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#1 gamavor

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 10:59 PM

I would like to ask about your opinion on Armenian "sites and sounds". After the Independence lots of original names were restored, but were they all Armenian. For example Leninakan became Gumri (as far as I know it comes from turkish), which was the name of the city before the sovietization. Before that it was Alexandrapole (which is my preference). Probably there are many more cities and villages that want to get their names right.


:(

#2 hyebruin

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:03 PM

what about the city 'karin' in western armenia, eastern turkey? i hear that's where the origin of my name comes from!!! please tell me it's NOT related to turkish!!! yikes!!! i'd have to change my name!!! :( ....what does 'karin' mean anyways? i asked people before, but nobody could give me an answer!!

#3 Sasun

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:11 PM

I think Karin is the Armenian name for Erzerum, and Gyumri used to be Kumayri (a more Armenian name I guess).

#4 hyebruin

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:16 PM

I think Karin is the Armenian name for Erzerum, and Gyumri used to be Kumayri (a more Armenian name I guess).

so what does erzrum mean? or karin? is it just a 'name'? thanks for the info :)

#5 Sasun

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:20 PM

so what does erzrum mean? or karin? is it just a 'name'? thanks for the info :)

Bruin jan, I don't know the meaning if it has one :) Could be just a name whose meaning has been forgotten.

#6 Azat

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:22 PM

Erzrum is Turkish for Show White if I am not mistaken... :)

#7 hyebruin

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:26 PM

Erzrum is Turkish for Show White if I am not mistaken... :)


two funnies in one day!!! hey hey, you're on a roll tootsie roll!! ;)

#8 Teutonic Knight

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:33 PM

I would like to ask about your opinion on Armenian "sites and sounds". After the Independence lots of original names were restored, but were they all Armenian. For example Leninakan became Gumri (as far as I know it comes from turkish), which was the name of the city before the sovietization. Before that it was Alexandrapole (which is my preference). Probably there are many more cities and villages that want to get their names right.


:(

I didn't know about that. In any case "Gyumri" is a stupid name and sounds foreign.
Alexandropole is Hellenic however it is preferable to oriental names.

Kumayri is a 100% Armenian name, it sounds great too!

They oughta do something about "Gegharkounik" :D

#9 ED

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:38 PM

I didn't know about that. In any case "Gyumri" is a stupid name and sounds foreign.
Alexandropole is Hellenic however it is preferable to oriental names.

Kumayri is a 100% Armenian name, it sounds great too!

They oughta do something about "Gegharkounik"  :D

There was a big demonstration and plea from qyavartsis to change that name:)

#10 Teutonic Knight

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Posted 12 October 2003 - 11:42 PM

There was a big demonstration and plea from qyavartsis to change that name:)

Did they throw potatoes?

#11 Harut

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 12:10 AM

what about the city 'karin' in western armenia, eastern turkey? i hear that's where the origin of my name comes from!!! please tell me it's NOT related to turkish!!! yikes!!! i'd have to change my name!!! :( ....what does 'karin' mean anyways? i asked people before, but nobody could give me an answer!!

read somewhere that Karine comes from... darn, forgot right now. but it is supposed to be formed of 'kar'/'kari' that means fire in that particular language, and 'ne', which is of course 'feminizer' in Armenian language.

#12 Harut

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 01:01 AM

yah, but nothing beats having a community in Yerevan called Bangladesh.

#13 hyebruin

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 02:42 AM

read somewhere that Karine comes from... darn, forgot right now. but it is supposed to be formed of 'kar'/'kari' that means fire in that particular language, and 'ne', which is of course 'feminizer' in Armenian language.

I KNEW IT!!!! :o my horoscope sign is fire as well!!!! so everything basically is pointing to the same thing!! :rolleyes:

#14 MJ

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 08:00 AM

Gyumri and Kumairy are the same word - just pronunciation difference.

It was stupid to name the city its current name. This city was established by the Russian Empress Alexandra and it would have been proper to return her name to the city.

Edited by MJ, 13 October 2003 - 08:42 AM.


#15 Stormig

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 09:31 AM

Erzurum = Erzerum = arz-al rum = arz-ar'rum
Not sure if the "z" is plain z or z[.]... But arz means place (Arabic) and Rum means Roman/Greek. Place of Romans/Greeks. At least that was what was told me.

#16 Arpa

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 03:21 PM

Erzurum = Erzerum = arz-al rum = arz-ar'rum
Not sure if the "z" is plain z or z[.]... But arz means place (Arabic) and Rum means Roman/Greek. Place of Romans/Greeks. At least that was what was told me.

Very close!

True??

In the Arabic "ard/ardh/arz" does mean soil, land, country. Not to confuse with the Armenian word "art/ard", dasht, hand, field that is derived from "agro", even if the two may coincidentally point virually to similar meaning.

In Armenian histriography Karin is mentioned as Karno Dasht or Karno Shamb, the marshes of Karin as there was an extensive tract of marshy swampy land. Some believe that Karin is an evolved name of a tribe known as Karenitis. This may partially answer the question about the origin of the personal names of Karen and Karine.
In 421 the Byzantian emperor Theodosius II recognizing the strategic importance of the land/city fortified the walls and the fortress and renamed the Theodosopolis.... During the 6th c. the Persian king Khosrow conquered the city and enslaved the inhabitants and the Catholicos. In 628 the emperor Hercalius rebuilt the walls, and he invited the Catholicos to an ecclesiastical convocation and tried to have the Armenian church unite with the Orthodox by professing diphysitism. It failed. In 647 the Arabs conquered the city and renamed it Kalikala(expensive castle?). In 752 once again Emperor Constantin V took hold and moved many Armenian artisans and merchants to Constantinople. According to the Arab hsitorian Ibn Hawkal Karin was semi-autonomous within the Armenian kingdom under the rule of Ashot and Smbat Bagratuni. In 949 it was again conquered by Byzantium.
In 1049 the Seljuk Tughril invaded the city of Ardzn and razed it to the ground forcing the Armenian inhabitanst to migrate to Karin/Erzrum. The newly settled Armenians renamed the city Ardzn in memory of their ruined city, but to differentiate it from the original Ardzn the new one was known as Arzn al Rum (Arabic appellation), to mean Byzantian or Roman Arzn.
As mentioned above one would be tempted to ascribe it to the Arabic word ard/ardh/arz, this may be purely coincidental.
Even if Karin is now known as Erzrum, Arz-el-Rum it is is still the heir to the Armenian city of Arzn and it is Armenian.

#17 Arpa

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 05:40 PM

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

Kumayri, Gyumri.

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/history.html

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/

#18 Teutonic Knight

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Posted 13 October 2003 - 05:51 PM

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

Kumayri, Gyumri.

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/history.html

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/

I think "ayri" means noble.

#19 Arpa

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Posted 30 July 2005 - 04:07 PM

QUOTE (Harut @ Oct 13 2003, 06:10 AM)
read somewhere that Karine comes from... darn, forgot right now. but it is supposed to be formed of 'kar'/'kari' that means fire in that particular language, and 'ne', which is of course 'feminizer' in Armenian language.



The below quotes (bold) are from this site.

http://armenian.name/

KARINEH
According to H. Ajaryan it is one of the forms of the name Gayaneh. Probably it came from the name of the town Karin in XIX c. Note that it is not the female variant of the Persian name Karen.

=======
Ajarian may have a point if we consider the fact that in some Armenian dialects the R is elided and sounds like Y. We have seen this at another time when we were talking about Hamshen dialect where “yereq” was pronounce as “yiyeq”. The Zeituntsis do that too when they say “bolozdeq@ yoy kon” instead of “bolozdeq@ yor kon” (tghaq@/ yerekhaner@ our en”. Hopefully Ajarian is talking about this phenomenon in reverse I.e. the Y changing to R. However the above becomes even more suspect when we consider that Gayaneh is spelled with the Gim as oppsed to Karineh with Ken.
=======
KATAR
From Armenian katar "top". "head", "peak". As a name it appeared in XIX c. which is also considered to be one of the short forms of the name Katarineh (Yekaterina) though they are different both in their origin and meaning..

=======

Based on the above allow me to advance another probability
What if Karine/Karineh is an endearing contraction of Katarineh??

Of course, the name “katar” meaning “top/summit” is totally new to me. We always assumed that it was an abbreviated form of Katarineh. Rarely used now but I had known a few and, to corroborate this, the ones I knew were of the Armenian Catholic persuasion. Catherine?

BTW. Harut, stone/qar in Armenian is spelled with the Qe not Ken

Edited by Arpa, 30 July 2005 - 04:25 PM.


#20 Anoushik

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Posted 30 July 2005 - 10:13 PM

QUOTE (Arpa @ Oct 13 2003, 03:40 PM)
Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

That's right. (I hadn't seen this topic.)

In 1991 when Armenia became independent the people of Leninakan cast votes about whether to name the city Gyumri or Kumayri. I remember that there was a huge controversy. The city became divided between the group of people who wanted the name Gyumri and the people who wanted Kumayri. My parents wanted Kumayri. That's the original name of the city. Kumayri lost. Sometimes my dad angrily remarks that the reason Gyumri is still in such bad shape is because of its Turkified name.




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