Breakdown of Dün burada kimse sır saklamadı.
burada
here
dün
yesterday
sır
secret
saklamak
to hide / to keep
kimse
no one / anyone
Questions & Answers about Dün burada kimse sır saklamadı.
Why is the verb saklamadı negative if kimse already means "no one"?
In Turkish, kimse actually means "anyone." To say "no one," you must pair kimse with a negative verb. So, kimse... saklamadı literally translates to "anyone didn't keep," which gives us the English meaning "no one kept." This double negation is a strict rule when using kimse to mean nobody.
Since "nobody" involves multiple people who could have kept a secret, why doesn't the verb have the plural ending -lar?
Indefinite pronouns that refer to people as a group, like kimse (no one) and herkes (everyone), always take a third-person singular verb in Turkish. That's why we use the singular saklamadı rather than the plural saklamadılar.
Doesn't saklamak usually mean "to hide"? Why is it translated as "kept" here?
You are exactly right! The basic meaning of saklamak is "to hide" or "to conceal." However, in Turkish, the standard idiom for "to keep a secret" is sır saklamak (literally "to hide a secret").
Why is the word for secret just sır and not sırrı with the accusative case ending?
We leave sır in its base form because it is an indefinite object. The sentence is about keeping "a secret" in general, not a specific, previously mentioned secret. If we added the accusative ending and said sırrı saklamadı, it would mean "no one kept the secret."
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