Armenian Toponyms

[gamavor]

I would like to ask about your opinion on Armenian "sites and sounds". After the Independence lots of original names were restored, but were they all Armenian. For example Leninakan became Gumri (as far as I know it comes from turkish), which was the name of the city before the sovietization. Before that it was Alexandrapole (which is my preference). Probably there are many more cities and villages that want to get their names right.

 

 

[hyebruin]

what about the city 'karin' in western armenia, eastern turkey? i hear that's where the origin of my name comes from!!! please tell me it's NOT related to turkish!!! yikes!!! i'd have to change my name!!! ....what does 'karin' mean anyways? i asked people before, but nobody could give me an answer!!

[Sasun]

I think Karin is the Armenian name for Erzerum, and Gyumri used to be Kumayri (a more Armenian name I guess).

[hyebruin]

I think Karin is the Armenian name for Erzerum, and Gyumri used to be Kumayri (a more Armenian name I guess).

so what does erzrum mean? or karin? is it just a 'name'? thanks for the info

[Sasun]

so what does erzrum mean? or karin? is it just a 'name'? thanks for the info

Bruin jan, I don't know the meaning if it has one Could be just a name whose meaning has been forgotten.

[Azat]

Erzrum is Turkish for Show White if I am not mistaken...

[hyebruin]

Erzrum is Turkish for Show White if I am not mistaken...

 

two funnies in one day!!! hey hey, you're on a roll tootsie roll!!

[Teutonic Knight]

I would like to ask about your opinion on Armenian "sites and sounds". After the Independence lots of original names were restored, but were they all Armenian. For example Leninakan became Gumri (as far as I know it comes from turkish), which was the name of the city before the sovietization. Before that it was Alexandrapole (which is my preference). Probably there are many more cities and villages that want to get their names right.

 

 

I didn't know about that. In any case "Gyumri" is a stupid name and sounds foreign.

Alexandropole is Hellenic however it is preferable to oriental names.

 

Kumayri is a 100% Armenian name, it sounds great too!

 

They oughta do something about "Gegharkounik"

[ED]

I didn't know about that. In any case "Gyumri" is a stupid name and sounds foreign.

Alexandropole is Hellenic however it is preferable to oriental names.

 

Kumayri is a 100% Armenian name, it sounds great too!

 

They oughta do something about "Gegharkounik" 

There was a big demonstration and plea from qyavartsis to change that name:)

[Teutonic Knight]

There was a big demonstration and plea from qyavartsis to change that name:)

Did they throw potatoes?

[Harut]

what about the city 'karin' in western armenia, eastern turkey? i hear that's where the origin of my name comes from!!! please tell me it's NOT related to turkish!!! yikes!!! i'd have to change my name!!! ....what does 'karin' mean anyways? i asked people before, but nobody could give me an answer!!

read somewhere that Karine comes from... darn, forgot right now. but it is supposed to be formed of 'kar'/'kari' that means fire in that particular language, and 'ne', which is of course 'feminizer' in Armenian language.

[Harut]

yah, but nothing beats having a community in Yerevan called Bangladesh.

[hyebruin]

read somewhere that Karine comes from... darn, forgot right now. but it is supposed to be formed of 'kar'/'kari' that means fire in that particular language, and 'ne', which is of course 'feminizer' in Armenian language.

I KNEW IT!!!! my horoscope sign is fire as well!!!! so everything basically is pointing to the same thing!!

[MJ]

Gyumri and Kumairy are the same word - just pronunciation difference.

 

It was stupid to name the city its current name. This city was established by the Russian Empress Alexandra and it would have been proper to return her name to the city.

Edited October 13, 2003 by MJ

[Stormig]

Erzurum = Erzerum = arz-al rum = arz-ar'rum

Not sure if the "z" is plain z or z[.]... But arz means place (Arabic) and Rum means Roman/Greek. Place of Romans/Greeks. At least that was what was told me.

[Arpa]

Erzurum = Erzerum = arz-al rum = arz-ar'rum

Not sure if the "z" is plain z or z[.]... But arz means place (Arabic) and Rum means Roman/Greek. Place of Romans/Greeks. At least that was what was told me.

Very close!

 

True??

 

In the Arabic "ard/ardh/arz" does mean soil, land, country. Not to confuse with the Armenian word "art/ard", dasht, hand, field that is derived from "agro", even if the two may coincidentally point virually to similar meaning.

 

In Armenian histriography Karin is mentioned as Karno Dasht or Karno Shamb, the marshes of Karin as there was an extensive tract of marshy swampy land. Some believe that Karin is an evolved name of a tribe known as Karenitis. This may partially answer the question about the origin of the personal names of Karen and Karine.

In 421 the Byzantian emperor Theodosius II recognizing the strategic importance of the land/city fortified the walls and the fortress and renamed the Theodosopolis.... During the 6th c. the Persian king Khosrow conquered the city and enslaved the inhabitants and the Catholicos. In 628 the emperor Hercalius rebuilt the walls, and he invited the Catholicos to an ecclesiastical convocation and tried to have the Armenian church unite with the Orthodox by professing diphysitism. It failed. In 647 the Arabs conquered the city and renamed it Kalikala(expensive castle?). In 752 once again Emperor Constantin V took hold and moved many Armenian artisans and merchants to Constantinople. According to the Arab hsitorian Ibn Hawkal Karin was semi-autonomous within the Armenian kingdom under the rule of Ashot and Smbat Bagratuni. In 949 it was again conquered by Byzantium.

In 1049 the Seljuk Tughril invaded the city of Ardzn and razed it to the ground forcing the Armenian inhabitanst to migrate to Karin/Erzrum. The newly settled Armenians renamed the city Ardzn in memory of their ruined city, but to differentiate it from the original Ardzn the new one was known as Arzn al Rum (Arabic appellation), to mean Byzantian or Roman Arzn.

As mentioned above one would be tempted to ascribe it to the Arabic word ard/ardh/arz, this may be purely coincidental.

Even if Karin is now known as Erzrum, Arz-el-Rum it is is still the heir to the Armenian city of Arzn and it is Armenian.

[Arpa]

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

 

Kumayri, Gyumri.

 

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/history.html

 

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/

[Teutonic Knight]

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

 

Kumayri, Gyumri.

 

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/history.html

 

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/

I think "ayri" means noble.

[Arpa]

read somewhere that Karine comes from... darn, forgot right now. but it is supposed to be formed of 'kar'/'kari' that means fire in that particular language, and 'ne', which is of course 'feminizer' in Armenian language.

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The below quotes (bold) are from this site.

 

http://armenian.name/

 

KARINEH

According to H. Ajaryan it is one of the forms of the name Gayaneh. Probably it came from the name of the town Karin in XIX c. Note that it is not the female variant of the Persian name Karen.

=======

Ajarian may have a point if we consider the fact that in some Armenian dialects the R is elided and sounds like Y. We have seen this at another time when we were talking about Hamshen dialect where “yereq” was pronounce as “yiyeq”. The Zeituntsis do that too when they say “bolozdeq@ yoy kon” instead of “bolozdeq@ yor kon” (tghaq@/ yerekhaner@ our en”. Hopefully Ajarian is talking about this phenomenon in reverse I.e. the Y changing to R. However the above becomes even more suspect when we consider that Gayaneh is spelled with the Gim as oppsed to Karineh with Ken.

=======

KATAR

From Armenian katar "top". "head", "peak". As a name it appeared in XIX c. which is also considered to be one of the short forms of the name Katarineh (Yekaterina) though they are different both in their origin and meaning..

=======

 

Based on the above allow me to advance another probability

What if Karine/Karineh is an endearing contraction of Katarineh??

 

Of course, the name “katar” meaning “top/summit” is totally new to me. We always assumed that it was an abbreviated form of Katarineh. Rarely used now but I had known a few and, to corroborate this, the ones I knew were of the Armenian Catholic persuasion. Catherine?

 

BTW. Harut, stone/qar in Armenian is spelled with the Qe not Ken

Edited July 30, 2005 by Arpa

[Anoushik]

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

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That's right. (I hadn't seen this topic.)

 

In 1991 when Armenia became independent the people of Leninakan cast votes about whether to name the city Gyumri or Kumayri. I remember that there was a huge controversy. The city became divided between the group of people who wanted the name Gyumri and the people who wanted Kumayri. My parents wanted Kumayri. That's the original name of the city. Kumayri lost. Sometimes my dad angrily remarks that the reason Gyumri is still in such bad shape is because of its Turkified name.

[Anoushik]

It was stupid to name the city its current name.  This city was established by the Russian Empress Alexandra and it would have been proper to return her name to the city.

style_images/master/snapback.png

That's not true. The city was long before established before it became Alexandrapol.

[Arpa]

Gyumri, or Gumru is a turkified form of Kumayri that is supposed to indicate that the original name was based on the fact that it was first established and inhabited by Kimerians, i.e. Cimerians. I have no opinion as to how Kimeria(?) becomes Kumayri

 

Kumayri, Gyumri.

 

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/history.html

 

http://www.gyumri.am/eng/

So many times , here and at every Armenian fora the postulate of how the Celts have originated in Asia Minor.

I was reading an article where it contends that the Celts have been everywhere, mostly in Europe though, and among those who claim to be of Celtic ancestry, the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh who seem to be the most passionate. They call themselves “kum-ree”, and connect themselves to the Cymerians.

See for yourself.

 

http://www.welshdragon.net/product_info.ph...products_id=271

 

What is Welsh?

[whatis]

Welsh is a member of the Celtic family of languages. It is closely related to Cornish and Breton and more distantly related to Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. The Celtic languages were spoken throughout the British Isles long before English was brought to Great Britain by Germanic invaders from northern Europe. Welsh is thought by some to be the oldest living language in Europe. The Welsh name for Welsh is Cymraeg which is pronounced cum-RAIG (the last syllable rhymes with the first syllable of "tiger"). The Welsh name for Wales is Cymru (KUM-ree). The Welsh name for the Welsh people is Cymry, pronounced the same as Cymru.

 

Isn't Welsh just a dialect of English? Not at all. Welsh is an entirely different language that had already existed for centuries before English began to evolve from its Germanic roots. Here are some examples: Welsh: Mae Cymraeg yn iaith hen iawn. English: Welsh is a very old language. Welsh: Croeso i'r safle Gwe 'ma. English: Welcome to this Web site.

 

Isn't Welsh a dead language? Not yet! Estimates vary, but it's believed that about 15-20% of the Welsh population speak Welsh as a first language and perhaps another 15-20% are fluent second-language speakers. Many more are in the process of learning the language. The number of second-language speakers is growing rapidly, especially among younger age groups. This is a hopeful sign that in two or three generations Welsh will be restored as the community language in many parts of Wales. Realistically, however, Wales will always be a bilingual country where nearly everyone will also speak English.

 

Why should I learn Welsh? Everyone in Wales speaks English, right? It's true that nearly everyone in Wales speaks some English. Especially in predominantly Welsh-speaking areas, you will still find many Welsh-speakers who are not comfortable with English. Some of the reasons that people give for learning Welsh include Out of a sense of national pride or identity To converse with Welsh-speaking friends and family members To expand one's employment opportunities To be able to read Welsh literature Out of sheer love for the language and a desire to help save it There are no "right" or "wrong" reasons for learning Welsh (or any other language). Different people will be motivated by different factors depending upon their individual circumstances.

 

Is Welsh hard to learn? Welsh is a little harder than many other European languages to get started in because the grammar is very different from that of English. Once you get over this minor obstacle, however, Welsh turns out to be relatively easy as languages go. The grammar, although different, is actually quite straightforward, and a large vocabulary can be quickly acquired once you realize that a huge number of Welsh words are formed by adding prefixes, endings, or other words onto a stem word. For many learners, especially outside Wales, the hardest part is finding classes to take and other Welsh-speakers to practice with. High-quality self-study materials have also been hard to come by, but the number of publications aimed at learners has been growing rapidly in recent years.

[Arpa]

yah, but nothing beats having a community in Yerevan called Bangladesh.

Yeah right!

Was this typhoon/harutfoon in the suburbs of Yerevan?

A long time ago, even before East Pakistan was renamed Bangladesh, when there was another typhoon that killed hudreds of thousands, I asked one of my "East Pakistani" classmate why is it that hundreds of thousands die from a a simple high wind, and why it is that they are so numerous in numbers. His answer was- In "Bangladesh" there are not enough means of entertainement except the "entertaiment of making babies". Yeah right! "Making babes"? Other mammals (canines?)know better how.

Why is that every time there is a disaster in Bangladesh, only the western civilizations are the first to respond?

India, the next door up and coming mega-economy of over a billion population, China, the other mega-economy of a billion+ popultaion don't even move a finger, be it the middle or the index one?

Yeah, yeah! Let them entertain themselevs making more babies with no thought of where and how those babies will live or die.

Who said that, we here in the west have to work 25 hours a day to come to their rescue when they spend 25 hours a day making new babies?

Edited November 20, 2007 by Arpa

[Arpa]

Before we proceed, let us observe a moment of silence in memory of Dec. 7, 1988.

That terrible and tragic day of the BIG EARTQUAKE

The Article below From ArmeniaNow is quite exhaustive and very informational as to how the original name Kumayri was turkified to “kumri” and why. With one omission about the origin of the name from Cimmeria/Kimmeria/Cimmerian.

Look above Post # 22.

Also see who and what the Cimmerians/Kimmerians were;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerians

===

http://www.armenianow.com/sites/default/files/img/imagecache/600x400/gyumri-square.jpg

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http://www.armenianow.com/commentary/analysis/26316/kumayri_alexandrapol_gyumri_renaming

Analysis | 07.12.10 | 13:07

From Kumayri to Alexandrapol, Leninakan and Gyumri: What’s the historically fair name of Armenia’s second city?

 

NAZIK ARMENAKYAN

ArmeniaNow

Modern day Gyumri

By Aris Ghazinyan

ArmeniaNow reporter

At a meeting with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirril I, on December 2, Gyumri mayor Vardan Ghukasyan brought up the idea expressed by many residents of Gyumri to rename the city back to its historical name – Alexandrapol.

The mayor’s suggestion caused a stir in Armenia’s second city, and was read by some as the further “Russianization of Armenia”.

A closer look, however, shows different motives – including the fact that the current name is of Turkish origin – and is one reason over the past years more and more residents of Gyumri talk about recovering the city’s former name. Alexandrapol’s history goes back to 1837, when Emperor Nikolay I personally visited the settlement, which later was named in honor of the emperor’s wife. The place itself was not a city yet. It was a settlement with fortresses erected in early 19th century, as strongholds during the war against Ottoman Empire. It was the Turks who called the place “gyumri”, which meant “customs”. Yet a thousand years before the “the customs”, there was an ancient Armenian settlement called Kumairy, which stood where today’s Gyumri is. In late 5th c. BCE ancient Greek historian Xenophon wrote about Giumnias – “a big, rich and crowded” city. Armenian historian Ghevond (8th c., during the Arab rule) – has reference to Kumairy of his period already as a settlement. The Turks who took possession of that territory played the similarity between the traditional name of the settlement and the Turkish word ‘gyumri’ meaning “customs”, and altered Kumayri to Gyumri. The concept of ‘Gyumretsi’ (native of Gyumri) is the Turkish equivalent of tax- or tribute-collector, as well as a money-lender, money-changer. For dozens of years the Armenians of Kumayri struggled to free themselves of the Turkish yoke, of the hated name Gyumri, and connected all the hopes with Russia - a country that shared the same faith with them. In 1826 the former customs finally rid itself of the Turkish oppression. In 1840 the fortress of Alexandrapol was officially proclaimed a city, and in 1850 that city became the center of Alexandrapol uyezd [district] of Erivan province. As a result of the railway lines Tiflis [Tbilisi] - Alexandrapol- Kars and Alexandrapol-Erivan [Yerevan]-Julpha laid later, it became also one of important communications hubs. The moment when ‘customs’ became Alexandrapol marked the launch of the settlement-to-city transformation process. By a special decree it was developing in accordance with the standards established for Rostov, Kars and Shushi. That period saw the formation of a new type of Eastern Armenia-based Armenians, who combined the best traits of Armenian, Russian, Caucasian and even European cultures. Nonetheless, today’s residents’ growing desire to rename the city is not so much dictated by the drive for the recovery of historical justice (in that case it would make more sense to rename it Kumayri), as by the realization of the deficit of urban culture, and of the loss of urban values and traditions. The concept of “Alexandrapoltsi” (native of Alexandrapol) meant belonging to urban culture. If Gyumri nurtured money-lenders and did not leave behind any more or less worthy name, Alexandrapol, on the contrary, gave birth to mystic Gyurjiyev and sculptor Merkurov, poet Isahakyan and painters Aslamazyan sisters – names that soon became known in all Europe. Alexandrapol became the city of craftsmen, where more than a hundred kinds of crafts flourished – goldsmith craft, smith craft, copper, tin working and casting. Masons, layers, carpenters were especially respected and demanded. While churches were built in a traditionally established manner, residential and public buildings incorporated new – Russian and European – tendencies. After Sovietization the city – then renamed into Leninakan (after communist leader Vladimir Lenin) – lost some of its qualities, but due to the massive “Alexandrapol stratum” it kept standing out among other regions. The city was renamed yet another time in the early 1990s – back to the Turkish name Gyumri along with the objectively brewing multidimensional crisis, and reanimated the pitiful and humiliated Gyumretsi type of the times of Turkish oppression. It is against this reanimated image that many residents of Armenia’s second biggest city are speaking out, and moreover, they say that the mayor who actually voiced that issue in his conversation with the Russian Patriarch would never be able to become the mayor of Alexandrapol, he can only be the mayor of Gyumri. Today’s tour around Gyumri is the fixation of the victory of money-lenders’ world perception. In the current whirlpool of the construction boom, that traditional stratum of Alexandrapol culture is under the threat of complete destruction, either through demolishing the old housing, or their adjustment to the architectural taste of the new rich. But if Alexandrapoltsis knew their limits, Gyumretsis never new such limits and still don’t. It is that all-permissiveness that the residents of Kumayri-Alexanrapol-Leninakan-Gyumri oppose, and in their quiet desire to reclaim a name, seek also to reclaim a character by which their city was honored in its best days.

Edited December 7, 2010 by Arpa