Qve Or Qwe?

[Arpa]

Is it V or W?

Qve or Qoue (qwe).

As promised under another topic (see Nard-Nart).

I have not found an etymological analysis of "qoue" except as mentioned in that thread, that the dice used in backgammon are sometimes called "qoue/qve" and at other times- veg.

In actuality "veg" is a bone from the ankle of sheep or other animals that has six sides, when laid down flat it looks like a frog without the head, on one side and other shapes at the other 5 sides. It is used as a tool of betting. It is cast and, and each side has a value, the highest being when it lands erect.In some sources the "vijak" is also isd to describe qoue/qve/veg. The English for "vijak" is "lot" from where "lottery".

I have not found the word "qoue/qve" as itself, i.e. as a noun, esxcept very rarely, only as side in words like "qouearkel/qvearkel", i.e to cast (ballot). Speaking of which "ballot" is defined as "qoue and "vote" as "dzayn"(among others). In other words "ballot" is qoue and vote is "dzayn". Of course "vote" is from voce/voice. But ballot is more interesting. It is from the Latin to mean a "small ball", bassed on the fact that in classical times (it is still used at times) there would small balls of different colors, usually white and black, and the voter would cast one or the other ball into a sealed box. At the end the valls would be counted, the whites would be affirmative and the blacks-negative. This is where the term "black balling" comes from, i.e. vote against.

 

As to "veg", once again there is not much to go except that some have attempted to tie it to "vets" (six) based on the fact that the natural(bone) veg has six sides just as the veg (die-dice)used in backgammon and other games. Die/dice, regardless of the fact that looks and sounds like "dice"(ten) does in fact derive from the Latin "dare", to cast, to throw.

 

Coming back to "qoue/qve". The Armatakan spells it as qe-vo-hyun-e (not yech). Of course Ajarian finished his word before the sovietization of eastern orthography. As a rule estern sources spell it as qve-qe-ve-yech while western sources still insist on the former (classic)format.

The question is. If the word were meant to be spelled and pronounce as "qve" then why was it originally written as "qoue". The vo-hyun was meant to sound as V why did we not spell it as such in the begiinning. Why do write h

"(j)hounouar" and pronounce it as "hunvar"? Of course, the eaterners do write it as "h-ou-n-v-a-r" while westerners still insist on the former.

Is it V or W?

I suspect that we began to pronnounce it as "V" sometime along from Persian and Turkish influence, neither of which have the W sound. The Persians take the Arabic letter "wow" and sound it as "vav", and the Turks take an Arabic word such as "wazeer" and say "vezir".

 

I say. Let us go back to the classical spelling and prnunciation and see how our ancestors spoke. Not qve but qwe, not hunvar but yunouar. Of course! How silly of me! It is now "petrouar".

 

Quiet Sip! None of that "petur" stuff. :)

 

(sung to the tune of Alouette)

Havik, havik sirun aghvor havik,

Havik, havik, yes qez pit pettem.

 

Note that the V in "havik" is also a hyun (origianlly), so should we pronounce it as "hawik"?

 

As promised in that thread I had also mentioned "zar" that the Persians call those dice. We know that "zar" means "gold", also, dziran-i is akin to the "zar" to mean gold therefor "dzirani would be the color of gold. Dziran IS gold, as soon as agriculture in the Yerevan Province attains its potential then those apricots from Izmir will turn into mud.

[Gor-Gor]

The only thing I can add to this is that in official WA standards, you are always to write foreign words that contain a "w" using vo-huin, and NEVER to write it using a vev.

 

Example: Washington is written as vo-huin-ayp-sha-ini-noo...etc and not vev-ayp-sha...etc

 

That's how we learned it in Armenian class. Check your daily Asbarez.

 

EDIT: Oops. I use "kve" as a noun for "vote." "To vote" is then "kveargel."

Edited February 12, 2005 by Gor-Gor

[Arpa]

Is it V or W?

I suspect that we began to pronnounce it as "V" sometime along from Persian and Turkish influence, neither of which have the W sound. The Persians take the Arabic letter "wow" and sound it as "vav", and the Turks take an Arabic word such as "wazeer" and say "vezir".

 

Note that the V in "havik" is also a hyun (origianlly), so should we pronounce it as "hawik"?

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

I had all but forgotten about this book Language Connections by Sarkis Saryan;

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0...2442533-5263865

 

On page 134, chapter Comparative Tables, article "Indo-European 'W'" we read this.

(Note I will highlight the sentence which may a verbatim of what I have said several times. It is almost a quotation of my words, of course not, he had said it long before I had.)

 

English is the only major living language which has pereserved the "w" sound until the preent.The sound is borne out in words like "wolf" and "water". As in Russian "voda/water", and modern German "wasser", pronounced "vasser", the other languages have changed the sound to "v". German has retained the old spelling.

In Armenian the "w" sound, under some conditions became "v" as in "kov"(cow). There is another letter which under certain conditions, has the same sound as "nav"(nau) ship. Linguists prefer to transcribe this word as "naw" beacuse, they argue, the Mesropian Alphabet had no reason to have two letters for one sound. Antoine Meillet contends that at the beginning of the 5th century the sound of "u"(hyun) was more like the English W. The prehistoric IE "w" sound has been kept also in the Armenian doublet, "arew" and "areg" both meaning sun. The second term is more easily recognized as "areg-ak", i.e. the eye of the sun.

 

He goes on citing cases (as in arew-areg) where the "w" has evolved into "g" as in "wolf" to "gayl" and "gords", work/erg., and other examples "gitun" v "videre/veda" =wit/wise. In another example (I didn't know this, and neither does Ajarian get into), that in same sense "kogi"(butter), a product from the cow (now archaic, but widely used in Grabar).

According to Ajarian "kath"(milk) is from "kathil" to drip/drop. Could it be the other way around, i.e. kathil/drip/drop is from kath/milk?

[Johannes]

Que (in armenian) and Cubic or Cube has the same root.

[kakachik77]

QVE from Latin root QUANT

 

Qvearkutyun roughly is counting (quanting) of votes.

[Johannes]

Que (Koueh) means cube (qarracousi khoranardadzev ir), a cubic body, which has numbers on her surfaces, and used by throwing it on a board to get unexpectable numbers.

Quearkel is from que arkanel, literally means, to throw a cube.

Before any other meanings like "to vote", It was to mean lottery.

Quant is hashouel, accounting a math event.

[Nazarian]

Քվե

[Johannes]

Dear Nazarian, you pronounce it Qve ok. However, if you want to learn or know how it spelled by our ancestors you should turn to the Mesropean orthography and discover that it was Qwe and not Qve. Usually if anyone wants to study Armenian language and explain the root of the words

It is necessary to go back to the genuine orthography. Not Lavrenti (with vev), but Laurenti (with hiun) in the English language it is Lawrence. Laura (with hiun) not Lavra (with vev), Maurice (with hiun), but not Mavrik (with vev), Mauritania (with hiun) but not Mavritania (with vev). Dzou (egg) and the historical name Dzouik, but we spell it dzvik because of many reasons. Nevertheless, the root is Dzou. The situation of this meal name "Dzvatzegh" (sauted eggs with onion) like Qwe the origin was Dzouatzegh. However, we must know the origins.