# Ottoman words: جوله and مرایه



## seyyah

Hello,
I have some short sentences in Ottoman Turkish with two puzzling words. I wonder if anyone can make sense of them.

"Nihayet مرایه girdi. مرایه gidecek ekmek yoktur ki yesin. Zor belâ ile bir kaç kilo un uydurarak oğlumu جوله مرایه gönderdik. Burada aile hastalandı. Ne kadar param var ise doktorlara verdim. Biraz rahat oldu."

Just to be clear, in the third sentence, جوله is the first and مرایه is the second word!

For those who don't know the alphabet, the first word would appear to be "cule". The "c" could be a "ç", though it doesn't look like it.

The second word looks like "mirâya", but the first vowel could be anything really. From the context we can understand that "mirâ" or "mirây" is the root with the suffix -ya or -a attached.

Also, there are other orthographic errors in the document (mixing 'a' and 'e' etc) so don't expect the spelling to necessarily be correct!

If any has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. This one has me stumped!


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## macrotis

This way it doesn't ring a bell. A scanned image of the original might help.


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## seyyah

Hi Macrotis,

The text is very clearly printed, and I'm sure that it's not a reading error. It could be a spelling error by the author or some unknown vocabulary (or both).


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## tzesyneas

Hello! I found *جوله* as "weaver" (çulha) at my lexicon, it was written with jim, vav, lam, elif, he, as well.


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## TekYelken

The unclear words can only be worked out with more context.

_The second word looks like "mirâya", but the first vowel could be anything really. From the context we can understand that "mirâ" or "mirây" is the root with the suffix -ya or -a attached.
_
_Only *mera *_makes sense to me.


_"Burada aile hastalandı. Ne kadar param var ise doktorlara verdim. Biraz rahat oldu."_

Here, I think he is talking about his wife getting ill.


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## seyyah

Well, I finally solved "Mira". It was the name of the government wheat agency in Syria.* It makes perfect sense from the context. I still have no ideas about *جوله*, but I don't think *çulha* is the right word here.

* What's the Turkish word for "Wheat Agency" or "Wheat Board"?


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## seyyah

جو = cev in Ottoman (from Persian) means "arpa"/"barley". I guess this makes sense now.

Thanks for the ideas. Posting here always helps me think!


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## shafaq

جوله It may be to say "çöle" which means "to the desert".  To me it fits good there and looks natural as saying "Oğlumu çöle, Mira'ya gönderdik." We sent the son to the Mira which is (a desert) or ( in the desert).


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## seyyah

Hi Shafaq, I also thought of çöle but the first letter doesn't have the pointing of 'ç' so it should be just 'c'. I think 'cev' makes sense from the context.


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## yavuzotar

seyyah said:


> Hello,
> "Nihayet مرایه girdi. مرایه gidecek ekmek yoktur ki yesin. Zor belâ ile bir kaç kilo un uydurarak oğlumu جوله مرایه gönderdik. Burada aile hastalandı. Ne kadar param var ise doktorlara verdim. Biraz rahat oldu."



As it was very common to use 'cim' (with one dot under) in place of 'ç' (three dots under) the first character is almost certainly a 'ç' in  جوله . 'lam' is with şedde, i.e. double 'l'. So, the word is "çuvalla".Herhalde birkaç kilo unu çuvala dolduruyorlar ve çocuğu bu çuvalla "miraya" (?) gönderiyorlar. "meraya" olamaz, çünkü "mer'a"nın son harfi elif değil ayın'dır


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## seyyah

yavuzotar said:


> As it was very common to use 'cim' (with one dot under) in place of 'ç' (three dots under) the first character is almost certainly a 'ç' in  جوله . 'lam' is with şedde, i.e. double 'l'. So, the word is "çuvalla".Herhalde birkaç kilo unu çuvala dolduruyorlar ve çocuğu bu çuvalla "miraya" (?) gönderiyorlar. "meraya" olamaz, çünkü "mer'a"nın son harfi elif değil ayın'dır




Hi Yavuz,
It's an interesting idea which makes sense except that "çuval+la" would be spelt with two لs (جوال plus له) not with a şedde. Şedde is only for Arabic words, never for Turkish suffixes.
S.


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## yavuzotar

seyyah said:


> Hi Yavuz,
> It's an interesting idea which makes sense except that "çuval+la" would be spelt with two لs (جوال plus له) not with a şedde. Şedde is only for Arabic words, never for Turkish suffixes.
> S.



Yes, you are right Seyyah. I should have said "two lam's" instead of şedde; but still, it must be a rare occasion to spell the word as "çuval-la" as the more usual spelling would be "çuval ile". Anyway, mine was a guess. Thank you.


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## 7achy

well if i may say:
جوله
In Kuwaiti dialect it means Stove, divertive from the hindi word चूल्हा Cūl'hā.

مرايه 
In Arabic means Mirror


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## ecdadihifzeylerdi

جولة means journey or trip in arabic. it might be cevle-i mira'ya gönderdik. mira gezisine gönderdik.


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## seyyah

Still getting suggestions! Is there a way of marking a thread "solved"?

I eventually figured out the meaning: جو (cev) means barley, so _cevle_ means "with barley", and the whole clause is: "we sent our son to MIRA with barley".

Thanks for all the help!


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## Eskam

All these words are not Turkish, they are either Arabic or Persian words. I also had a look in so called "Ottoman Turkish", but realized that's a mix of Arabic and Persian.


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## seyyah

Eskam said:


> All these words are not Turkish, they are either Arabic or Persian words. I also had a look in so called "Ottoman Turkish", but realized that's a mix of Arabic and Persian.



Modern standard Turkish is essentially Ottoman Turkish which has been "purified" of much of its foreign vocabulary. Nevertheless, a large percentage of words in Turkish are still of Persian or, especially, Arabic origin. I'm not sure what you mean by "so called Ottoman Turkish".


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## Eskam

seyyah said:


> Modern standard Turkish is essentially Ottoman Turkish which has been "purified" of much of its foreign vocabulary. Nevertheless, a large percentage of words in Turkish are still of Persian or, especially, Arabic origin. I'm not sure what you mean by "so called Ottoman Turkish".



I meant no harm.


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## seyyah

Eskam said:


> Yes, but this also isn't pure Turkish because Turkish was not the main language in Ottoman era. Sultans wrote poems in other languages like Arabic, Persian but not in Turkish. Turkish is a Ural Altaic language but has so many words of other language of a completly different language group. That must have a history in the background. And as far as I read and gt know this has something to do with avoiding of Turkish language but surely other folk groups in today's Turkey like Armenians, Kurds, Greek, Lazuris and so on and so forth had a great effect on so many words of Indo European language family.
> 
> I meant no harm.



Of course no insult was taken! I'm not even Turkish 

However, I disagree that Turkish was not the main language of the Ottoman era. Yes, Sultans wrote poetry in Persian, but that was because there was a great tradition of writing Persian poetry. The spoken language of the Sultans and the language of the imperial administration was Turkish, even in the Ottoman Empire's Arab provinces. The vernacular Turkish spoken by the people was less influenced by Arabic and Persian vocabulary, and yes the elite looked down on this form of Turkish as being less sophisticated, but they were at their roots the same language. Additionally, like every language, over time the language changed. Written Turkish of the early 20th century was different from Turkish used in previous centuries because even then there was some efforts to 'simplify' the language to make it easier for more people to understand. This was done mainly by removing more arcane Arabic and Persian words and expressions so that more people could understand.

Armenian, Kurdish and less common languages in Anatolia did not influence Turkish much. Greek contributed more words to Turkish, but much less than Arabic, Persian and even Italian.

Lastly, I should add that there is no thing as "pure Turkish"; the language spoken in Turkey today is not pure, and is getting less "pure" as time goes on and more foreign words are added.


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