Breakdown of Savaştan beri bu köyde yeni insanlar var.
bu
this
yeni
new
var
there is / existent
insan
person
köy
village
beri
since
savaş
war
Questions & Answers about Savaştan beri bu köyde yeni insanlar var.
How does savaştan beri translate to "since the war"?
The word beri means "since." It always requires the noun before it to take the ablative "from" ending. So we literally construct it as "from the war since": savaş (war) + -tan (from) + beri (since).
Why is the ending -tan instead of the usual -dan for "from"?
This is due to consonant harmony (often remembered by the memory aid Fıstıkçı Şahap). Because savaş ends with the voiceless consonant ş, the suffix starting with d hardens into a t. Therefore, -dan becomes -tan.
The English translation says "There have been", but var usually just means "there is/are". Why don't we use a past tense here?
When a state started in the past and continues into the present, English uses "has/have been." Turkish handles this much more simply: it uses the present tense word var alongside the time phrase. The phrase savaştan beri already shows it started in the past, and var shows it is still true today.
Why is savaştan beri placed at the very beginning of the sentence?
In Turkish, time expressions like savaştan beri (since the war) are almost always placed at the beginning of the sentence, or right after the subject. This order naturally sets the time context before introducing the location (bu köyde) and the main topic (yeni insanlar).
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