from the fridge behind him)
Me: Yok, Sud. No, milk.
Man: something..something..Sud..something..something? (I think he understood I wanted milk)
Me: Si, hai. err…. (in my head, in slow motion: “Si”, wait no that’s spanish…”Hai”, shit that’s japanese…what the hell is ‘yes’ in Azeri? err…Oh yes! ‘Ha’ or ‘Beli’ but it’s too late to say it now…I feel so stupid!)
Man: (takes a box of UHT milk and sets on counter) something..something
Me: Huh?
Man: (points to ‘Made in Germany’ print on box)
Me: ahh, Germany, ok.  Ne ceyadir? How much?
Man: ikki manat elli gepik. 2 manat 50 gepik
Me: Ha, Yakshi.  Yes, ok. (subdued excitement that I understood how much it cost AND responded with the correct ‘yes’ this time AND added ‘ok’ in Azeri.  Some japanese words like ‘so desu ne’ also ran through my head oddly enough)
(Money-goods exchange occurs–thank heavens all humans who have experienced globalization to some extent share this common understanding!)
Me: Sag ol. (thanks/goodbye/have a good life/may Allah be with you/anything really)
Man: Sag ol.
(I could say “Sag ol” back to him at this point, to which he will reply back with “Sag ol”, and theoretically, we can stand there exchanging “Sag ol”s all day but I decided to continue on with life.)

I am averaging one new Azeri word per week it seems!