# Etymology of Mongolian "Ger" ...



## UrduMedium

Reading a book on Mongol history I came across the name for Mongol home tent: *Ger*. Looking up on Wikipedia it is described as meaning "home". 

It has an uncanny resemblance to Urdu/Hindi _*ghar *_(home). Curious if there's an interesting chain of linguistic links connecting ghar to 'Ger'? Posted to Indo-Iranian forum too, but no response yet.


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## aruniyan

mbasit said:


> Reading a book on Mongol history I came across the name for Mongol home tent: *Ger*. Looking up on Wikipedia it is described as meaning "home".
> 
> It has an uncanny resemblance to Urdu/Hindi _*ghar *_(home). Curious if there's an interesting chain of linguistic links connecting ghar to 'Ger'? Posted to Indo-Iranian forum too, but no response yet.




Dont have an idea about Mongol...but something interesting,

The Hindi word Ghar comes from Graha..which is Gr+Aham ,for which i will give an explanation from Tamil...

Gr/Kru represent Koorai and Aham = inside where 

Koorai means Conical shaped or Koor is sharp.

*Koorai* in Tamil is "Roof" esp that of huts.


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## UrduMedium

aruniyan said:


> Dont have an idea about Mongol...but something interesting,
> 
> The Hindi word Ghar comes from Graha..which is Gr+Aham ,for which i will give an explanation from Tamil...
> 
> Gr/Kru represent Koorai and Aham = inside where
> 
> Koorai means Conical shaped or Koor is sharp.
> 
> *Koorai* in Tamil is "Roof" esp that of huts.



Thanks aruniyan for a deconstructing the word Ghar. The Mongolian Ger is a hut that has circular base and a conical roof. How interesting! Hoping someone can help connect the other end now ..


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## er targyn

Looks like Mongolian ger is related to Kazakh kerege, Old Turkic kerekü "wall/grating of the yurt" and Karakhanid kerekü "yurt".
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/re...=/data/alt/altet&text_number=+503&root=config


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## ancalimon

I always thought that word together with the Turkish yurt were related with Tengri. (Tengri both means God and unreachable sky~heavens. Both the tent and sky have conical roof and a circular base).



aruniyan said:


> *Koorai* in Tamil is "Roof" esp that of huts.


 May I ask what a cross is called in Tamil? Since the roof of these Yurts is shaped as an equaleteral cross. I guess there is no relation?


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## aruniyan

ancalimon said:


> I always thought that word together with the Turkish yurt were related with Tengri. (Tengri both means God and unreachable sky~heavens. Both the tent and sky have conical roof and a circular base).
> 
> 
> May I ask what a cross is called in Tamil? Since the roof of these Yurts is shaped as an equaleteral cross. I guess there is no relation?





Cross=Kurukku


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## Ben Jamin

aruniyan said:


> Dont have an idea about Mongol...but something interesting,
> 
> The Hindi word Ghar comes from Graha..which is Gr+Aham ,for which i will give an explanation from Tamil...
> 
> Gr/Kru represent Koorai and Aham = inside where
> 
> Koorai means Conical shaped or Koor is sharp.
> 
> *Koorai* in Tamil is "Roof" esp that of huts.



Well, ‘ghar’ from ‘graha’? What kind of regular sound shift has been active here?


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## francisgranada

For curiosity: the Central European Romany (Gipsy) equivalent of "ghar" is "kher", meaning house.


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## ancalimon

francisgranada said:


> For curiosity: the Central European Romany (Gipsy) equivalent of "ghar" is "kher", meaning house.



Well the gypsies traveled together with Indo-Europeans and possibly also other people when they migrated to Europe. Didn't they?


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## francisgranada

The Romany belongs to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indoeropean language family, thus related to the Hindi.


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## Aydintashar

er targyn said:


> Looks like Mongolian ger is related to Kazakh kerege, Old Turkic kerekü "wall/grating of the yurt" and Karakhanid kerekü "yurt".


In Persian, there is the word "خرگاه" (khargah), which exactly means "tent". It is only used in literary context, and must be a remnant of the Mongolian invasion.


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## ancalimon

Aydintashar said:


> In Persian, there is the word "خرگاه" (khargah), which exactly means "tent". It is only used in literary context, and must be a remnant of the Mongolian invasion.



or the Turkic one. (or vice versa. It's known that so many Persians went to settle among Turkic populations later assimilating into Turks)

GER is also a verb in Turkish meaning to stretch, stretch over, cover..  Like a tent over people or sky over Earth or space covering universe.


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## aruniyan

this could be great help...

http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/et.../data/alt/turcet&text_number=1455&root=config


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## Aydintashar

ancalimon said:


> or the Turkic one. (or vice versa. It's known that so many Persians went to settle among Turkic populations later assimilating into Turks)
> 
> GER is also a verb in Turkish meaning to stretch, stretch over, cover.. Like a tent over people or sky over Earth or space covering universe.



I am afraid you rely mostly on imaginery etymology, similar to the one used in the Sun Language Theory.


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## ancalimon

Aydintashar said:


> I am afraid you rely mostly on imaginery etymology, similar to the one used in the Sun Language Theory.



That's irrelevant. The word either entered Turkic and Mongolian languages from Persian or it entered Persian from Turkic or Mongolian languages.

I just stated that there are many words in Turkish starting with "ger" & related to "ger"

<...>


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## istenaldja

Aydintashar said:


> In Persian, there is the word "خرگاه" (khargah), which exactly means "tent". It is only used in literary context, and must be a remnant of the Mongolian invasion.



in Hungarian (all of them old words, conservative in both their forms and their meanings):
kerek = round (shaped)
kör = circle
kerül = go/get around
kerít = go around and get
körül = around
környék = surrounding
kerék = wheel
kert = garden
karika = collar, ring shaped sg.

I think german "Kreis" or latin "curva" (> English "curve") etc. belongs to here, too

kereszt - cross


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## berndf

istenaldja said:


> in Hungarian (all of them old words, conservative in both their forms and their meanings):
> kerek = round (shaped)
> kör = circle
> kerül = go/get around
> kerít = go around and get
> körül = around
> környék = surrounding
> kerék = wheel
> kert = garden
> karika = collar, ring shaped sg.
> 
> I think german "Kreis" or latin "curva" (> English "curve") etc. belongs to here, too
> 
> kereszt - cross


How exactly do you relate this all. What have IE words like curve and Kreis to do with Hungarian? And how does this all relate to Mongol?


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## istenaldja

berndf said:


> How exactly do you relate this all. What have IE words like curve and Kreis to do with Hungarian? And how does this all relate to Mongol?



There are elementary, widespread words in Europe-West/CentralAsia, that doesn't respect the borders of lang families,
such as personal pronouns, derivatives of *_me/te/se_, which you can find in IE as well as in Uralic,
or the word 'water', cf. Hettite _watar_, Finnish _vete_, German _Wasser_, Hungarian _víz_,
or 'hundred', cf. Sanskrit, OldPersian _satem_, Khanti _sat_, Russian _sto_, Romanian _suta_, Hungarian _száz.
_I guess *_k(V)r_- '(a)round(ed), circle' being a somewhat similar case ("somewhat", because every word or lingustic phenomenon draws a unique isogloss).
Hungarian seems a special, informative lang here, because at least 40% of its ancient vocabulary (until cca 1000 AD, and now living) is of unknown origin.
It is not only, but certainly a residuum of extinct, half-(un)known languages, including
Ogur, an Altaic lang group (incl. the only living, but far from typical Chuvash, and the extinct Hunnic, Avar, Khazar, and Bulgar-Turkic lang's),
about which we know astonishingly little, like how far/close, but certainly related to, Mongol, Turk, and Mandzhu-Tunguz.
In the last years Prof. Uchiraltu, a Mongolian Chinese researched 60 (from cca 500) Hyung-nu (probably Hunnic) words from ancient Chinese documents and find them pretty much related to Mongolian. (I guess he took those words in the case of which it can be clearly shown.)
It is very probable that these lang's had already got a residuum or substratum from scythoid (saka, sarmatian, alan etc.) lang's,
their predeccessors (and dynastic relatives, and political associates / enemies etc.) in ruling the steppe empires.
May Ossetian be not typical of scythoid, of which it is held the only living remnant. Compare Avestan or Abayev's Scythian wordlist with OldGerman vocabulary. Or saks (held Indo-Iranian) with sachs (held German). Note, that Goths are in the steppe from the first centuries AD. Latin is also a very interesting case.
So perhaps this *_k(V)r_- '(a)round(ed), circle' supposition is not that untenable fancy the rhetoric of your questions suggested. The steppe and its surrounding tends to mix, absorb (both "ethnically" and linguistically) in a more radical way than other corners of EurAsia. Here there are several special, intensive interrelations between lang's held to be "IE", "Altaic", and "Uralic", not that important categories just here. Well, true, its relation to Mong _ger _seems rather weak (based on the fact that the upper hole, the sky that it represents, and the yurt itself is round, a circle).


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## berndf

istenaldja said:


> There are elementary, widespread words in Europe-West/CentralAsia, that doesn't respect the borders of lang families,


*Moderator note: I respect your views but they go far beyond the scope of this forum. I cannot allow further discussions along these lines. Please read the EHL forum rules, in particular rule #15.*


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## Dhira Simha

It is traditional to link Skr. gṛha  and Slavonic (partly Germanic)  grad/gorod/gard "city, town. village" to Skr. gṛha ( Max Vasmer _Etimologicheskii slovar’ russkogo iazyka_, vols. 1–4. With a supplement by O. N. Trubachev. Moscow, 1964–73.). This is my own etymology of Rus. gorod "city":



404город, градgorad, gradgṛha + da
गृह + दgorod, gradcity, townhouse, habitation, home + granting, givingTraditionally linked to the SA gṛha गृह  (VAS). The semantics of this word is not quite clear in Sanskrit but is  transparent in Slavonic languages: ‘a fenced place’. Ancient cities  were built surrounded by a protecting wall. The root гр gr (full grade  гор gor) can be found in other words like RU грудь grud' ‘chest’ (a  place protected, surrounded by ribs, ограда ograda ‘fence’ etc. It is   directly related to grah ग्रह् 'grasp, lay hold of; to arrest, stop'.  The link offered by Gilferding to the SA kaṭaka  कटक ‘a royal camp’ is  not acceptable neither phonetically nor semantically. Cp. also garta  गर्त  ‘house’  (GILF, 232). BG град; SRB град;  PL gród; U.LS hród;  L.LS grod; LT gar̃das; AV gǝrǝđō; EICH; VAS; ILE 4


I would not tie the ancient root *_k(V)r_- '(a)round(ed), circle' here. It has a separate etymology and in Skr. is found in root kṛt कृत् 'to surround, encompass, attire'


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## aruniyan

Dhira Simha said:


> It is traditional to link Skr. gṛha  and Slavonic (partly Germanic)  grad/gorod/gard "city, town. village" to Skr. gṛha ( Max Vasmer _Etimologicheskii slovar’ russkogo iazyka_, vols. 1–4. With a supplement by O. N. Trubachev. Moscow, 1964–73.). This is my own etymology of Rus. gorod "city":
> 
> 
> 
> 404город, градgorad, gradgṛha + daगृह + दgorod, gradcity, townhouse, habitation, home + granting, givingTraditionally linked to the SA gṛha गृह  (VAS). The semantics of this word is not quite clear in Sanskrit but is  transparent in Slavonic languages: ‘a fenced place’. Ancient cities  were built surrounded by a protecting wall. The root гр gr (full grade  гор gor) can be found in other words like RU грудь grud' ‘chest’ (a  place protected, surrounded by ribs, ограда ograda ‘fence’ etc. It is   directly related to grah ग्रह् 'grasp, lay hold of; to arrest, stop'.  The link offered by Gilferding to the SA kaṭaka  कटक ‘a royal camp’ is  not acceptable neither phonetically nor semantically. Cp. also garta  गर्त  ‘house’  (GILF, 232). BG град; SRB град;  PL gród; U.LS hród;  L.LS grod; LT gar̃das; AV gǝrǝđō; EICH; VAS; ILE 4
> 
> 
> I would not tie the ancient root *_k(V)r_- '(a)round(ed), circle' here. It has a separate etymology and in Skr. is found in root kṛt कृत् 'to surround, encompass, attire'



Sanskrit Graha also means _*take inside*_, receiving, Grasping, Obtaining etc... and I think it should come from Kara(hand). The Graha(house) also in a sense takes people inside.
there is also GrAha with the long "a" sound   is a little different in the sense its takes inside but more firmly, (not to be taken back), _ 'fenced  place'_ could be from this.


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## Dhira Simha

aruniyan said:


> Sanskrit Graha also means _*take inside*_, receiving, Grasping, Obtaining etc... and I think it should come from Kara(hand). The Graha(house) also in a sense takes people inside.
> there is also GrAha with the long "a" sound   is a little different in the sense its takes inside but more firmly, (not to be taken back), _ 'fenced  place'_ could be from this.



Because the meaning of grah  is so poly-semantic I  believe that  at least two  similarly sounding roots were fused. There  are two roots in Skr grah  and grabh  both meaning "to seize, grab; grasp". I noticed that Whitney in his Dictionary of Roots unites both under one entry. I agree with him here because the original /b/ is also well preserved in  Slavonic: Rus. grabit' "to rob" Skr. grabh                         ग्रभ् "take away; take away (by robbery)"; grabitel' "robber" - grabhītṛ                         ग्रभीतृ "one who seizes" etc.  Therefore, I think that we should separate from the meanings of grah those that relate to "siezing, grabbing"  and their later derivatives. Then we are left with "to arrest , stop" and, importantly,  graha  "keeping back, obstructing"  which is compatible with fencing. The Russian word for an (encircling) fence  is ograda which may be  presented as  o-gra-da  where o-  is a prefix meaning "round, around" (note the perfect coincidence between the meaning and its graphic representation) which is directly related to Skr abhi. Plus the root  gra- in the meaning ""keeping back, obstructing" and the  suffix -da with a general meaning "giving, granting".  You can figure  out the literal meaning yourself.


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## berndf

I am lost. Can you remind me how this discussion (#20 to #22) relates to Mongolian "Ger"?


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## Dhira Simha

Sorry, but we were trying to get the understanding of Skr gṛha  because the Mongolian ger was suggested as relating to it. Without the understanding of the internal logic and semantics of gṛha we can not really compare.  I do believe that this is relevant. One of the  most important qualities of an inherited word is that it preserves the meaning.  Skr. word  definitely has this, the question is does the Mongolian word mean anything other then house?


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## aruniyan

berndf said:


> I am lost. Can you remind me how this discussion (#20 to #22) relates to Mongolian "Ger"?



Sorry my post nothing to do with Mongolian 'ger', remove mine if you find it not fit to the topic.


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## berndf

Dhira Simha said:


> Sorry, but we were trying to get the understanding of Skr gṛha  because the Mongolian ger was suggested as relating to it. Without the understanding of the internal logic and semantics of gṛha we can not really compare.  I do believe that this is relevant. If you think otherwise, please remove these posts.


I am just trying to understand. I would appreciate, if you could draw explicit conclusions how the outcome of this discussion would affect the perspectives of an etymological connection between the Mongolic "Ger" and Sanskrit/Hindi गृह/घर/Urdu گرہ/گھر.


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## ancalimon

aruniyan said:


> Sanskrit Graha also means _*take inside*_, receiving, Grasping, Obtaining etc... and I think it should come from Kara(hand). The Graha(house) also in a sense takes people inside.
> there is also GrAha with the long "a" sound   is a little different in the sense its takes inside but more firmly, (not to be taken back), _ 'fenced  place'_ could be from this.



Similar to Turkish *gir- meaning entering, input, undertaking, etc...

http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/re...ny=&method_any=substring&sort=proto&ic_any=on

Apart from this, the word used by Mongolians for the Yurt (the name given to the same tent by Turkic people) should be related with the word Yurt itself which  for the first time can be read on Sumerian tablets as *tir* meaning country. This word itself is a Turkic loan (originally *yer*) in Sumerian and it means earth, a place, ground, country, home of human kind which is a huge "yurt" being planet Earth itself.  When this "yurt" is a tent, it merely becomes a country of a single family.

Another possibility is the Turkic word "kur" which can also be read as a Turkic loan in the form of "ur" inside Sumerian.
It means "to found, to lay foundation, to establish" in Sumerian and Turkic. Ultimately the word yurt in Turkic dialects meaning both "country" and "home, tent" is apparently also related with "kur".


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## Dhira Simha

You made me climb to the top shelf of my library and I have found the Russian-Mongolian/ Mongolian-Russian dictionary by Kruckin, 2006
The  meanings of Mongolian гэр ger: Cardinal meaning is home, house,  dwelling. Also esgij ger "the traditional Mongolian yurta made of   felt". Interestingly,  ger also means "a protective cover, sheath,  casing".  There are no verbs or other derivatives with this root. So we  have a situation of  a near complete phonetic-semantic correspondence,  which is a pretty rare thing, but it may be possible.  There is evidence  that  IE once lived in nearby regions of today's Altai (Tarim basin  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies).  We should also consider  the later Buddist influence.  Therefore, theoretically, we can not  exclude a loan from   IE but there are these complications; 1)  The  attested words for house in Tocharian are  was.t-, _ost_ - a house (Sanskrit _vástu- _'dwelling'),  Buddism spread to Mongolia via Tibet  Tibetan Buddhism   so there is little chance of Sanskritisms getting into Mongolian with  it and also there  appear to be no suitable words in Tibetan for home or  house: *house*: ཁང་པ (khang pa); *home*: ནང (nang).
Based  on this, and also that this word belongs to a basic strata of any  language with lower probability of borrowing, I would suggest that  Mongolian gar  is most probably unrelated to Sanskr. गृह/घर/Urdu گرہ/گھر
Still the secondary meaning "a protective cover, sheath, casing"  sounds intriguing in the light of the semantics of the Skr. word discussed in 20-22.


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## berndf

Thank you for the clarification.


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## aruniyan

Dhira Simha said:


> Because the meaning of grah  is so poly-semantic I  believe that  at least two  similarly sounding roots were fused. There  are two roots in Skr grah  and grabh  both meaning "to seize, grab; grasp". I noticed that Whitney in his Dictionary of Roots unites both under one entry. I agree with him here because the original /b/ is also well preserved in  Slavonic: Rus. grabit' "to rob" Skr. grabh                         ग्रभ् "take away; take away (by robbery)"; grabitel' "robber" - grabhītṛ                         ग्रभीतृ "one who seizes" etc.  Therefore, I think that we should separate from the meanings of grah those that relate to "siezing, grabbing"  and their later derivatives. Then we are left with "to arrest , stop" and, importantly,  graha  "keeping back, obstructing"  which is compatible with fencing. The Russian word for an (encircling) fence  is ograda which may be  presented as  o-gra-da  where o-  is a prefix meaning "round, around" (note the perfect coincidence between the meaning and its graphic representation) which is directly related to Skr abhi. Plus the root  gra- in the meaning ""keeping back, obstructing" and the  suffix -da with a general meaning "giving, granting".  You can figure  out the literal meaning yourself.



I am thinking about Tamil Koor(sharp) or Sanskrit KrU, in Tamil we have Koorai a more common word for roof of conical shaped  and I am seeing the semantics  in many IE language words, 
Cairn, Corner, Horn, Cornu(Latin), Carrot, Kerato etc...
etymoonline, take these words to PIE *Ker*. do you see a link with Mongolian Ger?


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## Dhira Simha

aruniyan said:


> I am thinking about Tamil Koor(sharp) or Sanskrit KrU, in Tamil we have Koorai a more common word for roof of conical shaped  and I am seeing the semantics  in many IE language words,
> Cairn, Corner, Horn, Cornu(Latin), Carrot, Kerato etc...
> etymoonline, take these words to PIE *Ker*. do you see a link with Mongolian Ger?



Sorry, I am lost in transliteration - by KrU  you mean कृ ?


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## Dhira Simha

If you fancy the Euroasiatic theory then we can consider  the  hypothetical Eurasiatic: *ḳErV Meaning: round

Indo-European: *ker- (*kerk-, *kerg-, *krenk-, *kreng(h)-)

Altaic: *k`erV ( ~ -ŕ-)

Uralic: *kerä  rund, rollend; sich drehen, drehen, wenden  (cf. also kere  Kreis, Ring, Reifen )

Eskimo-Aleut: *karivǝ-

  Could be a good candidate for Mongolian  ger. It is believed to be  related  (not accepted by all) to Uralic:

Proto: *kerä
> Nostratic: > Nostratic
English meaning: round, rolling; to turn, rotate
German meaning: rund, rollend; sich drehen, drehen, wenden

Finnish: kierä,  kiero 'gedreht, schief, scheel', kiereä 'drehbar, rollend, rund',  kieri- 'rollen', kiertä- 'umrollen, umgehen, einwickeln'
Estonian: keer  (gen. keeri) 'Drehen, etwas das sich dreht', keerd (gen. keeru, keero)  'Drehen, Drehung, Wirbel', keera- 'kehren, wenden, drehen', keeri- 'sich  im Kreise drehen'
Saam (Lapp): gierre -r- (N) 'twist, knit'
Khanty (Ostyak): körǝk  (V) 'rund, kreisförmig, Kreis', käri- (Vj.), kȧrǝj- (DN), kȧri- (O)  'sich umwenden, drehen', kirǝɣtǝ- (V), kerǝt- (DN O) 'zurückkehren',  kȧrim- (Ko.) 'wenden; zurückkehren' ( > Mansi So. kērtǝm 'sich  drehend')
Mansi (Vogul): kir- (KU So.) 'umgehen, sich zur Seite wenden'
Hungarian: kerek  'rund, (altung.) runder Wald, rundes Gehölz', kerék 'Rad, (altung.)  Kreis', kerül- 'umgehen; meiden, vermeiden', kerít- 'einfassen,  umgeben', kert 'Garten, dial. Zaun, Umzäunung'

and  to Altaic:

Proto-Altaic: *k`erV ( ~ -ŕ-)
Nostratic: Nostratic

Meaning: to go round, walk round

Mongolian: *kere-, *kerü-

Tungus-Manchu: *xerē-

The cardinal meaning is "round"  and this ties up  well with the form of a Mongolian yurta.  Voicing of /k/ to /g/ is not uncommon. 

If we accept the  common "Euroasiatic" origin, then we can  relate Mongolian  ger to Skr kṛt कृत् 'to surround, encompass, attire', and possibly to the Tamil words you quoted.  This could be a better option then to  assosiate it with Skr. gṛha.

It should be said, however that  In Mongolian this root is associated with  kere-, kerü- "to walk, roam" (Lessing F. D. Mongolian-English dictionary, 1960)  and not with  ger


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## imway

UrduMedium said:


> Thanks aruniyan for a deconstructing the word Ghar. The Mongolian Ger is a hut that has circular base and a conical roof. How interesting! Hoping someone can help connect the other end now ..


circular means "procedural course for harmony through communication", and conical shape is the result of communication. If 'ger' is correct pronounciation, it is from Korean [r-ge]. 르게[r-ge] is used for making a word to express the last purpose of communication with god.


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## imway

ancalimon said:


> I always thought that word together with the Turkish yurt were related with Tengri. (Tengri both means God and unreachable sky~heavens. Both the tent and sky have conical roof and a circular base).
> 
> 
> May I ask what a cross is called in Tamil? Since the roof of these Yurts is shaped as an equaleteral cross. I guess there is no relation?


A cross is the combination of horizontal and vertical axis. it has a hieroglyphic. 'horizontal' can be made by god, 'vertical' can ba made by human being. therefore the cross means redemption. it is 10 in number, so 10 of chinese character is 十.


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## sotos

Dhira Simha said:


> Indo-European: *ker- (*kerk-, *kerg-, *krenk-, *kreng(h)-)
> Altaic: *k`erV ( ~ -ŕ-)
> Uralic: *kerä  rund, rollend; sich drehen, drehen, wenden  (cf. also kere  Kreis, Ring, Reifen )
> Eskimo-Aleut: *karivǝ-
> 
> Proto: *kerä
> > Nostratic: > Nostratic   English meaning: round, rolling; to turn, rotate
> German meaning: rund, rollend; sich drehen, drehen, wenden
> 
> Finnish: kierä,  kiero 'gedreht, schief, scheel', kiereä 'drehbar, rollend, rund',  kieri- 'rollen', kiertä- 'umrollen, umgehen, einwickeln'
> Estonian: keer  (gen. keeri) 'Drehen, etwas das sich dreht', keerd (gen. keeru, keero)  'Drehen, Drehung, Wirbel', keera- 'kehren, wenden, drehen', keeri- 'sich  im Kreise drehen'
> Saam (Lapp): gierre -r- (N) 'twist, knit'
> Khanty (Ostyak): körǝk  (V) 'rund, kreisförmig, Kreis', käri- (Vj.), kȧrǝj- (DN), kȧri- (O)  'sich umwenden, drehen', kirǝɣtǝ- (V), kerǝt- (DN O) 'zurückkehren',  kȧrim- (Ko.) 'wenden; zurückkehren' ( > Mansi So. kērtǝm 'sich  drehend')
> Mansi (Vogul): kir- (KU So.) 'umgehen, sich zur Seite wenden'
> Hungarian: kerek  'rund, (altung.) runder Wald, rundes Gehölz', kerék 'Rad, (altung.)  Kreis', kerül- 'umgehen; meiden, vermeiden', kerít- 'einfassen,  umgeben', kert 'Garten, dial. Zaun, Umzäunung'
> 
> and  to Altaic:  Proto-Altaic: *k`erV ( ~ -ŕ-)
> Nostratic: Nostratic    Meaning: to go round, walk round
> 
> Mongolian: *kere-, *kerü-    Tungus-Manchu: *xerē-    The cardinal meaning is "round"  and this ties up  well with the form of a Mongolian *yurta*.  Voicing of /k/ to /g/ is not uncommon.



Greek _gyro_ (γύρω): around. 
Thanks for this gyro-scopic thread.


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## berndf

sotos said:


> Greek _gyro_ (γύρω): around.
> Thanks for this gyro-scopic thread.


I would be careful. As DS certainly agrees, this Euroasiatic business is highly speculative. And on top, in Greek _γ-_ as the outcome of PIE _k-_ would not be terribly plausible. This would leave the /r/ as the only common sound.


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## fdb

The usual etymology is that γυρός ‘round, curved’ goes with γύης ‘the curved piece of wood in a plough’, Avestan gu- ‘hand’, Persian gōša ‘corner’, from IE *guH- or the like.


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## sotos

fdb said:


> The usual etymology is that γυρός ‘round, curved’ goes with γύης ‘the curved piece of wood in a plough’, Avestan gu- ‘hand’, Persian gōša ‘corner’, from IE *guH- or the like.


Γύρος and  γύης probably come from a common ancestor that means "hollow, concave, round". Compare with γύαλον (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper...abetic+letter=*g:entry+group=32:entry=gu/alon). Any Avestan gu- ‘hand’, seems to be irrelevant. If this is correct, then the relation between Greek γ- and IE k- cannot be excluted: γύαλος - κοίλος (hollow, concave), αιθέρια γύαλα (ether heavens) - coelus (sky, <Hesychius>). I believe that γύης was formed because of its semantic and sound proximity to γη (earth).


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## berndf

I am trying to understand your reasoning. Could you explain how you derive an etymological relation between γύαλος and κοίλος?


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## Dib

Is there any demonstrable connection between Mongolian "ger" and Turkish "yer" (place)?


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## er targyn

No. It's connected to Kazakh "kerege", meaning a wooden lattice wall of yurt.


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## unattendedglenda

The Talmud and Midrash use "ger" as one of God's 613 commandments 63 and 64 of the negative commandments (the "thou shalt NOTS) as the following: 63. Thou shalt not wrong a ger (convert) 64. Thou shalt not oppress a ger (convert) with insulting words - I hope this helps.


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## Ben Jamin

unattendedglenda said:


> The Talmud and Midrash use "ger" as one of God's 613 commandments 63 and 64 of the negative commandments (the "thou shalt NOTS) as the following: 63. Thou shalt not wrong a ger (convert) 64. Thou shalt not oppress a ger (convert) with insulting words - I hope this helps.


And what does this have to do with the thread's topic?
One could also say that "ger" in Swedish is a finite form of a verb meaning "to give" (all persons in present tense), but it has equally little to do with the topic.


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