Questions about language

[Kanafayim]

Hi everyone,

 

I am new here and interested in the language. I have a question for anyone who can answer it. I'd like to know about what percentage of Armenian vocabulary is considered native. What categories does the foreign part (Persian, Turkish or whatever else) fall into? Usually languages which take in large amounts of foreign vocabulary do so because of strong political and cultural influences at some point in history---and so the loan words enter into the categories of politics, technology, religion etc... I just wondered if this is the same situation in Armenian.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

Edit note: Split from this thread

Edited November 16, 2005 by vava

[kakachik77]

Hi everyone,

 

I am new here and interested in the language. I have a question for anyone who can answer it. I'd like to know about what percentage of Armenian vocabulary is considered native. What categories does the foreign part (Persian, Turkish or whatever else) fall into? Usually languages which take in large amounts of foreign vocabulary do so because of strong political and cultural influences at some point in history---and so the loan words enter into the categories of politics, technology, religion etc... I just wondered if this is the same situation in Armenian.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

you openned a can of worms....which Armenian are you interested...Eastern (spoken in Armenia, Russia, Iran) or Western ...spoken in Diaspora, originally spoken by Armenians West of Ararat mountain. Armenian language is pretty "clean". Some Iranian borrowing from 1500 years ago, Christianity cut the cultural ties for good. Turkish language only through our last names and that was imposed by force. Now, in the slang people use Turkish and in the Eastern Armenian lots and lots of Russian words. However, none of those words are "officially" part of the language and their Armenian versions exist as well. Just a short intro.

Arpa will be an excellent source for this.

[Kanafayim]

you openned a can of worms....which Armenian are you interested...Eastern (spoken in Armenia, Russia, Iran) or Western ...spoken in Diaspora, originally spoken by Armenians West of Ararat mountain. Armenian language is pretty "clean". Some Iranian borrowing from 1500 years ago, Christianity cut the cultural ties for good. Turkish language only through our last names and that was imposed by force. Now, in the slang people use Turkish and in the Eastern Armenian lots and lots of Russian words. However, none of those words are "officially" part of the language and their Armenian versions exist as well. Just a short intro.

Arpa will be an excellent source for this.

 

thanks for responding! I was talking about the language as a whole and without slang, I don't know enough about the differences in vocab between EA and WA yet.

[Arpa]

Hi Kanafayim,

Welcome to HyeForum.

Looking forward to hear more from you, specially in the language department. I did receive your PM and I ask your forgiveness for not responding any sooner. I was otherwise occupied but more so I needed to come up with useful info for you.

It is serendipitous that only a day before your post the following had appeared in one of the Armenian news media. It seems Garnik Asatrian is the expert in the subject at hand. It took me quite a bit of acrobatics tracking him down, so to speak. I added his address phone # and e-mail below.

As to myself, I am no expert, I have a few books dealing with the subject and I refer to them as need be. It is a well known fact that Armenian and Persian have much in common, I did not say Farsi since the latter was highly influenced by Arabic for obvious reasons, and this fact has partially obscured the kinship between Armenian and Persian, so much so that many words that were lost in the Iranian languages are now being rediscovered in Armenian. Of course, it also well known that Armenian has as much, if not more kinship with Greek and other European languages simply by its beinga branch of the IndoEuropean family of languages.

I hope the below info will be useful, in the meantime we will keep talking about the subject as cases may arise. If you have any particular question about any word etc. I will be glad to look them up to the best of my means.

==========

 

Mehr News Agency , Iran

Nov 13 2005

Armenian scholars to compile new Farsi etymology dictionary

 

TEHRAN, Nov. 13 (MNA) -- Armenian scholars plan to start compiling

the most comprehensive Farsi (Persian) etymology dictionary in the

near future, the Persian service of the Cultural Heritage News (CHN)

agency announced on Sunday.

`The Farsi language has never had a comprehensive etymology

dictionary,' Professor Garnik Asatrian, the head of the Faculty of

Iranian Studies at Yerevan State University, said in a lecture he

delivered at the Iranology Foundation.

Although Farsi is the richest of the Iranian languages, it doesn't

enjoy a comprehensive etymology dictionary,' he added.

He noted that the two-volume dictionary will contain all literal and

colloquial words' etymologies and if a word's etymology can not be

found, its semantics will be explained instead.

He expressed hope that Iranian scholars would also participate in the

project.

He elaborated on the history of Iranology in Armenia, saying, `The

faculty was established in 1918 and began its activities in 1921. It

was headed by Professor Hrachia Acharian until 1932.

However, studies regarding Iranian and Indo-European languages in

general faced many hurdles after Stalin came to power. Acharian's

activities were so limited during this period that his students had

to visit him at his house. But international studies found a new

impetus after Stalin's death in 1953.'

According to him, about 500 Armenian words have been derived from

Persian words which are no longer used in any Persian dialect. Hence,

the study of these words would be beneficial.

===========

Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies

Khorenatsi str. 26

375010 Yerevan

Republic of Armenia

Tel/Fax: (3741) 56-72-07, (3741) 55-61-91

E-mail: caucas@infocom.am

(Director: Professor Garnik Asatrian)

[Gor-Gor]

There are 10996 root words in Armenian. (Of those, only 4231 are currently used in Armenian.)

 

Here is a list of where those 10996 root words have come from. My book is in Armenian, and I don't know the English translation of some of the sources. I've listed examples, where available.

 

"Bahlaveren" (I think a predecessor to Persian) - 966

Indo-European - 927 (Ex: Aluir, amis, yeghpayr, gin, doon. It also lists words such as louys, gov, and nav, which are all found in other languages [loos in Spanish, cow in English, naval in English]. The book says Indo-European words are "native Armenian" words because they have been in the Armenian language the longest, but I don't think this is a correct conclusion.)

Greek - 918 (Ex: apse, paghnik, tadron, yegeghetsi, zepuir, bantog, kardes)

Arabic - 702 (Ex: sndoog, gghbel, mgrad, narinch)

Persian - 455

Assyrian - 211 (Ex: kaghout, hashiv, khmor, Oorpat, Shapat, sadana, gatsa)

Turk-Tatar - 170 (Ex: bekh, yelag, khamajig)

"Pnatsayn" - 153 (I think these are words which come from what something sounds like; the book lists "akrav" and "dzap" as examples. But it also lists "ayo" and "hayhoyel," so I don't know.)

Greek-Latin - 151

"Yeprayagan" - 138 (Ex: amen, hopelian)

Old French - 86

Caucasian - 60 (Ex: khod, aghp, khmel, janj)

Georgian - 57 (Ex: khaz)

New European - 44 (Ex: metod, system, cronig -- ie, method, system, chronic)

"Asooreren" (NOT Assyrian) - 27 (Ex: tonir, kakat, kaghak, gghzi)

Chaldean ("Khalderen") - 15 (Ex: ungouyz, dziran, garas, grtel)

Old Latin - 11

Lesser Asia ("Pokr-Asiagan") - 9 (Ex: Asdvadz, garij)

Meditteranean - 5 (Ex: kini, tooz, yiugh)

Undetermined - 2221

 

The book lists examples for Bahlaveren and Persian together, and here are some: azad, anabad, ishkhan, jamanag, namag, bardez, vosdigan, osharag, tak, kouyn, gouyr, hantes)

 

Source: Kordznagan Keraganootyoon, Arti Hayeren Lezvi. Zareh Melkonian, QUOTING H. Ajarian.

[Kanafayim]

I just wanted to thank all of you who responded and provided info. Thank you very much. This kind of stuff is very interesting to me and I appreciate the response and time you took.

[Dave]

''Kahana'' is also known to be of Assyrian/Semitic origin.