Zonguldak

[Twilight Bark]

According to the respected Turkish researcher Bilge Umar, the name of the city of Zonguldak (situated on the western Black Sea coast of Turkey) comes from Armenian. I must say I find it incredible that a city so far from the traditionally Armenian-populated regions would have a name derived from Armenian.

 

Now, can you figure out what Armenian word(s) Zonguldak may come from? Hint: It has vast deposits of coal under it. Also, it would probably help to have a good dictionary at hand

[Arpa]

I fail to see it except that the Armenian "dz" is transcribed as "z" in Turkish as the latter language does not have the sounds of "dz" and "tz". Could it be "dzounkin tak" (under the knee)? Perhaps our friend would be so kind to explain.
Many Armenian words and names of landmarks have been Turkicized. Some still recognizable. The most celebrated of them is so obvious that it amazes me no one has yet publicized it. Many a historian etymologist have fallen flat on their faces in an attempt to explain the origin of the modern name of the sacred mountain of the Armenians. Ararat is obviously a variation on Arartu/Urartu. Masis is well documented, yet Agri Dag defies all. Most take it at its face value to mean "pain", others try to find the meaning of "white/ag". The landmark has witnessed much pain in the past as it still does today yet it still makes no sense. It is so obvious that it derives its name from an Armenian town which even though devastated numerous times by both natural and manmade disasters, the latest of which a powerful earthquake in 1840, still bares witness to its Christian Armenian heritage. The town of Agori/Aghori at the foot of Mt. Ararat, long abandoned, still displays vast fields of Khachkars and other Armenian scripture even today. The Mountain was named for the town and district of Agori, if slightly altered and corrupted.
It is not Agri Dag, it is Agori Ler. Another mountain that has sufferd a similar fat is Musa Ler. It does not mean the Mountain of Moses, as Moses had no interest or access to it, it means the mountain of "musas", i.e. muse and it is Armenian in origin as many a budding poet would climb up to find inspiration from the muses that inhabited in those summits. Abovian climbed Masis in similar quest and was severely persecuted for having desacrated our Sacred Mountain.

Arpa

Next on Arpa, another name mistaken as Turkish

[Twilight Bark]

Zankhul-dag

 

Zankhul = hidden

dag = under

[Harut]

zankhul is supposed to be an Armenian word?

then what would the verb be for it? zankhel?

[Twilight Bark]

I know. It's an obscure word. But it's there; in the dictionary.

Maybe an enterprising Armenian discovered the coal deposits, and used a doubly obscure name to refer to it so that the deposits remain "hidden" until he established a mining business.

Or maybe zankhul used to be a more commonly used word.

I wonder ...

[Harut]

TB and Arpa,

 

you both seem to be very well educated and informed in linguistic issues.

can you please try to explain what the city name "Karmuj" might mean?

this has been discussed earlier but we couldn't come to a conclusion.

 

thank you

[Arpa]

Where is Karmuj?
However, it is very plaine and obvious that it is a variation of "kamurj", bridge. There were two towns by that name. Te town of Kamurj in the district of Bitlis and another in the area of Edessa/Urfa, both Armenian inhabited until obliterated during the Genocide.

[Harut]

i meant the one around Yedesya.

but still i can't see why would kamurj become karmuj.

[Arpa]

Clear your ear and listen.

The same way akanj has become ankaj, aryoudz turns to ayroudz and karvan (caravan) has in Turkish become kevran. Or have you heard of kapert v karpet to mean carpet? How about Kharberd into Harput sand Sebastia into Sivas? Or even Kesaria to Kayseri, not to mention Constantinopolis to Istanbul.

[Twilight Bark]

Although your suggestion is reasonable, one also has to be careful about using such deformations because they occur almost always as a result of mispronunciation by non-native speakers (i.e. typically the invaders of the place). So deforming an Armenian word by Armenians would be suspect. However, if garmuj was the name used by the Turks or the Turkish authorities, and it stuck after a while and begun to be used by Armenians as well, that would not violate the "native speakers don't deform" principle (not that it is set in stone).

[ThornyRose]

quote

Originally posted by aurguplu:as for the "deformation" of kamurj to karmuj, it is called "metathesis" in linguistics: this is the phenomenon of medial (in the middle of the word) consonants changing places and is very common in many languages. for instance, the turkish word for "earth" is "toprak", but in azeri and eastern anatolian it becomes "torpah".

I thought it might be Farsi because I saw a couple of place names in Iran on the map, things like Qara Tupraq or whatever... So it is Turkish, huh?

[ThornyRose]

As in here? /cgi-bin/forum/ultim...ic&f=1&t=000384

[aurguplu]

yepp

it's a good old central asian word. it is abundant in iran, afghanistan, northern pakistan, as these places are full of turks (one third of iran speaks azeri, kashkai, turkmen, and khalaj).

[Twilight Bark]

The "metathesis" in Turkish is more likely to occur among "native speakers" when those speakers are almost entirely assimilated natives. And of course, the formation of the Turkish nation involved a lot of assimilation, so the local deformations are not surprising. In their origins, Armenians are also a mixed a bag. However, lacking true political power for almost their entire existence, there was not a great level of enthusiasm by other ethnic groups to assimilate into Armenians, especially in the last couple of millenia. So I am still somewhat skeptical of such "mispronunciations" explaining away Armenian words. Of course, the divergent pronunciation may date from the beginnings of the amalgamation of the Armenian nation.

[aurguplu]

on zonguldak

 

the turkish explanation is that it comes from "zonguldamak" which means "to tremble" (because of cold). the place is bloody cold, and there is logic in this argument, but of course one has to look at older maps and byzantine sources to get a better idea. zonguldak lies far too west of historic armenia to have an armenian name, IMO. but it is of course possible. more possibly this was a word that came from an extinct anatolian language, and subsequent inhabitants tried to explain it in their own language. such words abound in turky annd greece. for example, there is a place along the aegean coast, which was called "neandros" in antiquity, which has a very straightforward greek etymology meaning "new man". but later research revealed that it came from the lydian "nandra" (almost all place names with -nd, nth, -ssos, -ssa in greek come from that language).

 

as for the "deformation" of kamurj to karmuj, it is called "metathesis" in linguistics: this is the phenomenon of medial (in the middle of the word) consonants changing places and is very common in many languages. for instance, the turkish word for "earth" is "toprak", but in azeri and eastern anatolian it becomes "torpah".

 

cheers,

[Harut]

thanks, cleaning ears once in a while really helps.
but i couldn't see, not hear.
and the reason for that was that people from that area pronounce "kamurj" pretty clearly and "hstak". and also, i was thinking that "karmuj" might have some connections with "kar" and "muj"(i had no idea what it might mean )

[aurguplu]

one should also not forget the fact that languages have dialects. as far as i know armenian is broadly divided into grabar and krapart, each of which contain numerous dialects. also, some assimilation into armenian ethnicity might have taken place. one should not forget that some of the turks who came to anatolia became christians (or, possibly, were christians when they came). the gagauz of russia, moldova and romania are their descendants.

[Arpa]

it is "karmuj", a variation (corruption) of "kamurj" to mean bridge. This can be corroborated by the fact that a few miles north of Urfa now there is a town called Karakopru (black bridge, which may in fact be a translation from the Armenian kar kamurj (stone bridge). As far as metathesis the metamorphosis of kamurj to karmuj is not a Turkish doing. Most languages have dialects, even though in the strict sense of the word they may not be defined as such since they are intelligible where as dialects are incomprehesible even to their immediate neighbors. Variations of the Armenian language from region to region, from village to village can best be described as "provincial", the reason for wide variety of "dialects" is the rugged terrain where each village was a virtual country in itself.
Kamurj (gamourch to western ears)is a native Armenian word. There are two credible theories about its origin, one is that it is common with the Greek "gebhurja" to mean avenue etc., the other with that of the persian "kamar" (arch) or even "kamarja" small arch. You be the judge. The fact that "karmuj" is a variation of "kamurj" is witnessed by many provincial Armenian idioms. Most "dialects have it as "karmuj" rather than "kamurj", among which are Agoulis, Alashkert, Goris, Erevan, Artsakh, Moush . In Shamakh, Sebastia and Van it is "karmunj"(note the extra n) and even "karmonj".
As above the Turks are not responsible for this however they are responsible for adopting and twisting such words as gmpet into kumpet, erang(hue,color) into irenk**, orinak into ornek and more. Maybe somebody may browse a Turkish etymological source and let us know how many other Armenian words were adopted and rendered unrecognizable.

Note; Turks and Armenians share a common linguistic curiosity, neither have and can pronounce words beginning with the lettter R (re), renk becomes irenk, rum(Roman) becomes urum and rus(Russian) becomes urus. If you don't believe this look up the "re" section of an Armenian dictionary and see how many words you see, if any they would be of foreign origin.