Turkish words in Armenian

[Guest]

I know for instance some Armenian dialects have more Turkish words than others, but what are some common Turkish words used in Armenian?

[Guest]

gyozal or gyuzal'-cool, beautiful

gyoz dnel- to peep

gyol', like toghmakh gyol'-small water reservoir

hisan or isan- a human, a man

yavash-yavash- gradually

maidan- square, public

 

and also as a joke:

qyart-qyart hayvan(arb.) -for crocodile

apal-tapal - ambulance

babat hayvan - hipopotamus

jarma maidan - goalkeepers square in soccer

bir jigit yokhtur bashka - the hero of Mine Reed's famous novel

 

Arayzhm

[Guest]

Good list Berj, though I think "meidan" might be Persian in origin, as it is "meidoon" in Farsi, but then who knows? Plus in Farsi we say "yavash" to mean "slow" or "slow down."

[Guest]

I think the following words are also turkish:

 

gyor - grave

gyorbagyor linel - to die

gyamer@ qashel - curb

rad linel - get out (go away)

bayghush - not quite sure what this means

ghalat anel - "do the wrong thing"

qyalla - head

shalvar - pants (I think originally it meant women's pants)

qyalam - cabbage

xiar - cucumber

changyal - fork (or hook)

 

I'm not quite sure that all these words are turkish, some of them might be arabic or persian. One thing I want to mention, is that in Armenia these words (at least most of'em) are used only in verbal, not written language. Most commonly and frequently they are used by people with lowest level of education, in the streets. You will never hear these words on TV or read in a newspaper.

 

I think one reason why people use so many foreign words (turkish, russian, etc.) when Armenian equivalents exist, is their ease of pronunciation. Like it's easier to say changyal than pataraqagh. That's why some of the newly invented Armenian words get adopted quickly and others are almost never used. Of course, sometimes our linguists invent such awkward words - I don't know what they think when they do that. Who, for God's sake, will say "hatakapatayin taparakapayt" instead of "plintus" (skirting board, plinth)? On the other hand "heragir" (telegraph), herakhos (telephon)and surj (coffee) are also invented, but are commonly used, because they sound nice and are easy to pronounce.

Sorry for deviating from the topic at the end

[Guest]

Changal, khiar and kalam are also used in Farsi, and I am pretty sure they are Persian rather than Turkish in origin, as the Turks borrowed Persian words for food and eating utensils, as they were nomads before with no real cuisine tradition. "Shalvar" is also used in Farsi, but I think that might really be Turkish. I must differ with you on only Armenians of "low education" use the words listed, my family since my great grandfather have been college educated, and we use these words. My Grandfather attended college in England, and my Grandmother finished "finishing school" a major accomplishment for an Armenian woman in the 1930s.

[Guest]

Half Breed,

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anybody. If you read my message again, I wrote they are most frequently used by uneducated people IN ARMENIA, not elsewhere. In fact, in Yerevan, these words are like first sign to guess about a person's level of education and environment he/she was raised.

It is natural, that Western Armenians, or those living in America and Europe for several generations, use these words, regardless of education. Maybe it's even a good sign showing that they maintained their language, including all turkish, arabic and persian words used by their great grand parents. Well, in Armenia most of educated people are instead "plagued" by another thing - russian words. They use them much more than folks with less education. That's the consequences of Russian influence.

I am not a fanatic and purist of the language. For instance, I don't think we should say "hamakargich", when the rest of the world says "computer". Some overly zealous linguists try to invent Armenian words for every single modern phenomenon, equipment or term, which I think is ridiculous. However, I believe we must try to use Armenian equivalents when they are readily available, easy to pronounce, express the meaning and/or sound nice.

[Guest]

Yes Farsi, both "maidan" and "yavash" can have Persian origin, I'm not sure.

 

gyulla- a bullet

gyullel - to kill

[Guest]

Gotcha Ahura! I guess in Armenia it is a sign of lower education. Most of those words are used by Barskahays when speaking in Armenian, simply because of the strong Persian influence on our dialect. By contrast, "tsavet tanem" and "vontses" common among Hayastansis of all education levels, is only used by the lower class Barskahays, like from the Vanak district in Tehran. So go figure! It is really hard to eliminate Farsi words from our everyday speech, and when a person tries they seem a bit show-off!

[Guest]

Some words from Turkish:

 

Ghap@sh: Hap'shtagel.

Pamuk Pambak Cotton.

Pasterma dried, jerked, cured meal.

Zurna, Saz (music instruments)

Ghimet= Arjek Es ko ghimetn (arjek@) chim kidi....

Ghurban Zoh, madagh.

Thanks...

[Guest]

"Zourna" is a general instrument for all indo-europeans of caucasus, middle east and central asia.

 

In persian it's "sournai" and also in all pamirian and badakhshan languages. Turks did not have this instrument until they came to Asia Minor, so the word is not turkish.

Arayzhm

[Guest]

When my grandfather was mad at us, he would say ZIBIL. Which we always thought was turkish for "trash", but I think it's a little dirtier of a word than that

[Guest]

Pilaf jan,

 

Zibil means exactly trash in many Turkish Anatolian dialects. The standard word being çöp.

 

There are also Armenian words used in Turkish, such as bizdik referring to children. Languages always work two ways: influencing and being influenced.

[Guest]

First off all: Did you know that in Turkish cross means hach like in Armenian? I thing because the first christian nation which was met by the Turks during their way to Anatolia was Armenian nation.

Second: Turk elites for a long time didn't use their own language.They were talking in Osman language which was consiste of Turkish, Persian and Arabic words. The grammar was Persian. Only folk used their folk turkish language.In the beggining of XXc. maybe 1920-30 thay started to clean Turkish from strange words.For exemple they changed a lot of geografic,villages names which were in Armenian, Kurdish or Arabic. But some of persian and arab words stayed.

By the way it's interesting how they lived without their own language since XXc.And did you know that since 1935 Turks did'n have surnames.

[aurguplu]

dera taguhi,

there are quite a few words in turkish of armenian origin, as would be expected from a language that coexisted with armenian for almost a millennium. "haç" is one, "kama" (dagger) is another (apparently it comes from "kam" in armenian), "bızdık" is another, "nanik" (the offensive manual gesture children make at one another) is another, and i am sure the list can go on. eastern anatolian dialects and kurdish (especially the zaza variant) are known to have a lot of armenian vocabulary, mainly relating to various crafts like stonemasonry and carpentry, and also architectural vocab, also household language, as women were usually of armenian origin and the ran the household.

by the way, you were not the only christian nation we met on our way from central asia, in fact, there were manichean and nestorian christian turks in central asia about two-to three hundred years prior to our departure. also, the gagauz (gök-oğuz) turks are christian. they were a part of the seljuks, they must have turned christian either in central asia or in anatolia (of course, there was no talk of christianity amongst turks until the republic, a very delicate matter as far as national and religious pride is concerned).

a few words on the turkish language: the osman, or more properly osmanlı or ottoman, is basically anatolian turkish with loads of arabic and persian in it. it is the grammar which remained more or less turkic, whereas most of the vocabulary was arabic and persian. also, arabic and persian phrases were intoduced into the language with their own grammar, so you have entire pieces of arabic and persian floating in a sea of turkish.

there were several reasons they did this: the first was that the oghuz tribes who were the ancestors of anatolian (and azeri and turkmen) turks were not the cultured turks (like the uighurs, for instance). when they first encountered islam (and it wasn't a peaceful one, more on that later) they were overwhelmed by the "high" arabo-persian culture and adopted it pretty much wholesale, to the point of formulating their history along arabo-persian lines (genealogies that trace ruling families back to mohammad etc.) that of course included the languge. the whole process is very reminiscent of the response of the germanic invaders of europe to the higher roman culture they were conquered by, and earlier, the response of the romans to the higher greek culture they were conquered by when conquering greece, and the higher anatolian culture the earliest greeks were conquered by when they had first arrived at anatolia and present-day greece.

the second is that when they came to anatolia, there already was a system of administration which they preferred to take over rather than introduce (or invent) an entirely new system for an entirely new country. this is a very logical move common to most conquerors. you conquer the rulers, alleviate their pressure on the populace, and they rule the country for you. of course, this also means thta you borrow the entire administrative terminology together with the system.

the third is that ottoman, being a state language, was in need of a degree of secrecy. what better way to hide information than to write it down in an incomprehensible language?

the fourth is, anatolia also contained a number of persian and arabic speaking peoples upon our arrival, and during the latter centuries, more and more of these peoples did end up in anatolia. so there is also some real arabo-persian admixture which contributed to it (of course, the attitude of turks - otherwise remarkably fre of racist prejudices - toward the arabs and the persians is a bit like the attitude of the american whites toward the blacks and hispanics, so this last one doesn't wash down well in turkey).

so in sum, it is not entirely correct that we lived without our language for so long. the phenomenon that we experienced is called "diglossia" in english. this means that a society has two forms of speech that are sharply different from one another, even though they are of the same origin. the "higher" variety is used for government purposes and the like, while the "lower" variety is used for everyday speech. contemporary arabic is a good example to that, as was italy at the time of petrarca and dante. those days, latin was the high variety, and italian was the low variety. it wasn't until a bit after dante that italian became firmly established.

we had surnames since 1935, it is before that period that we did not have them. people had their given names, and other designations that secured their identity.

the reason the government changed the village names has more to do with the erasing of the past rather than the purification of the language.

regards,

[ June 25, 2001: Message edited by: aurguplu ]

[nmarzonie]

I know for instance some Armenian dialects have more Turkish words than others, but what are some common Turkish words used in Armenian?

 

The amount of Turkish words used in Armenian really varies greatly; some Western Armenian speakers use almost as many Turkish words as Armenian. Many of these words are not quite used interchangeably, but have slightly different meanings to the speakers. Here are some examples I know of:

 

 

Pabuj- "shoes" in Turkish, originally from Persian; used to mean walking shoes or kicks

Goshig- "shoes" in standard Armenian, used to mean hiking boots or work boots

Ayakkabi- "shoes" in Turkish, used for either or slippers

 

Kharaj- "taxes" in Turkish, generally used to mean tribute or extra-legal fees charged such as by a racketeer

Harg- "taxes" in Armenian, used for legitimate government-levied taxes

 

Dziran- "apricot" in Armenian

Zerdali- "apricot" used to mean a specific, tart variety in Turkish

 

Turunj- "orange" meaning a small, bitter variety

Narinch- "orange" word commonly used in Armenian, but I think it might be from another language originally

 

Ayna- "mirror" in Turkish, used for compact mirrors

Hayli- "mirror" in Armenian, used for large mirrors

 

Hov- "wind" in Armenian

Anafor- "wind" from Turkish, used for eddying wind caused between tall buildings

 

Other words are just used interchangeably but one is usually preferred over the other for style or speaker preference:

 

(Trk/Arm-Eng)

 

aslan/aroodz- lion

ada/ gghzi- island

hasta/ hivant- sick (person)

arzoo/ oozadz- desire

daha/ avli- more

yetim/ vorp- orphan

armood/ dandz- pear

afyon/ apyon- opium

yanakh/ ayd- cheek

fil/ pigh- elephant

hammamji/ paghban- bath house keeper, masseuse

shey/ pan - thing

ashchi/ panvor- workman

pech/ oos- shoulder

blbool/ sokhak- nightengale

avooj/ poor- handfull

yatakh/ angoghin- bed

zati/ pnaganoren- naturally

elmas/ adamant- diamond

khoyin/ vochkhar- sheep

jeb/ gurban- pocket

sheftal/ deghdz- peach

yavash/ gamats- slowly

yokh/ chiga- there isn't any...

yaa/ yookh- fat, grease

raha/ hankeest- rest, siesta

habbe/ hadig- piece (of anything)

baba/ hayrig- papa, daddy

shereef/ badeev- honor

javjav/ hndoohav- turkey (bird)

nafs/ hokee- soul, person (the plural of "nafs" is "noofoos" for some reason)

shindi/ hima- right now!

 

There are numerous other words I have only ever heard the Turkish for among Western Armenian speakers in America. Some of them are very specific things, others more general:

 

peej- bastard

jeeyer- liver

zerboon- vest

etek- skirt

herifane- splitting a check, sharing the bill

yali- lakeside house

zar- dice

rakhi- liquor

sarma- stuffed grape leaves

dolma- stuffed peppers

ekmekji- bread baker

yahni- I mean to say, that is

zabit- inspector, public official

moodir- school principal

yay- bow (for shooting arrows), but arrow is always Armenian "ned"

herniseh- however

yoolaf- oats

sher- personality defect

kata- thin pastries

hop hop- to jump around, skip

zefkhiji- sports fan

eshek- donkey, jackass (strangely I only very infrequently hear the Armenian word "esh;" possibly because this also is a Turkish word for "spouse" and people want to avoid confusion!)

kherbaj- whip

gejeb- fruit peel

nikris- gout, arthritis

aman!- wow!

hamayil- amulet

shinik- half a bushel

fistik- pistachio

meze- appetizer, snack

nakhashji- house painter

Strangely, many WA speakers use Turkish words for the numbers eighty and ninety (seksen and dokhsan rather than Armenian ootsoon and innsoon) exclusively.

 

 

That's all I can think of right now, but there are many other examples. It can be quite confusing; many of the words I thought were Armenian growing up turn out to be Turkish and I am just now learning the difference. There are rules that help, though. For instance, Armenian has very few words that start with "r" (you can just about count them on one hand), so almost all words with "r" at the beginning are Turkish (or some other language):

 

rafadan- boiled egg

raf- shelf

resim- picture

roobar- comparison