Chuvash-Kurdish lexical parallels

[Alpakut]

The Chuvash language has quite a lot of words you can find a match in the Iranian languages or even just in a few of them, but the Chuvash-Kurdish lexical parallels are the most numerous.


[TABLE="width: 400, align: right"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Kurdish and other Iranian[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Chuvash and other Turkic[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]bet “a bustard”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]větel “woodkock”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]kere “butter”, Gilyak kəre “butter”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]kěrě “fat”, Azer. kərə “butter”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]kerdî “furrow”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]kěrche “wrinkled”, Common Turkic kırış- “wrinkled”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]qarîk “a raven”, qarîtk “a partridge”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]karăk, kurak “a wood grouse, raven, crow”, Kazakh qur “a partridge”, Azer. turac “a partridge”, Common Turkic karga “a raven, crow”, Yakut turaah “a raven, crow”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]qure “proud”, from Arabic ḡarra “proud”?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]küren “to be offended”, Old Turkic küçen- “to be offended”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]nar “fire”, Persian nar “fire”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]nar “blush”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]pek “suitable”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]pek “like, similar”, Turkish pek “much, big, solid, firm, very, quite”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]sap “a ladle”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]sapa “basket”, Turkish sepet “basket”, from Persian sabad “basket”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]saman “riches"[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]semn “riches”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]stûr “thich”, and other Ir.[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]satur “strong”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]soma “pupil of eye”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]săna “to observe”, Kazakh janar “pupil”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]sor “red”, Persian sorx “red”, Old Persian θuxra “bright”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]sără “paint”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]sehre “sorcery, witchcraft”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]seхre "fear"; from Arabic siḥr, “magic”?[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]semer “darkness”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]sěm “darkness”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]çal “a pit”, Persian čal “a pit”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]çăl “a well, source”, Azer. çala “pit”, Common Turkic çök- “fall in”, čok- “hole, pit”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]çîrt “pus”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]çěrt “to let rot”, Azer. çirk “pus”, Common Turkic çürük/çürüt “decay”, Old Turkic çürü- “to go sour”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]çîban “a pimple”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]çăpan “a furuncle”, Uzbek çipkon “an abscess”, Old Turkic çıpığan/çupağan “Jujube fruit”, Common Turkic çıpkan/çıkan “sth. coming out”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]çêl “a cow”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]çile “an udder”, Kazakh jelin “an udder”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]tar “a pole”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]tar “a poplar”, Kazakh terek “a poplar”, Turkish direk “a pole”, same word found in other Turkic languages[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]taw “a downpour”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]tăvăl “a storm”, Kazakh & Bashkir dauyl “a storm”, Tatar davıl “a storm”, Old Turkic verb taš- "to overflow"[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]tobe “an oath”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]tupa “an oath”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]toraq “cheese”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]turăx “fermented baked milk”, Turkish doğrak, doğru “cheese”[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]xumar “morose”, xumari “darkness”[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]xămăr “brown”
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Alan]

proud = fêz or serbilindî

fire = Agr/Ayr/Adr, never heard nar. Persian for fire is Atash.

suitbale = pek or bashebash

red= sor/sur, is not Persian but general Iranic. Persians say sorx. Pashto the same.

darkness = tarîtî or semer

cheese =peynîr, general Iranic term

 

[Alpakut]

proud = fêz or serbilindî

fire = Agr/Ayr/Adr, never heard nar. Persian for fire is Atash.

suitbale = pek or bashebash

red= sor/sur, is not Persian but general Iranic. Persians say sorx. Pashto the same.

darkness = tarîtî or semer

cheese =peynîr, general Iranic term

What do you think, why are there so many Chuvash-Kurdish lexical parallels?

 

[Alan]

Some reasonable explanations are here. Chuvash are geneticwise mostly of Scythian descend with some East Eurasian admixture. A common Iranic substrata.

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31259-The-Scythian-origin-of-Haplogroup-HV2(a)

 

[Alpakut]

Some reasonable explanations are here. Chuvash are geneticwise mostly of Scythian descend with some East Eurasian admixture. A common Iranic substrata.

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31259-The-Scythian-origin-of-Haplogroup-HV2(a)

Looks like a reasonable one, except for the part regarding the "Turkization through East Eurasian input". However, HV probably originated somewhere in the vicinity of the Near East or Caucasus. Is Scythian ancestry only limited to mtDNA HV2 and U7?

 

[Alan]

Looks like a reasonable one, except for the part regarding the "Turkization through East Eurasian input". However, HV probably originated somewhere in the vicinity of the Near East or Caucasus. Is Scythian ancestry only limited to mtDNA HV2 and U7?

HV definitely originated somewhere between the Zagroes and Taurus mountains thats out of doubt. HV2 originated somewhere in the Iranian plateau moved Northeast and there merged with other Haplogroups building the Andronovo culture.

Scythian mtDNA is not limited to HV2 and U7. In fact in the thread I even wrote HV1 was slightly more frequent than HV2 just that HV2 has a more exclusive Iranic(Scythian) distribution while HV1 also exists in signifcant percentage among non Indo_Iranic people.

I have also heard that Haplogroups such as T, H and J were found among Scythians but just as HV1 those Haplogroups are also more widespred and not that "exclusively" linked to the expansion as HV2.

U7 seems to have a Indo European distribution too. it was found in Hallstatt culture too.

 

[Armuti]

There is alternative etymological explanation for almost all of the Chuvash-Kurdish lexical parallels given here.

• bet “a bustard” větel “woodkock” - Chuvash вĕтел (vĕtel) is a loan from Mari language, ultimately from Veps vitlik. [Fedotov Etymological Dictionary of the Chuvash Language, 1996]
• kere “butter”, Gilyak kəre “butter” kěrě “fat”, Azer. kərə “butter” - Chuvash кĕрĕ (kĕrĕ) 'fat, stout, solid' is native to Chuvash, and is cognate with Turkish gür. [Fedotov]
• kerdî “furrow” kěrche “wrinkled”, Common Turkic kırış- “wrinkled” - Chuvash кĕрче (kĕrce) has no certain etymological explanation. But also kerdî is Google translated as 'card'.
• qarîk “a raven”, qarîtk “a partridge” karăk, kurak “a wood grouse, raven, crow”, Kazakh qur “a partridge”, Azer. turac “a partridge”, Common Turkic karga “a raven, crow”, Yakut turaah “a raven, crow” - Chuvash карăк (karăk) "capercaillie" and курак (kurak) "rook, crow" are of separate origins. I was not able to find neither qarîk nor qarîtk in Google. The closest I found is 'qerxe'. While there is no certain origin of karăk, kurak is native to Chuvash. It may also have formed due to onomatopoeia.
• qure “proud”, from Arabic ḡarra “proud”? küren “to be offended”, Old Turkic küçen- “to be offended” - Chuvash кÿрен (küren) is considered native, and is unlikely to be related to the Arabic mentioned. Fedotov relates it to Turkish küs- rather than gücen-.
• nar “fire”, Persian nar “fire” nar “blush” - Chuvash нар (nar) is debatable in terms of origin: Perisan نار‎ 'pomegranate' / Arabic نَار‎ 'fire' / Mongolian нар 'sun'. I was not able to find as 'nar' for Kurdish [Fedotov and Wiktionary].
• pek “suitable” pek “like, similar”, Turkish pek “much, big, solid, firm, very, quite” - Chuvash пек (pek), also attested as кеп (kep) and кап (kap) is certainly of native stock, and is cognate with Turkish gibi [Fedotov]. Any similarity with the Kurdish pek (?) is accidental.
• sap “a ladle” sapa “basket”, Turkish sepet “basket”, from Persian sabad “basket” - Chuvash -сапа (-sapa) of савăт-сапа possibly was a noun denoting some type of a container. However it is савăт (savăt) which is a loan from Persian سبد‎ sabad [Fedotov]. I was not able to find Kurdish sap in the meaning 'ladle'.
• saman “riches" semn “riches” - Chuvash семен (semen) is a dialectal word, origin unclear.
• stûr “thich”, and other Ir. satur “strong” - Chuvash сатур (satur) is obviously a recent loan from Russian: задорный. Clearly, Kurdish parallel is out of question.
• soma “pupil of eye” săna “to observe”, Kazakh janar “pupil” - Chuvash сăна (săna) 'observe, test' is native, and cognate of Turkish sına- [Fedotov].
• sor “red”, Persian sorx “red”, Old Persian θuxra “bright” sără “paint” - Chuvash сăрă (sără) seems native, i.e. Turkic, but is argued to have been loaned from Chinese [Fedotov]. Parallel to Persian unlikley.
• sehre “sorcery, witchcraft” seхre "fear"; from Arabic siḥr, “magic”? - Chuvash сехре (sehre) or ceхĕр (sehĕr) 'bile' is a loan from Persian زهره 'bile'. [Yegorov Etimological Dictionary of the Chuvash Language 1964]. The Chuvash idiom sehre hăprĕ 'got scared' literally may means 'gallbladder burst', and it was borrowed as an idiom. Turks, too, say ödüm koptu 'gallbladder busrt'.
• semer “darkness” sěm “darkness” - Chuvash cĕм (sĕm) 'darkness', is of unexplained origin. However, I was not able to find the Kurdish word.
• çal “a pit”, Persian čal “a pit” çăl “a well, source”, Azer. çala “pit”, Common Turkic çök- “fall in”, čok- “hole, pit” - Chuvash çăл (şăl) is native (cognate of Old Turkic jul) [Fedotov]. I was not able to find the Kurdish word here.
• çîrt “pus” çěrt “to let rot”, Azer. çirk “pus”, Common Turkic çürük/çürüt “decay”, Old Turkic çürü- “to go sour” - Chuvash. Given the Persian çirk is a turkish borrowing, the same may have happened with the Kurdish çîrt “pus”. Unlikely from contact with Chuvash.
• çîban “a pimple” çăpan “a furuncle”, Uzbek çipkon “an abscess”, Old Turkic çıpığan/çupağan “Jujube fruit”, Common Turkic çıpkan/çıkan “sth. coming out”. - Chuvash çăпан (şăpan) is native, but is unlikely that it is from Chuvash it was borrowed into Kurdish.
• çêl “a cow” çile “an udder”, Kazakh jelin “an udder” - çêlek? - Chuvash çилĕ (şilĕ) is native.
• tar “a pole” tar “a poplar”, Kazakh terek “a poplar”, Turkish direk “a pole”, same word found in other Turkic languages. - Chuvash тар йывăççи (tar jyvăşşi), where tar is native. It was compared to Hindi word for a certain type of palm tree, but the link is improbable. [Fedotov]
• taw “a downpour” tăvăl “a storm”, Kazakh & Bashkir dauyl “a storm”, Tatar davıl “a storm”, Old Turkic verb taš- "to overflow". - Chuvash тăвăл (tăvăl) is native.
• tobe “an oath” tupa “an oath” - obviusly both words have origin in Arabic التوبة.
• toraq “cheese” turăx “fermented baked milk”, Turkish doğrak, doğru “cheese” - Chuvash турăх (turăh) is not used in the meaning of cheese. Also I have not heard of Turkish word doğrak or doğru in these meanings. Russian творог (tvorog) is closer to this Kurdish word. творог is not of Turkic origin.
• xumar “morose”, xumari “darkness” xămăr “brown”. - Chuvash хăмăр (hămăr) is native and related to Turkish kumral.

I would say, there is not much in terms of Kurdish Chuvash parallelism that would be noteworthy. Linguistically Chuvash borrowed many words from Persian back when they held sway in the region, and possibly from Eastern Iranians (Scythians, Sarmatians) prior to that. But Kurds are a different story. They have been geographically distant. Any parallelism is due to the fact they are Iranians, and that they have contact with Turkic people - Turks. The latter are Oghuz, who are closest to Oghur (Chuvah) among Turkic peoples.