# Loan-words



## merhaba

Merhaba, does anybody know of a site which lists loan words in turkish from other languages, i.e. Farsi and Arabic? also vica-versa. I've read that modern farsi is actually very watered down, so to speak, by loan words, and I was wondering how many of them are turkish. I am learning turkish by the way.

Thanks! merci!


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## minengiz

merhaba,
for the moment i don't know that kind of site,but you can ask me the words you don't understand or you are wondering. i try my best to help you.


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## merhaba

thanks minengiz, it was really more out of interest than need, but I will ask when I need to. Sağ ol


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## minengiz

rica ederim


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## SofiaB

See this WR Thread


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## mansio

I think there are still hundreds of words from Persian and Arabic in modern Turkish. A great number of those loan words have already been replaced by Turkish words.

I have a book about religion in Turkish from the sixties and the same one in today's Turkish. If you know some Arabic and you study Turkish you can better understand the book from the sixties than the one from today.

You can have a look at an online etymological dictionary if you suspect a Turkish word to be of foreign origin. I always thought that araba was a purely Turkish word until I saw in the dictionary that it was Arabic.


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## Chazzwozzer

I actually have a list of that but now I cannot find it.

Let's see what I can provide you best...

First, you may see my these two posts:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=1293733&postcount=34
http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=1295095&postcount=36

Of course, you can search on TDK's(official regulator of Turkish) dictionary:
http://www.tdk.org.tr/tdksozluk2/SOZBUL.ASP
*GTS'de yabancı dillerden Türkçeye giren sözler *is what you're looking for. It's listed alphabetically. Choose a language you wish to list loanwords from that language, just click on "Yabancı sözcükleri göster."

If you don't how are these languages called in Turkish, then here I translated for you:
Almanca: German
Arapça: Arabic
Arnavutça: Albanian
Bulgarca: Bulgarian
Çince: Chinese
Ermenice: Armenian
Fransızca: French
Fince: Finnish
Farsça: Persian
İbranice: Hebrew
İspanyolca: Spanish
İtalyanca: Italian
Japonca: Japanese
Korece: Korean
Moğolca: Mongolian
Macarca: Hungarian
Latince: Latin
Yunanca: Greek
Norveç: Norwegian
Rumca: Romaic
Slavca: Slavic
Portekizce: Portuguese
Rusça: Russian
Soğdca: I don't how this language is called in English, we borrowed "tamu" (hell) from it. It believe it's the hell of Tengriism, our ancient religion.

*You may also try official dictionary of Turkish*
http://www.tdk.gov.tr/tdksozluk/SOZBUL.ASP
Type a word and click on Ara. It doesn't only show the definition but also the language it came from as well.

Let's see how it works, we type a word and click on Ara then:

* gazete               *
_*isim * * (gaze'te)  İtalyanca gazetta*_

which is

*newspaper*
_*noun (gaze'te) Italian gazetta*_

Another word:

* çay (I)              *
_*isim,  bitki bilimi * * (Çinceden)*_

and it is:

*tea (I)              *
_*noun, botanic * * (from Chinese)*_​ 

* Here's a list of common words in Greek and Turkish with their definitions:*
http://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~sadi/bilgi/turkce-yunanca.html


Note that official numbers of loanwords in Turkish never reflect the reality.

These are the best I can come up with, I'll let you know if I find something better, the list, like you want.

And a reminder, since you're a learner of Turkish, you should check this out:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=1388642&postcount=4

Hope that helps,
Ekin



mansio said:


> I think there are still hundreds of words from Persian and Arabic in modern Turkish. A great number of those loan words have already been replaced by Turkish words.


Daily modern Turkish gets less Arabic and Persian words but more French and English since the first day of foundation of modern republic. Dictionaries still have these words have not been used for 20-30 years and replaced by Turkish ones. Another thing, Turks borrowed many French words during purifying its language and sometimes it happened mistakenly.

What I mean is that, Arabic word şeref was being removed and replaced by onur, they thought it was pure Turkish, turns out it was actually French! Now they both exist.

TDK still refuses to add its dictionary some very popular words in Turkish like "cool."

Cool desribes the same thing just like in English. It's written cool and read as ku:l, English pronunciation. Now, Turkish is hopless on that. We have no single equivalent. It's becoming more and more popular in everyday speech. Everybody now knows it! I heard it even used my friend's grandpa.  Ah, not to forget recent album of superstar Ajda Pekkan: "Ben cool kadın değilim!" (I'm not a cool woman!)

Anyway, Turkish is rapidly changing and developing, I wonder what heppens in next years.


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## mansio

Sogdca must be Sogdian an Iranian language from Central Asia.


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## Chazzwozzer

mansio said:


> Sogdca must be Sogdian an Iranian language from Central Asia.


Sogdian, it is. When you list Sogdian loan-words in Turkish, you get only one word:

* tamu   			*
_*noun, archaic, religion (***) **Sogdian *_                   Hell.

Now a question pops up: if Tengriism is a Turkic and Mongolian religion, then how come the word for hell could come from an Indo-European language?


It's probably because of mutual effect. Because Sogdian was known to be the lingua franca for traders in Central Asia that time. I believe it was when this word was borrowed from Sogdian to Turkish. I don't think ancient Turks belived in a hell or heaven until that time, that must have been a radicial change for our ancestor's belief.

Now what I wonder, if tamu is a loan-word meaning hell from Sogdian, then what happened to heaven?

I know it's uçmağ in Tengriism, but why don't we have it on TDK's dictionary? I also think that it's another loan-word from Sogdian.

Any idea?


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## Outsider

Hell started out as a Zoroastrian concept. I don't think the nomadic peoples of the steppe (those who were likely to have spoken Turkic languages) had such a black and white view of the universe.


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## Chazzwozzer

Outsider said:


> Hell started out as a Zoroastrian concept. I don't think the nomadic peoples of the steppe (those who were likely to have spoken Turkic languages) had such a black and white view of the universe.



Did the followers of Zoroastrianism speak Sogdian that time?

If that's true, then tamu is the name of hell concept in Zoroastrianism because Turkish, maybe I should say Turkic languages, borrowed this word from Sogdian.

I've always knew uçmağ is the Turkish word for heaven in ancient's belief, Tengriism. Now, I see that official dictionary does not have it whereas it includes tamu, the hell.

Being tamu is the only loan-word from Sogdian does not make sense at all, there must be more.


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## Outsider

Zoroastrianism spread to Central Asia and China during the Middle Ages. Sogdiana had many Zoroastrians.


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## Chazzwozzer

Yep, so let me tell you what I found after some research:

-*Tamu*(Hell), as TDK suggests, was borrowed from Sogdian and probably entered Turkic culture via Zoroastrians, even though Turks did not believe in Zoroastrianism.

-*Uçmağ*(Heaven), if my references are not wrong, is a pure word. Interestingly, it derives from "uçmak" (to fly) whereas tamu is a Sogdian word.

*Then that means:*

Tamu is a borrowing but uçmağ is a pure Turkish, therefore it should be a clue that Turkic people had only believed heaven but not hell untill they were influenced by Sogdiana people.

It's just very interesting.


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## Outsider

Chazzwozzer said:


> Tamu is a borrowing but uçmag<breve> is a pure Turkish, therefore it should be a clue that Turkic people had only believed heaven but not hell untill they were influenced by Sogdiana people.


Or that they believed in neither, but an existing Turkish word was repurposed for the concept of heaven when it became necessary. Kind of like the word "heaven" itself, which I imagine was originally just a synonym for "sky".


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## Chazzwozzer

Outsider said:


> Or that they believed in neither, but an existing Turkish word was repurposed for the concept of heaven when it became necessary. Kind of like the word "heaven" itself, which I imagine was originally just a synonym for "sky".


That makes sense but I cannot say since I'm not too informed about it. To find out more, I'll send an e-mail to both Turkish Language Association and Turkish History Association tomorrow.


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## Frank06

Hi,


Chazzwozzer said:


> Now what I wonder, if tamu is a loan-word meaning hell from Sogdian, then what happened to heaven?
> I know it's uçmağ in Tengriism, but why don't we have it on TDK's dictionary? I also think that it's another loan-word from Sogdian.


Maybe this article can help. Search for 'tamu' or 'ucmaq' or scroll till the bottom of the page.
In the article quite some arguments are given for an etymology which goes back to Sogdian.
[*edit: *TELL gives a Turkish etymology].
Sogdians were Buddhists, Manichaeists, Nestorian Christians, and Zoroastrians, and quite a few of them (especially Manichaeists) had contacts as far as Mongolia, where they introduced Manichaeism (and, btw, the Uyghur script which got turned 90 degrees and got written from top to bottom, from left to right under influence of the Chinese script). 
There were a lot of Nestorian Christians in what's now Turkey.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## altay

Chazzwozzer said:


> Sogdian, it is. When you list Sogdian loan-words in Turkish, you get only one word:
> 
> *tamu *
> _*noun, archaic, religion (***) **Sogdian *_Hell.




Sogdian Loanwords in Turkish:Kent(city),Don(a kind of woman cloth),kadın(woman,Persian Khatoun),Tamu(hell)....

My Reference is one of the Dr.Dilaçar's articles on sogdian loanwords in turkish


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## zorspas

Hi all

Chazzwozzer, you seem as one who has quite deep knowledge on Turkish, so may I please ask you what you think about Turkish words acquired from other Anatolian Languages, like Kurdish, Lazuri etc? TDK seems to be "unaware" of those languages, huh?

Thanks


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## ancalimon

zorspas said:


> Hi all
> 
> Chazzwozzer, you seem as one who has quite deep knowledge on Turkish, so may I please ask you what you think about Turkish words acquired from other Anatolian Languages, like Kurdish, Lazuri etc? TDK seems to be "unaware" of those languages, huh?
> 
> Thanks



There aren't many that are widely used or documented. You should check out Tuncer Gülensoy's etymology dictionary to see that some words which are thought to be originally Kurdish or Armenian are in fact used by Turks far away that even never contacted the Persians meaning even many words that are thought to be Persian share a common Turkic root.


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## er targyn

Uçmağ is also a Sogdian loan.


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## ancalimon

er targyn said:


> Uçmağ is also a Sogdian loan.



It is also related with the root "UÇ" meaning "fly".


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## altay

ancalimon said:


> It also related with the root "UÇ" meaning "fly".



Can i ask you what is your reference for this statement.uÇmag(heaven)is a sogdian word

see sogdian dictionaries....


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## ancalimon

altay said:


> Can i ask you what is your reference for this statement.uÇmag(heaven)is a sogdian word
> 
> see sogdian dictionaries....



Isn't it obvious?  Uçmağ is also related with aşmak (to pass the boundary, to pass a certain line, to transcend)... In this case the door of Heaven (Polaris) which is where everyone ties their bura (spirit horse))


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## Melaike

From Nişanyan's etymological dictionary:


> *Sogd *_uştmāγ/wştmāγ _cennet ~ *Ave *_vahiştəm ahūm _a.a.



Bu kelimenin Türkçeyle bir alakası olduğunu sanmıyorum



zorspas said:


> Hi all
> 
> Chazzwozzer, you seem as one who has quite deep knowledge on Turkish, so may I please ask you what you think about Turkish words acquired from other Anatolian Languages, like Kurdish, Lazuri etc? TDK seems to be "unaware" of those languages, huh?
> 
> Thanks



I remember an article from Sevan Nişanyan in which he states that Kurdish and Turkish  have very few exchanged words despite these two folk's common history.As for Lazuri  I can say that even in Turkish spoken in eastern black sea cost of Turkey it's hard to find loanwords from this language.The common words between Turkish and Lazuri are usually loanwords from other languages


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## ancalimon

Melaike said:


> From Nişanyan's etymological dictionary:
> 
> *Sogd *_uştmāγ/wştmāγ _cennet ~ *Ave *_vahiştəm ahūm _a.a.
> 
> Bu kelimenin Türkçeyle bir alakası olduğunu sanmıyorum



Bu yazıya bir göz atın. Konuyla oldukça ilgili.

http://www.sonsuz.us/?q=book/export/html/627

Kısaca ortaya bir çizgi çekersek ve o çizginin üst tarafına UÇ - UŞ dersek, alt tarafına da EŞ dersek alın size Cennet ve Cehennem'in ilkel ve kadim bir hali.

UÇMAK fiili de zaten içinde "Ruhsal Uçuş" kavramını barındırır. Tarih öncesi Türk düşüncesinde de şamanlar bunu yaparmış. Ayrıca Gök'ün kapısına da Bura isimli ruh atı ile yolculuk ederlermiş ve burada (Gök'ün Kapısı: Polaris: Kutup Yıldızı) bulunun demir bir kazığa bağlarlarmış orada Bura'yı. Ardından gelen ruhsal varlıklarla konuşurlarmış ancak Gök'ün daha üst katlarına ve niyahet Tanrı'nın katına çıkılamazmış.

Yani Cennet'e gitmek için öncelikle UÇMAK ve belli bir sınırı AŞMAK gerekirmiş. Üst Dünya kavramı da bildiğimiz Cennet kavramının daha kadim bir hali aslında.


Eski Soğdca dilinin Hint Avrupa "kökenli" olması durumu kesinlik kazanmış değil hatta Hint Avrupa dilleri teorisinin yüzde yüz geçerliliği de kesinlik kazanmış değil çünkü temelleri uçuk varsayımlar üzerine kurulu. Nasıl Osmanlıca Farsça ve Arapça etkisi altında kalmışsa aynı şey Soğdca için de geçerli olabilir.  Ayrıca Orhun yazısının Soğdca dan türediğini inanılırdı. Yapılan yeni arkeolojik buluşlar sonucunda artık bunun böyle olmadığı düşünülüyor.

Kısaca biz nasıl bugün yabancı kökleri alıp alıp ondan Türkçe sözcükler türetiyorsak, aynı şeyi onlar içinde söyleyebiliriz.


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## er targyn

ancalimon said:


> Isn't it obvious?  Uçmağ is also related with aşmak (to pass the boundary, to pass a certain line, to transcend)... In this case the door of Heaven (Polaris) which is where everyone ties their bura (spirit horse))


It's obvious that roots uç- and aş- aren't related, just like the Sogdian uştmah and Turkic uçmak. Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_etymology


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## ancalimon

er targyn said:


> It's obvious that roots uç- and aş- aren't related, just like the Sogdian uştmah and Turkic uçmak. Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_etymology



even AS (to hang) is related. This not folk etymology. You simply have to know more about ancient Tur people *AND *be able differentiate between what is Persian and what is Turkic.

Do you know what Astana really means? It means "hanged to heavens". Ancient Turks called some cities as Astana (one of them being Istanbul) It was thought that these cities were nexuses with thresholds (portals) to heavens.


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## kalamazoo

Years ago I became curious about the word "tavla" (backgammon) and decided it probably came from Arabic. So I looked it up in my Arabic dictionary and it was indeed a word in Arabic, but it actually came from the Italian word "tavola" (table).


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## ancalimon

kalamazoo said:


> Years ago I became curious about the word "tavla" (backgammon) and decided it probably came from Arabic. So I looked it up in my Arabic dictionary and it was indeed a word in Arabic, but it actually came from the Italian word "tavola" (table).



tavla (stable) comes from Arabic but tavla (backgammon) does not come from Arabic. It comes from Turkish "tavlamak" (to try and pickup, to provoke&wind someone up, to try to trick someone into a trap prepared by you)


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## kalamazoo

But at least according to some dictionaries, the Arabic for backgammon is also a form of tavla!  الطّاولة


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## ancalimon

kalamazoo said:


> But at least according to some dictionaries, the Arabic for backgammon is also a form of tavla!  الطّاولة



That should be a Turkic loan in Arabic.

tavla "might" be related with the ProtoTurkic word "top & topla~" meaning collect, round thing, to be collected on a thing, to collect things (tangible or intangible) on another thing, to go through things, to gather "around, near" something,...


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## kalamazoo

I really am not trying to argue about this at all, but it does make more sense to me that an Arabic word "taula" that comes from the Italian for table (the derivation in my Arabic dictionary) would be more lkely to refer to backgammon, played on a table, than to stable, which doesn't have anything to do with tables.  Unless the Italian word comes from Turkish somehow. My Arabic dictionary is packed away somewhere and I can't check it. Plus who knows, that dictionary could be wrong anyway!


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## ancalimon

kalamazoo said:


> I really am not trying to argue about this at all, but it does make more sense to me that an Arabic word "taula" that comes from the Italian for table (the derivation in my Arabic dictionary) would be more lkely to refer to backgammon, played on a table, than to stable, which doesn't have anything to do with tables.  Unless the Italian word comes from Turkish somehow. My Arabic dictionary is packed away somewhere and I can't check it. Plus who knows, that dictionary could be wrong anyway!



Possibilities:

1- Italian word for table and backgammon might be a totally different word and might not be related with Turkish tavla at all. (this is what linguists would say)
2- There could be a relationship between Etruscan and Turkic and that word could have been a loan in either Turkic or Etruscan.
3- The Arabic word could either be related with the Italian word or the Turkic word.
4- There could be more possibilities.

All in all, the definition of the Turkish verb "tavla" explains what you actually do in a game of backgammon. A bit weird for this word to exist in Italian as well.


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## kalamazoo

Well a lot of etymologies are not all that certain anyway. All I remember is that it occurred to me that "tavla" seemed like an Arabic word, I looked it up in my Arabic dictionary and found an Arabic word taula meaning backgammon that the Arabic dictionary said came from "tavola."  I am not familiar with the word tavlamak, although I also found it in my Turkish-Uzbek dictionary as an Uzbek word (yes, I have a lot of dictionaries!) so it is probably genuinely Turkic. I also looked it up in Redhouse, but there the defintions of tavlamak are "to dampen, like clothes for ironing; to anneal, like glass; to finish or fatten, like animal; Slang: to trick or hoodwink someone; Slang:  to charm someone.


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## er targyn

To be sure that a word is Turkic, you need to check languages that were not influenced by Persian and Arabic.


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## zorspas

ancalimon said:


> There aren't many that are widely used or documented. You should check out Tuncer Gülensoy's etymology dictionary to see that some words which are thought to be originally Kurdish or Armenian are in fact used by Turks far away that even never contacted the Persians meaning even many words that are thought to be Persian share a common Turkic root.




Since its not an easy job, actually quite the contrary, tracing the roots of words, I am always suspicious whenever people offers very concrete claims on these matters. 

I haven't read that man's book but a little research on him makes me surely think that this guy is just one of the Turkish nationalists who usually make extremely exaggerated claims when it comes to praise Turkishness. Back in the past in this country we heard very absurd claims like "all the languages on Earth was derived from Turkish", "Mayans were Turk", "Lenin was a Turk", "Turks are the ancestors of native Americans" etc. This man is just another exemplary of this type of thinking by his claim of "no Kurdish language even exists" and by having no respect to other nations which enables him to insult them easily in his writings.

On balance, we need workings of objective researchers' who are not obsessed with praising their national identity to decide on this matter. Actually not just on this matter, on all matters of the world we live in it.

Thanks


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## ancalimon

@zorspas

Where did you hear anything about him being an extremist?  His etymology dictionary is actually more reliable than Nişanyan's.

Did you read this and reached that conclusion?



> kam kê aslê ho inkar keno, aqılra hero!’ [= kim ki aslını inkâr ediyor, akıl yönünden eşektir!]. bu deyim bir zaza deyimidir.
> 
> ama buradaki sözcüklerin kökenine bakacak olursak:
> kim < eski türkçe: kim [bu sözcük azerî, başkurt, kazak, kırgız, özbek, kazan
> tatar, türkmen, uygur gibi türk lehçelerinde de kim biçimindedir. mısır
> arapçasında k±md±r?; suriye arapçasında k±m k±ma; kürtçede ki?, ké?
> (kürtçe-türkçe sözlük, s. 213); zazaca’da kam, kum; çuvaşçada ad kam
> biçimlerindedir.]
> ki < farsça
> as(ı)l < arapça
> inkar < arapça: inkâr
> aqıl < arapça: akl
> +ra < eski türkçe: yön eki
> hero < farsça: ker
> olarak görürüz




...

I don't see anything wrong with claiming that a language have its roots in other languages. That does not make the person claiming it, not having respect for those people speaking Kurdish.


Also none of those theories you've listed came from Turkey.  They are all theories that are trying to find a meaningful answer to anomalies in history and they choose Turks as their answer. Turkic languages having stable roots (thus modern words very similar to their Proto-Turkic versions) are one of the best candidates for being the first language ever spoken. (if there was only one place where humans sprung to Earth)


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## ns2011

ancalimon said:


> Do you know what Astana really means? It means "hanged to heavens". Ancient Turks called some cities as Astana (one of them being Istanbul) It was thought that these cities were nexuses with thresholds (portals) to heavens.



This is interesting  because 'astana' in Sundanese means tomb or grave (a gate to heaven perhaps?) and a very close word to 'istana' in Malay/Indonesian that means palace.


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## ancalimon

ns2011 said:


> This is interesting  because 'astana' in Sundanese means tomb or grave (a gate to heaven perhaps?) and a very close word to 'istana' in Malay/Indonesian that means palace.



Wow! that's interesting.  Astana name was also given to cities in which a saint person's (which was very important for Turks) grave was located!




> The word _Astana_ in Kazakh literally means _Capital_ but the word itself originates from Persian _Astane_ (Persian: آستانه  means Threshold, border point) (Astana, from the verb Istadan (آستان)  to stand (in respect)), and literally means "threshold" (royal or  sacred, where people stand in respect or awe),[_citation needed_] implying where the court is seated (the capital city) or the body of a sacred person is interred (a shrine town). The city of Turkistan in Kazakhstan that hosts the body of the saint Ahmad Yasavi is also called the "astana" as is the city of Mashhad in Iran that is the burial place of the 8th Shiite Imam Reza.  In fact, long before becoming the new capital of Kazakhstan, the city  was "an astana," a burial ground of a saint, hence the old name of the  city, Ak Mola (Ақмола), "white mausoleum."
> 
> In June 2008, a parliamentary proposal was put forward to change the city's name to "Nursultan," in honor of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The idea was rejected by Nazarbayev himself, who said the decision of renaming the city will be for future generations.[3] Despite this,[4]  some commentators think that the generic name Astana was deliberately  chosen so that it would be renamed in honour of Nazarbayev after his  death.




Well... The wrong part here is that the word actually does not come from Persian. (actually there are words that are Turkic in Turkic languages)


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## ns2011

ancalimon said:


> Wow! that's interesting.  Astana name was also given to cities in which a saint person's (which was very important for Turks) grave was located!


Yes it made it _that_ far hehe... I always thought the connection was sanscrit, but who knows...


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## ancalimon

I don't know the exact etymology of the Turkic word.. But since it means "hanged to heavens"  it could be related with the verb AS (to hang, repose on, prop, etc...)

It could also be related with ProtoTurkic *jAsa-   which means "to govern, to create"


So even the "capital city" meaning could be Turkic and not Persian. Just like the "hanged to heavens, threshold" meaning.

There's also the Turkic "EŞ" which means "to dig" and "EŞİK" which means "threshold"

Here is the old Turkic letter (or tamga?)  which means "to dig" in its primordial sense.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oOmya7ZFL74/S1hpJgPSzPI/AAAAAAAAD5w/J2ecspf8W18/s320/orhunyazitlari3.jpg

take a look at the Ş tamga.  Do you think it's related with "the other world" or "underworld" or "upperworld"?

and

Does the trident shape have any meanings about "governing" and "a journey to other world" and "transcendence, becoming a saint" in any languages or cultures?  If that is the case, we have ourselves a really weird anomaly in history and archeology. Because this is internal with Proto-Turkic.


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## ancalimon

er targyn said:


> Uçmağ is also a Sogdian loan.



http://acukbitig.blogspot.com/2011/01/eski-turklerde-cennet-kavram-ve-ucmak.html

Here's a Turkish article linking the word "uçmağ" to:

Turkic "uç" meaning "to die and fly to Upperworld" (as seen in Orkhon Inscriptions)
Turkic "uçuk" meaning "to reach the end".


So I find it possible that the Sogdian word "uştmah" might have been a Turkic borrowing inside Sogdian.


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