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Gini/Wine


Arpa

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We read in History of Wine;

“It is a sobering thought that some spot on map below, unfamiliar as it is to most modern wine-lovers, may be the very place where man first tasted the wine. Whether it was in Turkey or Armenia that the first wine was made, there is no doubt that the Middle East is wine’s birthplace. Eastern Mediterranean was the France and Italy of the ancient world - until the eighth century and the advent of Islam.

 

The story is not too far fetched as the debate still goes on as to at which Mediterranean coast wine was brewed first. There are evidences in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, the Adriatic and even the Italian Penninsula. Most preciptate back to Asia Minor and the Adriatic.

 

The origin of wine may still be a matter of debate yet the origin of the word is not a mystery.

It is undoubtedly Armenian.Metsarents wrote;

"Gishern anush e, gishern heshtagin....

Louseghen jampen kantsnim es GINOV...."

 

"gini" is the mother of all other IE words to mean "wine".

It is a native Armenian word from the proto-IE "voinio", Greek- "oinos", wine, vin, vino, wein, vinum and more.

How?

The Armenian "gim" ends up as v or w in many other places. "gitun" ends up as "wit/wise" in English via the Greek/Latin "videre". "get"(river) turns into "wet/water" via "unda"(Gr.) and "voda"(Slavic), "gorts" ends up as "work/erg", "gayl" appears as "wolf", and many more.

 

Regardless where wine was first made the name was coined in Armenia.

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Dear Arpa,

You just lit a spark in my mind. It appears that wine was invented around 5000BC, about the same time as the indo-european languages started spreading away from the "indo-european homeland". Unless the cold Russian steppes (that are the favorite "homeland" of European linguists) was the place where wine originated, it gets eliminated as a candidate. That basically narrows the field of candidates for "indoeuropean homeland" down to one: Asia Minor.

 

Of course, now I should go back to my books to see how the "traditionalists" weaseled out of this inconsistency. I don't remember reading anything about this point.

 

TB

 

[ April 02, 2002, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Twilight Bark ]

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