# Persian shugūn



## desi4life

What is the etymology of the Persian word _shugūn _"omen"?

Thank you


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## CyrusSH

Persian _šgun_ doesn't mean "omen" but "fortune, goodwill".


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## Treaty

In surface, _šogūn _sounds close to Sanskrit _śakuna _(omen, auspicious object, etc.). I don't know if they are related or not. However, all examples I have found so far pertained to Indian-based poems and later, except one (by 11th c. Asadi) which was also in the context of India.


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> In surface, _šogūn _sounds close to Sanskrit _śakuna _(omen, auspicious object, etc.). I don't know if they are related or not. However, all examples I have found so far pertained to Indian-based poems and later, except one (by 11th c. Asadi) which was also in the context of India.



Persian was not an Indian language. 

In Persian _šgun_ relates to _škuh_ "majesty, dignity", look at the poem by Assadi that you mentioned. I think they relate to English _sheen_, _show_ and Greek-origin word _kudos_.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> In Persian _šgun_ relates to _škuh_ "majesty, dignity"


How do you know?


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## desi4life

CyrusSH said:


> Persian _šgun_ doesn't mean "omen" but "fortune, goodwill".



Thanks. A Persian dictionary defined it as "good omen".


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## desi4life

Treaty said:


> In surface, _šogūn _sounds close to Sanskrit _śakuna _(omen, auspicious object, etc.). I don't know if they are related or not. However, all examples I have found so far pertained to Indian-based poems and later, except one (by 11th c. Asadi) which was also in the context of India.



Thanks. I'm also wondering if the two words are related. Maybe @fdb knows?


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> How do you know?



I wait that Treaty answers this question, if you just look at a Persian dictionary to find the meanings of Persian words then you won't understand these relations.


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## Treaty

There is no _šgun_ in Persian dictionaries to begin with. Persian doesn't allow two initial consecutive consonants. Such construct could have existed in Middle/Old Iranian (as šk- or sk-), but I haven't found any instance in the MIr. dictionaries I have access to. Have you seen one, and if so, would you please enlighten us with a reference? Until then, the probability of initial _s/š+_V_+k/g _(e.g., whether indigenous or loan from Skt. _śakuna _or_ suguṇa_) is the same as a root starting with _sk/šk_.


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## CyrusSH

desi4life said:


> Thanks. A Persian dictionary defined it as "good omen".



Ancient Persians didn't believe in omens and in historical Persian sources شگون didn't mean "omen" or "good omen", synonyms of this word are فرخ & خجسته and as I said it relates to شکوه & فره.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> Ancient Persians


The OP never said anything about the Ancient Persians. He clearly referred to the modern word with its modern meaning and enquired about its etymology.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> The OP never said anything about the Ancient Persians. He clearly referred to the modern word with its modern meaning and enquired about its etymology.



Persian words have Persian origins, when we say با شگون or بی شگون it is clear what they mean, they have nothing to do with omen.

For example about synonyms and antonyms of باشگون: معنی باشگون | واژگان مترادف و متضاد

خجسته، خوششگون، شگوندار، هماگون، همایون خوشیمن، سعد، فرخنده، مبارک، میمون ≠ بیشگون، نامیمون، نحس


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## fdb

I am not sure whether we will get very far with this one. In the Vedas _śakuna-_ is the name of some large bird; in later Sanskrit it assumes the meaning “omen” (a semantic shift that has parallels all over the place), and this is continued by Hindi _saun, son_, and similar words in other Middle and New Indo-Aryan languages (Turner _CDIAL_, no. 12245). The etymology of _śakuna-_ is not known (Mayrhofer _EWbAia_ I p. 603: “nicht überzeugend erklärt”).

Persian _šugūn_ or _šukūn _means “good omen” (_fāl-i nēk_) according to _Burhān-i Qāṭiʻ_ and the other Indo-Persian dictionaries. I do not see any plausible Iranian etymology (it can hardly have anything to do with _šukōh_ “majesty, dignity”, nor with its homonym MP _škōh_ “poor”). I would not rule out the possibility that it is an Indian loanword, but in this case it would have to have been a bookish borrowing from Sanskrit, and not from any spoken Middle or New Indo-Aryan form.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> when we say با شگون or بی شگون it is clear what they mean, they have nothing to do with omen


The authors of many dictionaries obviously disagree with you on this. And با شگون is a separate lemma in the dictionary you quoted. شگون in itself is an antonym of نحس in the very same dictionary, which agrees with your translation but also with the translation _omen_, if it is understood as _good omen_, as it has already been clarified.


desi4life said:


> Thanks. A Persian dictionary defined it as "good omen".


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> The authors of many dictionaries obviously disagree with you on this. And با شگون is a separate lemma in the dictionary you quoted. شگون in itself is an antonym of نحس in the very same dictionary, which agrees with your translation but also with the translation _omen_, if it is understood as _good omen_, as it has already been clarified.



The Persian antonym of شگون is واشگون (vašgun, not vašugun), compare with کنش and واکنش, this word has different forms in Persian, as you read here واژگونه، باژگون، باژگونه، باشگونه، واژون، واژونه، بازگون، بازگونه Persian meaning: دارای نامبارکی؛ شوم

همه واژگونه بود کار دیو
که فریادرس باد گیهان خدیو
Shahnameh


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## Treaty

There are at least five errors in your one line!
1. The word _vāšgūn _doesn't exist in dictionaries (can you show me please?). You probably just made it up (though it exists rarely in some blogs, seemingly dialectal or colloquial).
2. _vāžgūn _doesn't really mean شوم. It's still not even a day since berndf suggested you shouldn't postulate figurative meanings as literal. Your own link clearly states that the شوم usage is figurative/metaphorical (مجاز). 
3. Though off-topic, واکنش (a modern calque for reaction) and کنش (action) are not even true antonyms. Let alone to be the base of your conclusion.
4. The phonology of variants strongly suggests it should _vāž + _suffix _gūn, _specially regarding that _vāž _and _bāz _(in Borhan) are themselves recorded with the usage of "reverse".
5. Even if it had been made by a _vā _prefix, it wouldn't have suggested the next word is _šgūn; _as mentioned, initial consonant clusters are impossible in Persian (same as that _benšin _and _bengar _don't necessitate verbs _nšastan _and_ ngaristan_)_. 
_


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## CyrusSH

Treaty said:


> There are at least five errors in your one line!
> 1. The word _vāšgūn _doesn't exist in dictionaries (can you show me please?). You probably just made it up (though it exists rarely in some blogs, seemingly dialectal or colloquial).
> 2. _vāžgūn _doesn't really mean شوم. It's still not even a day since berndf suggested you shouldn't postulate figurative meanings as literal. Your own link clearly states that the شوم usage is figurative/metaphorical (مجاز).
> 3. Though off-topic, واکنش (a modern calque for reaction) and کنش (action) are not even true antonyms. Let alone to be the base of your conclusion.
> 4. The phonology of variants strongly suggests it should _vāž + _suffix _gūn, _specially regarding that _vāž _and _bāz _(in Borhan) are themselves recorded with the usage of "reverse".
> 5. Even if it had been made by a _vā _prefix, it wouldn't have suggested the next word is _šgūn; _as mentioned, initial consonant clusters are impossible in Persian (same as that _benšin _and _bengar _don't necessitate verbs _nšastan _and_ ngaristan_)_.
> _



As I said this word has different forms in Persian, for example one of them is واشگونه:

معنی واشگونه | لغت‌نامه دهخدا

چرا خوانیم گیتی را نمونه
چو ما داریم طبع واشگونه

or باشگون: 

معنی باشگون | لغت‌نامه دهخدا

خاک پایت را زحل از دیده بر سر مینهد
آری آری هست دایم کار هندو باشگون

Even وارونه is also another form of this word: معنی وارونه | لغت‌نامه دهخدا As you read this word has two different meanings from different origins, one of them is "inverse" and another one is "unfortunate":

بزرگ امید را گفت ای خردمند
دلم بگرفت از این وارونه فرزند

We are talking about the original forms of the words, not what we already pronounce them, you can't say the original form of شکوه was _šukuh_, not _škuh_ just because the modern pronunciation of this word. Or what do you think about _šekaf_ and _eškaf_: معنی اشکاف | فرهنگ فارسی عمید or _šekan_ and _eškan_: معنی اشکن | فرهنگ فارسی عمید or _eškanak_: معنی اشکَنک | لهجه و گویش تهرانی


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## CyrusSH

About prefix _va-_ there are several other examples:

معنی واگفت | فرهنگ فارسی معین واگفت: دشنام ، فحش
معنی وارنگ | فرهنگ فارسی معین وارنگ: رنگ مخالف
معنی واپس | فرهنگ فارسی معین: واپس: عقب


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> We are talking about the original forms of the words, not what we already pronounce them, you can't say the original form of شکوه was _šukuh_


The word we are asked to explain the etymology of spelled شکوه, pronounced _shugūn_ and is conventionally translated as omen with the understanding_ good omen.
_
By immediately replacing the word you were asked about by some other word you deem the "original form" you are presupposing what you are trying to prove. That is *not *acceptable methodology.


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## fdb

Has anyone looked at my contribution (no. 13)?


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## CyrusSH

Other than _šgun_ "fortunate", _škuh_ "glory, grace", there is also _šgarf_ "beautiful, glorious":

معنی شگرف | فرهنگ فارسی معین

1 - نیکو، زیبا. 2 - بی - نظیر در خوبی و زیبایی

About English _sheen_ "splendor": sheen - Wiktionary from Proto-Germanic *skauniz (“beautiful”),  Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian _hir_ (“grace, blessing, goodwill”).

And about Albanian _hir_ "grace, blessing, goodwill": hir - Wiktionary Cognate to Gothic _skeirs_ “clear”, Slavic *_ščirь_ 'clean', ...


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> The word we are asked to explain the etymology of spelled شکوه, pronounced _shugūn_ and is conventionally translated as omen with the understanding_ good omen.
> _
> By immediately replacing the word you were asked about by some other word you deem the "original form" you are presupposing what you are trying to prove. That is *not *acceptable methodology.



You can ask all Persians in the world to know what is the main meaning of شگون, of course it also means "omen" but as the secondary meaning (probably under influence of an Indian word).

شگون - ویکی‌پدیا، دانشنامهٔ آزاد

شُگون به معنای خجستگی، برکت، یُمن، میمنت، بخت خوش، خوش‌شانسی و خوبی داشتن است، یعنی زمانی که گفته می‌شود کاری شگون دارد یا ندارد بدین معنی است که از انجام آن کار خوبی حاصل می‌شود یا حاصل نمی‌شود. شگون می‌تواند همچنین معنی فال بدهد.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> You can ask all Persians in the world to know what is the main meaning of شگون, of course it also means "omen" but as the secondary meaning (probably under influence of an Indian word).


That is YOUR unproven assumption and according to what @fdb wrote in #13 probably wrong. Again, don't presuppose what you are trying to prove. That is bad, very, very, very bad.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> That is YOUR unproven assumption and according to what @fdb wrote in #13 probably wrong. Again, don't presuppose what you are trying to prove. That is bad, very, very, very bad.



I really don't know why fdb should say what a word means in our language based on an Indo-Persian dictionary!


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> I really don't know why fdb should say what a word means in our language based on an Indo-Persian dictionary!


You take virtually and dictionary and it disagrees with you on the modern meaning of the word and so does the other Farsi native speaker in this thread.


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## desi4life

fdb said:


> Has anyone looked at my contribution (no. 13)?



Yes, thank you. 



fdb said:


> I am not sure whether we will get very far with this one. In the Vedas _śakuna-_ is the name of some large bird; in later Sanskrit it assumes the meaning “omen” (a semantic shift that has parallels all over the place), and this is continued by Hindi _saun, son_, and similar words in other Middle and New Indo-Aryan languages (Turner _CDIAL_, no. 12245). The etymology of _śakuna-_ is not known (Mayrhofer _EWbAia_ I p. 603: “nicht überzeugend erklärt”).
> 
> Persian _šugūn_ or _šukūn _means “good omen” (_fāl-i nēk_) according to _Burhān-i Qāṭiʻ_ and the other Indo-Persian dictionaries. I do not see any plausible Iranian etymology (it can hardly have anything to do with _šukōh_ “majesty, dignity”, nor with its homonym MP _škōh_ “poor”). I would not rule out the possibility that it is an Indian loanword, but in this case it would have to have been a bookish borrowing from Sanskrit, and not from any spoken Middle or New Indo-Aryan form.



Although _śakuna_ is a bookish word, it has been borrowed as a common spoken word in modified forms such as _śagun _and _sagun_ in many New Indo-Aryan languages (and possibly Middle Indo-Aryan languages too). A k > g sound change often occurs in loanwords from Sanskrit (e.g. _bhakta _"devotee, worshiper" > _bhagat_, _prakaṭa _"evident" > _pragaṭ, _etc.). It makes sense for this word to be an Indian loanword to Persian, given the lack of a plausible Iranian etymology and due to the connection of omens to astrology/astronomy.


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## CyrusSH

fdb, would you please tell us what شگون means in this sentence: 

"فرّه، درخشش جوهرة برتر وجود اورمزدی است که تابش آن بر گیتی، مرز خیر و شر و شایست و نشایست و شگون و نگون را ممتاز می‌کند"

source: بررسی نمادهای تصویری «فَرّ» (با تأکید بر نگاره‌های شاهنامه)

I hope you don't want to say the greatest Persian linguists don't know the meaning of شگون!


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## fdb

شگون و نگون means "good fortune and bad fortune". The two words are antonyms, but are not etymologically connected.


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## Treaty

CyrusSH said:


> I hope you don't want to say the greatest Persian linguists don't know the meaning of شگون!


No, we are saying you don't know what شگون means. The dictionaries (i.e. your "greatest Persian linguists") are saying exactly what we are saying. You always have a habit of putting links from Vajeyab or scans of Borhan, but suspiciously you haven't put a single link to entry شگون in either. May I say you didn't so because it would have exposed the nonsense of your argument? This is Loghatnameh's original entry  (not the copy-pasted one from Wiki) for شگون:

فال نیک . تفأل خیر. فال میمون و مبارک . (ناظم الاطباء) (از برهان ). طیره . آغال . اغور. (یادداشت مؤلف ). تفأل گرفتن به آواز و پرواز و جز آن و به صورت شگن هم آمده و این مشترک است در هندی و با لفظ نهادن و گرفتن و کردن مستعمل . (آنندراج )ـ​


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> شگون و نگون means "good fortune and bad fortune". The two words are antonyms, but are not etymologically connected.



This thing that those words are etymologically connected or not is another issue, as you said شگون means "good fortune", so "بد شگون" seems to be meaningless, we have actually two words, one of them which has certainly not a long history and means "an omen", is probably a loanword from Indian, relates to شگنی but another one has a deep Persian origin with a very positive meaning, is synonym to فرخ and relates to شکوه and فره.

A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English, John Richardson - 1806: A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English


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## desi4life

CyrusSH said:


> we have actually two words,



Others have already said the "good fortune" meaning is a figurative extension of "good omen" and not a separate word.


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## aruniyan

I think, this could be related to Shanku, the sea shell, not sure.


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## desi4life

aruniyan said:


> I think, this could be related to Shanku, the sea shell, not sure.



Sanskrit _śaṅkhá _“(conch)shell” is completely unrelated to the word for “omen”.


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