Arpa

[Arpa]

Movses, you asked; Inch e nshanakum Arpa?

On the surface Arpa is a river, no, two rivers. One, also lnown as Arevelyan Arpa originates at the highlands of Artsakh, flows south west through Armenia, enters Naxijevan and pours into the Arax. At the present there is a project ro combine it with Vorotan creating the Arpa-Vorotan canal/tunnel diverting it towards Lake Sevan.

The other, better known as Akhourian in Armenian originates at Lake Arpi, flows southward along the Turkish Armenian border, also eventually joing Arax. This latter river is known as Arpa Chay (ArpaCay)by the Turks.Their contention is to make it Turkish based on the fact that "arpa" is in fact a Turkish word meaning barley (gari). This cannot be further from reality.

 

"Arpa" is the batsarakan holov (ablative case) of arp, among the other holovs- arp, arpi, arpa, arpov.

It is all derived from "arp" which originally meant "ether", the vacuum between the earth and the sun, stratosphere. In time the root word fell into disuse and the more common derivative "arpi" survived but this time to exclusively mean the sun.

Why were these rivers named Arpa. i.e. "from the sun"?

I personally witnessed a scene that made it clear as the (light)Sun. I was looking up a small creek next to Geghart. It was midmorning, as I looked up to see where it came from I was almost blinded, the sun was so huge and bright and as I looked up it seemed like the the stream was trickling right from the sun as if it was being squeezed out of it. No wonder the natives called it Arpa Get and held it to be sacred as in those days the sun was the source of all life, just as it is today, and it is sacred.

 

There are many variations of "arp", the most common being Arpi, a popular feminine and name. There seem to be no masculine counterpart except maybe Arpiar ??. Even more popular is Arpine(h) which brings us to the question why many Armenian feminine nouns and names end in "e" or "eh", as in Nane, Hermine etc. Yes, the "e" is a feminizing suffix, although not officially defined, it is not unique to Armenian. Many languages, including European as well as Oriental (Semitic) use the "e/ "a" ending to feminize. There may be numerous examples but suffice it to consider names like Robert and Roberta, Francisco and Francesca, Eugene and Eugenia (Evkineh) just as in the Arabic "amir" means prince and "amira"- princess. Ibn means "son" and "ibna"... well, I'll let others to comment on that.

[MosJan]

SHnorhakal em

[nairi]

Arpa, I heard somewhere that names of rivers and waters in general are usually given to girls among Armenians, and that of mountains to boys.

 

So Arpa and Arax are girl-names, but Masis and Ararat are boy-names.

 

However, I see these names interchanged as well, like Sevan for instance, which is given both to girls and boys. Ditto with Nairi (which is originally the name of the river "naru"). So how does this work??? Or is there no fine line between boys and girl-names in Armenian?*

 

* I mean names of nature like mountains and waters. Another question is how names of cities, provinces and lands are given to children. They too seem interchangeable. I'm aware of the fact that many of these names have only been given in recent years to children. But is that why there is no clear pattern yet? Or do we not want a clear pattern?

[Arpa]

Nairi you make a very interesting observation.

If I can be silly for a moment, mountains are used as boys' names because they ar projections and rivers are depressions. Ooops! Amot.:)

On a less serious thought, mountains are so peaceful and serene while rivers are so temperamemtal and viloent at times. Double amot indz:)

 

It would be interesting to find out.

Is there a parallel in other cultures?

I know why that river (Orontes)in Syria is called 'Asi in the local language. 'Asi, means rebellious, the river is called that because contrary to the northern hemisphere phenomenon it flows south to north.

As to Nairi, it depends who we are talking about , the Nairian aghjikneri hezajkun bar or the Nairian martikneri dzi ou ayr.

[Arpa]

I have not read the following in detail yet.

There may be some answers to your question.

I find the subject fascinating even if some of these may be sombody's inventions and overactive imagination.

 

http://www.tacentral.com/mythology.asp?story_no=9

[nairi]

The funny thing is that Nairi is mainly popular among men in Armenia. The tkhats (made-up/cooked-up/baked-up ) Naira was made to suit the Russian female -a ending. In reality -i endings are generally feminine in Armenian, or so I hear.

 

So how come Nairi is more popular among girls in diaspora than homeland girls? Another observation Nairi seems to be given more often to things in Armenia than to people: hotels, computers, cognac. What's up with that??

 

Don't know about other cultures. I'm thinking about European cultures... Thames? Seine? Maas? Alp? Pyrenees? Iberia? Never heard them given to children...

 

Thanks for the link. I wasn't able to find anything specifically answering my question, but I'm sure there must be something somewhere... or maybe not...

[Arpa]

Nairi,

Your generalization of rivers-girls' names and mountains=boys' names may not be such an idle one.

Before we forget let us also mention, among all the Ara..... mountains, Geghama Ler etc., our own mountain, Sipan at the north corner of Lake Van. The Turks call it Syup-han now.

Speaking of rivers, Nairi which is generally known the lands around Lake Van comes from an Akkadian word "naru" which simply means "river". Not without reason either. Consider all the rivers in tha region. So Nairi would be known as "land of rivers".

As to Araks/Yeraskh the myth mentioned in the link above has its basis, however mythical and legendary. The river is supposed to have been mentioned in the Bible as one of the four rivers of Eden, but it is called Gihon. They should go to gehena for corrupting our heritage so.

Once again, according to Khorentsi's legend Aramais had a grandson named Yerast for which the river was named Yeraskh. The river is also known as Araz(Turkish), Raz, Ros(Georgian), Rakhsi, Arezi and Ares.

The biblical name Gihon is supposed to mean "violent flow", which is kind of corroborated. Some in the past have attempted to connect the name to the nature of the river, i.e. noisy. Others have tried to derive it from "arag", fast. Ajarian's take of it is that it has to do something with "to hit/strike", khpel. Still others have insisted that it had to do with Ara/Aram. The most logical seems to come from what the Greeks have called the river, Araxes/Araxis (x as in kh), on which Ajarian bases his theory that the name derived from those languages and that it means to hit to strike.

 

As to feminine names ending in -i, I think as mentioned above, in the Armenian -eh anding is more common, as in Arpineh, Armineh, Karineh etc. Of course, then there is the -ouhi where that impression of the -i ending may have come.

[Arpa]

Of course!

How silly of me! How can I forget that in the Arabic the word for river is "nahr".

So, should we also amend our language and use "nairi" to mean get/river?

[Arpa]

Even more silliness.

Nairi, if what you say about rivers being used as girls' name why then we call a small river "arru/arrvak?

[nairi]

Speaking of rivers, Nairi which is generally known the lands around Lake Van comes from an Akkadian word "naru" which simply means "river". Not without reason either. Consider all the rivers in tha region. So Nairi would be known as "land of rivers".

Yeah, this is also what I know. Apparently "naru" also means source, becoming Land of Sources. Either way, it's water

 

As to feminine names ending in -i, I think as mentioned above, in the Armenian -eh anding is more common, as in Arpineh, Armineh, Karineh etc. Of course, then there is the -ouhi where that impression of the -i ending may have come.

 

That's right: -ouhi... But that's another type of ending.

 

-i turns out tougher than I thought. First of all, there's also the -uni ending: Amaduni, Erebuni. Again there's the homeland vs. diaspora naming, esp. with Erebuni, which is more popular among males in the homeland, but more popular among females in the diaspora.

 

Then there's the diminutive -i: Arazi (from river Araz) for men, but Araxi (from Arax) for women.

 

-a is senseless as well: Hratch for men, but Hrachya for both

Cilicia for men, but Biaina for women.

 

Maybe these are just exceptions to the rule, I don't know, but they don't seem to make it less confusing...

 

Nairi, if what you say about rivers being used as girls' name why then we call a small river "arru/arrvak?

 

But with a holov it would be: arrvi and arrvaki And if naru can turn into Nairi, then Arru should be able to turn into Airri

[nairi]

I realized a mistake. There's the -a ending and the -ya/ia ending. Apparently the latter is more popular among men: Sebastya for instance.

[nairi]

While we're at it How about -dukht for female names? Chosrovandukht, Haykandukht, Sandukht. They're hardly used anymore.

[Harut]

While we're at it How about -dukht for female names? Chosrovandukht, Haykandukht, Sandukht. They're hardly used anymore.

i think (not sure) it's from Persian 'dukhtar' to mean 'dustr' (in Arm) / doughter (in Eng).

[nairi]

I wouldn't be surprised if you were right Harut, however, you are breaking our nationalistic feelings here. We, Armenians, are supposed to have influenced the world, remember?

[Arpa]

Movses, you asked; Inch e nshanakum Arpa?

On the surface Arpa is a river, no, two rivers. One, also lnown as Arevelyan Arpa originates at the highlands of Artsakh, flows south west through Armenia, enters Naxijevan and pours into the Arax. At the present there is a project ro combine it with Vorotan creating the Arpa-Vorotan canal/tunnel diverting it towards Lake Sevan.

The other, better known as Akhourian in Armenian originates at Lake Arpi, flows southward along the Turkish Armenian border, also eventually joing Arax. This latter river is known as Arpa Chay (ArpaCay)by the Turks.Their contention is to make it Turkish based on the fact that "arpa" is in fact a Turkish word meaning barley (gari). This cannot be further from reality.

 

"Arpa" is the batsarakan holov (ablative case) of arp, among the other holovs- arp, arpi, arpa, arpov.

It is all derived from "arp" which originally meant "ether", the vacuum between the earth and the sun, stratosphere. In time the root word fell into disuse and the more common derivative "arpi" survived but this time to exclusively mean the sun.

Why were these rivers named Arpa. i.e. "from the sun"?

I personally witnessed a scene that made it clear as the (light)Sun. I was looking up a small creek next to Geghart. It was midmorning, as I looked up to see where it came from I was almost blinded, the sun was so huge and bright and as I looked up it seemed like the the stream was trickling right from the sun as if it was being squeezed out of it. No wonder the natives called it Arpa Get and held it to be sacred as in those days the sun was the source of all life, just as it is today, and it is sacred.

 

There are many variations of "arp", the most common being Arpi, a popular feminine and  name. There seem to be no masculine counterpart except maybe Arpiar ??. Even more popular is Arpine(h) which brings us to the question why many Armenian feminine nouns and names end in "e" or "eh", as in Nane, Hermine etc. Yes, the "e" is a feminizing suffix, although not officially defined, it is not unique to Armenian. Many languages, including European as well as Oriental (Semitic) use the "e/ "a" ending to feminize. There may be numerous examples but suffice it to consider names like Robert and Roberta, Francisco and Francesca, Eugene and Eugenia (Evkineh) just as in the Arabic "amir" means prince and "amira"- princess. Ibn means "son" and "ibna"... well, I'll let others to comment on that.  images/smiles/converted/smile.gif  images/smiles/converted/smile.gif  images/smiles/converted/smile.gif

ArmenPress

Oct 24 2003

 

LAKE SEVAN CONDITION TO STABILIZE

 

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 24, ARMENPRESS: Genadiy Kojoyam, the head of

Armenian Weather Service, said waters of the River of Arpa which will

start soon flowing into the Lake Sevan through Vorotan-Arpa tunnel to

Ketchut water reservoir and from there through Arpa-Sevan tunnel

(around 165 million cubic meters annually) apart from creating

optimum stable situation and improving the physical and chemical

characteristics of the lake, will have a positive impact on the

restoration of lake's fauna and its sustainable reproduction.

Waters of the River of Vorotan are rich in trout, a species dying

out in the lake. Instead of 120 million cubic meters of water

projected to be pumped out of the lake in 2003 for irrigation

purposes, only 109 million were taken, meantime around 230 million

cubic meters of water have flown into the lake since the beginning of

the year. The lake's level is now 43 cm higher than this time last

year.

[Arpa]

Movses, you asked; Inch e

ArmenPress

Oct 24 2003

 

LAKE SEVAN CONDITION TO STABILIZE

 

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 24, ARMENPRESS: Genadiy Kojoyam, the head of

=====

Waters of the River of Vorotan are rich in trout, a species dying

out in the lake. Instead of 120 million cubic meters of water

projected to be pumped out of the lake in 2003 for irrigation

purposes, only 109 million were taken, meantime around 230 million

cubic meters of water have flown into the lake since the beginning of

the year. The lake's level is now 43 cm higher than this time last

year.

The word around Lake Sevan was that the trout popularly known as Ishkhan Dzuk (Prince) was devastated after the introduction and evetual takeover by the Sig, another troutlike fish of the Salmonidae, with voracious appetite for trout eggs. In fact most of the restaurants served the sig instead of the Ishkhan.

Perhaps now there is hope for the return of that royal creature again.

 

An excerpt from the site below.

"On the recommendation of the hydrobiological station other lakes in Armenia have been 'seeded' with Sevan trout. The experiments to acclimatize Sevan trout to Lake Issyk-Kul, to the reservoirs of the Ukraine and to those of Karelia, have also been successful.

In the years 1924—27 the sig (a relative of the salmon) was transferred from Lake Ladoga and Lake Chud and successfully acclimatized to Sevan. These fish now grow more quickly, mature earlier and turn out plumper than their predecessors in the original environment."

 

http://www.sevan.am/pg1_2_2_1_2e.htm