# Syrian: بركدن



## Arabus

Hello,

The Persian word _balki _(perhaps)is pronounced _barki _in Aleppo, but it seems that in Damascus it is more commonly pronounced _bargadan_, is this correct?

Thanks,


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## be.010

Both are used, actually... _barki_ sounds more modern, though...


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## Arabus

Thank you.


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## Masjeen

بلكه كلمة سريانية


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## Mahaodeh

That seems possible, in some places in Iraq it's pronounced بلكت.


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## WadiH

Masjeen said:


> بلكه كلمة سريانية



Are you sure?  It's used in Mecca, where it appears as _belkin_.  I always thought it was borrowed from Ottoman Turkish (or from Persian via Turkish).


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## 0m1

Maybe a little late to the party, but if it's still relevant to anyone at all, I think I have the answer- the word is found in Syriac as "balka", meaning "perhaps, possibly, maybe" etc, but the Syriac dictionary itself gives it either a Kurdish (belkî) or Turkish (belki) origin. Seeing as the two are from completely different family groups, one must have borrowed from the other, and after having done some research, Crimean Tatar, another Turkic language, seems to have a cognate with exactly the same shape and meaning, so essentially it must have been a Turkic word adopted at a very early stage, i.e. into Syriac and Kurdish.

The interesting point is though, that some pronunciations of the word, namely the barki/belkin examples mimic Turkish "belki" a lot more than they do the Syriac "balka", although for "bargatan", "balka" seems a far better bet- and possibly also for Iraqi "balkat" (if that's how that's to be read). So maybe it spread differently in different places, preserved in Turkish form in places, and adopted from the Syriac abstraction in others?

I do hope all of that makes sense, and indeed I'd be very happy for comments pointing out where I might have gone wrong and so on!


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## rayloom

@0m1
Just a thought, could the fact that "belki" is present in all these languages (Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Turkish & Syriac) indicate that it must've had an older presence in the region. Probably Syriac or Persian, since it ain't Arabic in origin?
Crimean Tartar could've borrowed it via Turkish if we presume for this argument's sake that Turkish borrowed it from Persian or from Syriac through Arabic.
Does anyone know to how far back we can trace this word in each language? And is there a derivation for this word in any of the languages of the region?


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## Mahaodeh

Well, it doesn't exist in the Lisaan or other contemporary dictionaries despite that there is a root ب ل ك and a root ب ر ك; it's worth noting that Persian loanwords are usually listed in the Lisaan while Turkish ones are usually not since the Turkic influence is more recent than the Persian one on the language.  Ibn Manzour died in 1311AD, before the Ottomans that had the greatest Turkic influence on Arabic and before the Mamluks.

However, there were several waves of Turkic peoples in the region, from different tribes with different dialects and languages: Saljukids, Mongols, Mamluks, Ottomans, (some even claim the Ayyubids were Turkic but I don't think they count since they spoke Arabic). Hence, it could come from more than one source which may explain the difference in pronunciation. It could also be borrowed into Persian or Kurdish as they had more contact with Turkic peoples due to proximity and then into Arabic.


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## 0m1

Indeed, and the fact that it is present in Syriac is surely indication that it was one of the earliest waves of Turkic influence that (at least first) brought the word in?

Oh and could somebody please point me in the direction of the Persian iteration of this word? Everyone's mentioned it but I seem to be struggling to find it in online dictionaries!


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## kloie

The word is not really used in persian it is a bit outdated we use shayad for maybe,perhaps.


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## 0m1

Aha, but how was it spelt/pronounced when it was used? Was it belki, something like بلكي perhaps?


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## kloie

It was balke.


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## 0m1

Ah, thanks for that kloie- with it, incidentally, I managed to find the following, in "Persian grammar: including key", by Ann K. S. Lambton:



> بل usually compounded in Persian with كه, thus becoming بلكه


The book gives several examples of the usage of that word, (such as "but, rather, on the contrary") and then goes on to say "In Colloquial Persian balke is sometimes used in the sense of "perhaps"'.

So there we have it, I think? It's ironically, after all of this, of Arabic origin, that is, "bal", interpreted into Persian with a Persian suffix, and presumably, from there spread like wildfire to all these languages (Syriac, Turkish, Crimean Tatar, Kurdish) and iroincally straight back into Arabic too, where its pronunciation shifted from balke to barki, presumably as ease of pronunciation

So Wadi Hanifa's "from Persian via Turkish" works here too, except perhaps amended to "from Arabic via Persian via Turkish", from whence it spread to Syriac, Kurdish, Tatar and back into Arabic in its new form.

The only thing it doesn't explain is "barkadan", but that seems possibly to be just an elaboration of "barki", and actually much like Persian amending "bal" with a native "ki", so when the word was borrowed back into some dialects of Arabic, it too was re-amended with an Arabic-sounding -a(d)/an. Very ironic word, this one seems to be!


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## rayloom

0m1 said:


> The only thing it doesn't explain is "barkadan", but that seems possibly to be just an elaboration of "barki", and actually much like Persian amending "bal" with a native "ki", so when the word was borrowed back into some dialects of Arabic, it too was re-amended with an Arabic-sounding -a(d)/an. Very ironic word, this one seems to be!



My guess is that barakadan is actually barkeh but in the accusative, where it is retained in dialectal Arabic (and Syrian) in accusative adverbs and transitions. The final -h is treated as a feminine marker and turns into a -t. The -an is added-->barkatan (some Syrians do say it barkatan).
For others, the t evolved into a d.


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## 0m1

Ah, that makes much senseI think in a way that was what I was stabbing in the dark at but was nowhere near!


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## Daybreaker

Hi @all..

Like someone has mentioned before, "balki" is a contraction of Arabic "bal" + Persian "ke", that reentered the Arabic language via Turkish. 
In addition to that though, in Turkish it is possible to say "belki de" or even "belkiden". This in mind, "barkadan" could be an arabized version of "belkiden", rather than the accusative of "barki", which IMO actually would be kind of unusual.

Best wishes...


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## rayloom

Daybreaker said:


> Hi @all..
> 
> Like someone has mentioned before, "balki" is a contraction of Arabic "bal" + Persian "ke", that reentered the Arabic language via Turkish.
> In addition to that though, in Turkish it is possible to say "belki de" or even "belkiden". This in mind, "barkadan" could be an arabized version of "belkiden", rather than the accusative of "barki", which IMO actually would be kind of unusual.
> 
> Best wishes...



Hi,

Makes sense.
Welcome to the forum


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## 0m1

Daybreaker said:


> Hi @all..
> 
> Like someone has mentioned before, "balki" is a contraction of Arabic "bal" + Persian "ke", that reentered the Arabic language via Turkish.
> In addition to that though, in Turkish it is possible to say "belki de" or even "belkiden". This in mind, "barkadan" could be an arabized version of "belkiden", rather than the accusative of "barki", which IMO actually would be kind of unusual.
> 
> Best wishes...



That's brilliant! This word really does demonstrate the rather complex inter-connectedness of those three languages (Arabic, Persian, Turkish) in the Middle-East and surroundings, and all their borrowing to and fro.


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