Ecevit (Ejevit)

[Twilight Bark]

Turkish researcher Bilge Umar states that place names in Anatolia that end with -vit usually come from Armenian, -vit being a distortion/shortening of hovit. He decomposes Ecevit (pronounced edge-evitt) edis-hovit, meaning something like "the rear plain". The esteemed prime minister probably would not be amused.

[Boghos]

Poor Ecevit, he looks more like a comic character in a 60s Hollywood imitation Turkish comedy. But in all fairness he has never, to my knowledge at least, expressed ll feelings towards Armenians.

 

By the way ,most Turks did not have surnames until the beginning of the century.

[Twilight Bark]

Yes, his level of hostility is indistinguishable from the background noise (on Armenians) in Turkey. How you characterize that level is up to you. My feeling is that he would prefer that Armenians forever remained under the radar screen so he wouldn't have to think about them.

As for surnames, you are right of course. Many people adopted the name of their (or their close ancestors') birthplace, such as Ecevit, as their surname.

As for appearances, his nose may point to some Armenian heritage.

[Boghos]

I think there is great animosity in Turkey towards Armenians, it doesn´t have a class or political distinction. It is a very pervasive feeling. Armenians are a very convenient scapegoat for many of the frustrations that result from the "sick man" still being on its death bed.

There is a widespread perception that Armenians are responsible for bad mouthing Turks and Turkey. Of course, as in all cases, there are excpetions, but they are marginal and essentially meaningless.

[MosJan]

Ecevit-Hovit - This is interesting - and GaVith - but on Gavit it's not t it's TH - interesting

 

 

Arpa - i need some help is Vit and Vith are the same ???

 

 

MOvses

[aurguplu]

ecevit comes from the northwestern black sea coast (i think zonguldak), but i had read somewhere recently that the locals had referred to the family as "the kurdish ones" or something like that. in fact, he looks much more kurdish than a karadenizli (person from the black sea).

 

i would describe ecevit as a crypto-fascist in a socialist's (formerly communist's) clothing, many so-called "socialists" in turkey were or are. but i would find it rather difficult to see a racist in him. if he were to object at an armenian etymology of his surname (something i doubt strongly), it would more be of a sense of public embarrassment given the "sensitivity" of things armenian in turkey rather than a genuine personal embarrassment at discovering that his ancestors might have been armenian. he has been a very strong advocate of the anatolian heritage of turkey in the past, and it is my personal belief that if the armeno-turkish relations were not poisoned by the genocide and its aftermath, no turkish intellectual worthy of the name would hesitate to pronounce the armenian component in current turkish make-up.

[Twilight Bark]

Agreed. The term national-socialist comes to mind. However, even extreme nationalism and chauvinism in Turkey is more "practical" than "theoretical". Turkish chauvinism is essentially cultural, not racial. I say "essentially", because an Armenian ancestry is still regarded as a big no-no. All others are OK as long as the person declares himself as a Turk, and accepts the official mythology that the original Turkish invaders are part of all "Turk"s ancestry and that the only component that matters is that last one.

quote

but i would find it rather difficult to see a racist in him.

Ecevit may not be a racist, but he is a strong advocate of the official myth, what with his (and his co-ideologists') obsession with "purifying" the Turkish language.

quote

no turkish intellectual worthy of the name would hesitate to pronounce the armenian component in current turkish make-up.

There are a pitifully small number of intellectuals in Turkey worthy of the description (the state of Armenian intellectual tradition is also not cheerful, but that's another topic). There are many pseudo-intellectuals. Waiting for the subject to be politically correct in Turkey is for the ordinary persons, who would rightly fear for their safety. Being a true intellectual is a much riskier and adventurous proposition that demands to tell the truth now, before it becomes mainstream. Strong connections with powers-that-be would probably be required to express taboo opinions. Perhaps we can discuss what makes one an intellectual in another thread. It is an interesting topic.

As for the etymology of the -vit suffix, I am interested in alternative etymologies that you may have in mind. I don't mind a bit if it turns out to be non-Armenian. Bilge Umar himself states openly and honestly that his work may contain many inaccuracies. However, his work is orders of magnitude better than the chauvinistic crap that many Turkish "linguists" have produced over the years.

[aurguplu]

twilight bark,

 

1. i fully agree re ecevit's (and hiss colleagues') linguistic crimes, called "öztürkçe". some form of language purification movement had started in 19th century ottoman turkey, when it was really very badly needed (literary turkish was so inundated with arabic and persian words and constructs that the ordinary folk could not understand a thing). but the movement caught on, and with increased efforts to get the language of the literati and the state in line with that of the public, the written and spoken languages of the 1920s-1930s were no more different from one another than, say, written and spoken english of the time were. the thing took a crazy bent when they decided to purge ALL arabo-persian elements from turkish, in a move to get to a "pure" turkish and create new words from thousand-year old discarded central asian vocabulary and suffixes, often wrongly, and within a couple of years the new language was just as incomprehensible as the old one. more over, they took a good many mongolian-or even chinese origin words, mistaking them for old turkish, so that we now have words that were never used in anatolia at any time, but they got stuck into the language and we cannot get rid of them.

 

my mother tongue is closer to the pre-reform turkish of the 1930s, and i also make a conscious attempt at using the old, "correct" vocabulary, but it is getting more and more difficult with the ubiquitous presence of the media.

 

i found to my amazement that it does not occur to most "intellectuals" in turkey that the desire for a pure language is dangerously parallel to the desire for a pure nation, or worse, race. amazing how so few people see the parallel.

 

2. i fully agree with your comments on turkish "intellectuals". there are very few of the real ones, and the "market" is flooded with con-men. anyone who speaks with an affected left-wing "pure turkish" can pass for an intellectual. our intellectuals have the moribund habit of stopping to read as soon as they become famous. also, most of them try to develop an opinion on every subject under the sun, and you cannot know everything about everything, can you? they also do not have what i would call "academic discipline". for instance, if you aim at making sense in western philosophy, you should really have read everything that plato and aristotle wrote, because the whole rest of western philosophy is based on them, called "footnotes to plato" by one philosopher. no. your turkish intellectual would start with foucault, and if you dared point out the above fact, you would be called a traditionalist, a conformist, old-fashioned, scholastic, etc. that's why so few of our intellectuals, in my opinion, produce stuff of lasting value.

 

3. re turkish academia and bilge umar: bilge umar is a law professor from izmir, incidentally, his relations are my neighbours, as i discovered recently. i was exposed to his stuff very early in life (ealy teens), very readable and enjoyable stuff, but one must keep in mind that he is not a "professional". of the academicians, i can recommend ekrem akurgal, the finest archaeologist of turkey and internationally renowned, and the late kenan erim, whose digs in aphrodisias were financed and published by the national geographic. i know both men personally.

 

of course the climate is not yet ripe in turkey to include the armenian presence in anatolia in published works (even the mention of the name "armenia" concerning eastern turkey is a criminal offence), but once we get the genocide recognition sorted out, i think these problems will be solved.

 

i agree with you that intellectualism is an interesting topic and i would contribute to a posting devoted to it.

 

regards,

[Arpa]

In this post I will try and suggest another slant to "Ecevit".
Twilight Bark commented about his generous "Armenian Nose". The so called Armenian nose is not a sole property of the Armenian, it is very prevalent in warm dry desert lands, some explain it by the need of ample "moisturizing chamber" of the dry hot desert air in the process of breathing. This brings us to other races of the region, Arabs etc. We make good use of the Armenian nose, yet in other circles the Jewish nose may win by a nose. Would it be that "ejevit" is a variation of Javits? It is a well known fact that the Javitses hailed from Anatolia and some of them had their prominent noses in the elite Ottoman affairs.

On Gavith see Language.

[Arpa]

http://www.armenianhighland.com/yerevan/ch...ronicle201.html

Can anybody shed light on why the above dig site is named ShenGavith?

Shen loosely means prosperous, in reality it merely means shenk, building, shinvats ("built"), therefor at times it also means habitation, village, hamlet as opposed to "anapat", unbuilt, uninhabited (do you see a poissible similarity between "anapat and "uninhabited"?).
As to "gavith". Yes, Movses, "tho" ending is the only acceptable form. There is no conclusive etymological origin to the word. It is commonly used to mean yard, anteroom, but more commonly to mean church apse. One of the most credible explanations is that it was meant to describe the quarters where sheep and cattle were housed, hence the inference to "ante-room". Some dare go further and base the word on "kav", Persian for "cow" as well as the Armenian word "kov", i,e, "cow.