Standing up for herself

*Background info you need: one way to say no in this language is the word hayır, pronounced ha-yur.

A few days ago we were at the mall. They had some little kid tables and chairs set up in one area and E was enjoying playing near them. I have seen them do coloring projects and such here, but today the tables were just empty. She was pushing the chairs around and setting up her teddy bear at the table. There were a few other little kids playing in the area, pushing the chairs around too. E went over to get a pink chair and bring it to the table where we were sitting. Unfortunately, another little boy had his eyes on the same chair. E walked up to it, grabbed it, and started pushing it towards our table, when that little boy put his hands on the chair too. I saw this happening, and was just beginning to process the thought of, should I go over, does she need my help if this kid is about to steal her chair. Then all of a sudden she starts yelling “Hayırd! Hayırd!” at the boy! (She put an unnecessary “d” on the end of it for some reason, probably because her foreigner mother taught her that word incorrectly.) No you won’t steal my chair, boy! His mother said “what a shame!” to him and she got to keep her chair. I had to turn my head away as I laughed! She totally took care of herself in this situation.

I have never heard her use that word on her own. A long time ago, kids at the park used to bother her by wanting to play with her when she didn’t want to play, and we told her she could say “hayır” if they were trying to pick her up or pinch her cheeks and she didn’t want to. I have never heard her actually use it though. I have since noticed, that people almost never say that word in a context like that, directly telling someone “no”. They tend to use one of two different ways of saying no, literally “it is not being” or “there is not”. So maybe it was technically a more rude form of “no” that she chose to say, but hey, it worked! It is so fun to watch her learn new words in another language, but then use them too!