# About "bohourt"



## sotos

Hello everybody. In some old  books describing life in Ottoman Empire, I find the word "bohourt" or "bouhourt", meaning a kind of staple food. It is possibly made of wheat and sour milk. Do you know what exactly was that? Is the word still used? It is possibly the same with what we know in Greece as "kourkout" or "boulgur".
Thanks.


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## Muttaki

Do you know how it is written in Turkish scripture?

I haven't heard anything similar to what you said but bulgur is an everyday word in Turkish, which I realize have passed into Greek as well, meaning a kind of staple.


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## sotos

The source is not turkish but old french (16th c.). I find it also here Some Account of the Present Greek Church, in a 1722 english book.

I will put the same question in arabic and persian threads. Thanks for the anwer.


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## Muttaki

You mean bulgur is old french?


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## sotos

No, I mean I found the  "bohourt" in a book written by a French naturalist who travelled in Turkey and Greece in mid 16th century. He says that the Turks call this food "bohourt" and he relates this with _trahana_. Maybe he got wrong the pronounciation of the first word.


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## denizkay

It might be yoğurt.


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## Toby Le Rhône

It is almost certainly bulgur.   I searched for bouhourt in both Latin and Kufic scripts in all variants, with h and ḥ (and glottal stop), with short first vowel (ou) and long, short second vowel and long, -d and -t ending, no ending, starting with a b and with a p.

Nothing came up.  I highly doubt this staple food disappeared from the region without a trace.   It must be a mishearing of bulgur, possible based on a regional variant.

Note that the word exist(ed) as burğūl, burğul, barğūl and parğūl in Arabic and Persian.  

I'm not sure why it would be spelled with a -t in French, since that final -t would not be pronounced in French in such a spelling.  The Turkic word "yurt" is spelled "yourte" in French.     Anyway, I also searched with no "t" and found nada.

It is most probably bulgur.  The author might have seen a bulgur trahana and confused the ingredient for the dish.


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## sotos

Thanks Toby for the research. The french traveller possibly did not catch properly the nature and the nature of that stuff. Btw, the bulgur in Greece is usually called plegOUr(i) and some believe its origin is the Gr. verb "πλήττω" (to hit, pound, crush). Comparable to the Gr. plectron (key, as in  piano or keyboard). But this may be folk etymology.

As for the final -t, the French might be influenced by the fr. military term "bohourt"  (http://portail.atilf.fr/cgi-bin/getobject_?a.9:298./var/artfla/encyclopedie/textdata/image/ ). Actually, in his texts mentions the bohourt and trahana as commonly used by soldiers.


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## Muttaki

Toby Le Rhône said:


> Note that the word exist(ed) as burğūl, burğul, barğūl and parğūl in Arabic and Persian.


In Turkish as well, as burgul. By the we way do we use "ğ" in Latin transcription?


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