The meaning of բան

[H D]

As far as I know, բան means "thing" and it is even used to mean "work" or "to enact", as in բանուոր (worker) and բանըցնել (enact). But I also know that it is used for "word" which is the exact opposite of the above. However, there is something very confusing here because բան stands in the place of where logos appears in words of Greek derivation, as in biology; but logos in Greek doesn't really translate to "word" either.

I ask because I have written something about the Armenian translation of the book of John, in which the sentence "in the beginning was the Word," in Armenian in translated as "Zgispen er բանը." But as I said բան isn't really "word" at all.
There's a theological reason for this I think, because God's word is supposedly a "creative word". But is it that Mashdots rendered "word" in the Armenian word for "word" which subsequently became associated with "work"; or, was բան "work" or "act" to begin with and subsequently associated with "words"?

Any expertise would be appreciated.

[Arpa]

At the time  I did not have the means to wite in Armenian
http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=7979&st=0
Here are what Ajarian says about the subject
See Ban here;
page 408 / 2705
And Bal here;  page 388 / 2705
Assuming you can see and read the site. Please go back and forth to see other meanings of both Bal and Ban.
http://www.nayiri.com/imagedDictionaryBrowser.jsp?dictionaryId=7&pageNumber=388
　

[Arpa]

Unlike Ajarian, Ghapantsian does not acknowledge the relation of Ban to Bal. He writes in length about Ban.

See Page 347 / 2409

Here;

http://nayiri.com/imagedDictionaryBrowser.jsp?dictionaryId=6&pageNumber=347

I had known most of it, but I found a few surprises.. Beside the fact Ban means word/lgos, it also means work., as in “Hats ou panir ker ou banir“.

Here is the most surprising. We all know that ban is often used to mean “thing“ . He explains why. Out of modesty, at times to avoid using the word people would refer to private parts as ban, also when people forget the word of an object/thing, i.e “What is the WORD for it“?. When in fact the word for “thing” is IK, at times “irk”. I had known this. An old friend who was born in Kharberd and spoke very good Armenian would never use ban to mean thing, instead he use ik/irk. Ir in fact means an object.

See page

805 / 2409 in the above site..

[H D]

Thank you, that's a very good source. I figured that բան might be used as "thing" only as a place-holder for a word one couldn't think of ( or in your example, an obscene word one didn't want to say), and I understand that բան can mean both "word" and "deed", but what I want to know is whether it means "word" simply because of how it is used in its theological context in the the book of John, when it is clearly used in the sense of "work" which is the opposite of "word". Did Mashdots use բան to combine the otherwise incompatible ideas of "word" and "deed" to indicate the supposed "creative word" of God?