# Venice - Venezia - ‎البندقية



## cherine

The thread about Austria reminded me of a question I had myself some time ago and never had an answer for. Maybe someone can help me here : What made Venice become al-bundukiyya البندقية in Arabic ?
Any clue ?


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## Jana337

Here's the German word: Venedig. Does it ring a bell? 
More questions of this type, pleeeeeeease! 

Jana


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## cherine

Venedig ==> Benedig ==> bendig ==> bendog... bunduq==>bunduqiyya?
Very probable, why not ? 
Thanks 
Waiting for more opinions

Another thing: Untill few years ago, in Egypt, people used to call the 21 carrat gold : dahab bunduqi دهب بندقى do you think it has anything to do with Venician gold ?!


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## Jana337

cherine said:
			
		

> Venedig ==> Benedig ==> bendig ==> bendog... bunduq==>bunduqiyya?


The red steps are unjustified because you do not have V, E, G in Arabic. Therefore, the way is much more direct.  And the female ending of bunduquiyya may be there just to do justice to the Italian original, Venezia. 

Jana


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## cherine

It was just a guessing essay  
In Arabic there's no V, but generally the B and the V are somtimes interchangeable between the words moving between Arabic and other languages. As for the e and g, they do exist, don't they?
and the feminine form can either be due to the Italian origin as you said, or to the fact that many city names are feminine ? I'm not sure. I'm just playing the guess game here


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## Jana337

OK, "g" does exist in Egyptian Arabic, but it has to be substituted by "q" or "gh" elsewhere.
About "e" - I am coming to the conclusion that it is actually "a" that does not exist in MSA: People always pronounce "e" where I would expect "a". 
The thing about city names being feminine is general? Can I take it as a rule of thumb when I have doubts?

Jana


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## cherine

Yes, in general city names, and even country names are feminine. It's a bit rare to find a city of a masculine name. And when i say masculine or feminine I don't mean the name itself as much as I mean the pronoun referring to it (she instead of he) -- for as you should know, there's no (it) in Arabic.


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## elroy

Jana337 said:
			
		

> OK, "g" does exist in Egyptian Arabic, but it has to be substituted by "q" or "gh" elsewhere.



How so?  The Egyptian "g" corresponds to the standard "j."


> About "e" - I am coming to the conclusion that it is actually "a" that does not exist in MSA: People always pronounce "e" where I would expect "a".



The Arabic vowel is actually neither an "a" or an "e" - but somewhere in between.  The German "ä" is a good approximation.  Also, it can *sometimes* be pronounced exactly like "a" (think "saara" - to become).

As for Cherine's attempt, I don't think it's unjustifiable.  She suggests, among other things, that the "V" became a "b" and the "g" a "q."  What's wrong with that?


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## Jana337

elroy said:
			
		

> How so? The Egyptian "g" corresponds to the standard "j."


Sorry, I wasn't clear. The following was in the back of my mind: When you transliterate foreign words - let's take Portu*g*al as an example, you use غ in Eastern Arabic, but you could (don't know whether you do or not ) use ج in Egyptian Arabic. Aren't there examples where  transliteration in Eastern Arabic differs from Egyptian one? 


> As for Cherine's attempt, I don't think it's unjustifiable. She suggests, among other things, that the "V" became a "b" and the "g" a "q." What's wrong with that?


On reflection, nothing.  Just the "g" was bugging me - I didn't get how you can transliterate something using "g" if you don't have it (Cherine preserved "g" in her first step Venedi*g* ==> Benedi*g*). I think I am splitting hairs.

Jana


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## cherine

About the g/j in Egyptian Arabic :
It's true, in Egypt we pronounce the ج as g (like in _game_) Most of the words transliterated with غ originally came to Egypt from the Eastern Arab countries (specially Lebanese and Syrian translators) like the word _geography_ for example جغرافيا Egyptians proununce it Gughrafya, other Arabs say Jughrafya. We (Egyptians i mean) pronounce the J mainly in words of non-Arabic origin; like Jeep, James, John....
So maybe that what made me preserve the (g); for it's the "instinctif" pronounciation for me


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## Josh_

I wonder if the Arabic name for Venice just came from the Arabic word for hazelnut. Italy is one of the worlds leading producers of hazelnuts and there are areas around Venice that grow hazelnuts. Maybe, sometime in the past (Middle Ages? Who knows?) there was hazelnut trade between Italy and the Arab World with Venice being the main trade area. And somehow the Arabs just began to refer to this area of Italy as al-bunduqiyya. 

 I doubt this is the case. Just a wild conjecture. I spent the better half of the day trying to find the etymology, but to no avail.

   Just an aside:  It probably also has nothing to do with rifles or shotguns.


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## V52

Hi , 
as Jana pointed out the thread is quite interesting! I can't supply a definite origin of name Venezia, but I heard about a possible origin from a vineyard on the site where is now the town (on one of the the ilsands?) so the name could come from a Latin root "Vignaetia " (place of vineyards). In fact there is a latin personal name coming from the same root : "Vignaetius" (vine-dresser) modern italian "Vinicio" 
Can this help?
Vittorio


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## cherine

Josh,
Good effort  But i don't think hazelnuts were that important as to name a city after them. as for the rifles (which is very smart of you, it didn't occur to me) i don't think they apply either, for the simple reason that _bunduqeyya_ is a very old name, long before the invention of rifles. But nicce try 


V52 said:


> I can't supply a definite origin of name Venezia, but I heard about a possible origin from a vineyard on the site where is now the town (on one of the the ilsands?) so the name could come from a Latin root "Vignaetia " (place of vineyards). In fact there is a latin personal name coming from the same root : "Vignaetius" (vine-dresser) modern italian "Vinicio"
> Can this help?


I'm not sure if this can help, but thanks for the contribution
We didn't find the exact etymology of the Arabic name of Venice _(bunduqeyya_) in any book. So we hope to guess it through "sound alikes"


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## Douglas

Jana337 said:
			
		

> The red steps are unjustified because you do not have V, E, G in Arabic. Therefore, the way is much more direct.  And the female ending of bunduquiyya may be there just to do justice to the Italian original, Venezia.
> 
> Jana


 
I humbly think the red steps may be perfectly justified in view of the Andalusian empire which ruled in Spain between the 8th and 11th centuries. "V" is pronounced "b" in Spanish and could easily be the explanation for El Bundukiyya. . .Who knows. . . Culture is the result of  "give and take" .
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 . .


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## V52

cherine said:
			
		

> I'm not sure if this can help, but thanks for the contribution
> We didn't find the exact etymology of the Arabic name of Venice _(bunduqeyya_) in any book. So we hope to guess it through "sound alikes"


Can you give the possible translations of BUNDUQUEYYA and BENEDIG ? By the way in my post I told you about vineyards, more important than hazelnuts in ancient times. 
Ciao
Vittorio


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## elroy

Ciao Vittorio,

"Bunduqiyya" means "rifle."  As far as I know, that is the only translation of that word.
"Bunduq" means "hazelnuts" ("bunduqa" = "hazelnut").  "Bundiqiyya" could thus mean "related to hazelnuts."

"Benedig" is not a word in Arabic.


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## V52

Thank you
I'm checking on the net, and I found that "Venetia" was the name of the whole italian north east aera during Roman Empire, then it became the name of federation of  small villages on the islands of the lacoon, does it help?
Vittorio


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## Jana337

Anything helps.  But it is not enough to establish a convincing link between Venezia and al-bundukiyya. I still believe that it is derived from the German word.

Jana


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## cherine

I agree with Jana, this is the most convincing etymology we've reach so far.


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## V52

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Anything helps.  But it is not enough to establish a convincing link between Venezia and al-bundukiyya. I still believe that it is derived from the German word.
> 
> Jana


You are right Jana
If the word existed during Roman Empire how can it come from an arabic root? Maybe German, as you say... The actual area of Veneto in ancient times Venetia was really famous as today for very rich vineyards.
Vittorio


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## cherine

Sorry Vittorio, you seem to get it the other way round, we didn't say that Arabic is the origin of the Roman or Italian word. In fact we search for the origin of the Arabic word itself : What made the _*Italian*_ word Venezia become Bunduqeyya in Arabic ?


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## V52

Oops.. sorry... that's more difficult... 
Vittorio


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## RompiAP

The term _Bunduqiyyah _comes from _bunduqī_ ("Venetian"), which is the Arabic version of the Byzantine Greek term βενετικός (_venetikós_).
The word  بندقية for "rifle" comes from   بندقة "bullet" and might  well be coincidental.


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## Anatoli

If you're interested, the final *g* in Venedig is not pronounced as g in German.

Final vowels lose their strength in German, so b becomes p, d becomes t, g becomes k etc, and ending "ig" is pronounced (in most dialects and in standard German as German "ich"). It's a palatalised x (ch) sound - it doesn't exist in English or Arabic but it's close to Arabic خ (only soft - palatalised)


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## sierra17

The arabic word for rifle (al-bunnduqiyah) came directly from the word for hazelnut; they attributed the size and shape of the ball (the ammunition) to a hazelnut, and it stuck.  

Since Venice was the main supplier of rifles to the Arab world at the time, they were given the name by association.  It honestly has nothing to do with any German word, as the arabs didn't have strong relations with the germans during that period of time.


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## Anatoli

sierra17 said:


> The arabic word for rifle (*al-bunnduqiyah*) came directly from the word for hazelnut; they attributed the size and shape of the ball (the ammunition) to a hazelnut, and it stuck.
> ...



I wonder if the Russian word for hazelnut (фундук - [fund*u*k]) has anything to with it.


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## Goerzer

Jana337 said:


> But it is not enough to establish a convincing link between Venezia and al-bundukiyya. I still believe that it is derived from the German word.


I don't think so. Venetians had direct contact with Arabian countries for centuries, so why they needed any German words?


RompiAP said:


> The term _Bunduqiyyah _comes from _bunduqī_ ("Venetian"), which is the Arabic version of the Byzantine Greek term βενετικός (_venetikós_).


I agree with you. This is the most probable etymology.


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## xoussef

It might originate from "el bon doge" 
According to websters, "bon" means "magnificent, fine, excellent, generous, genuine, grand, tasty, affable, indulgent, lenient." in Venetian. In Italian the equivalent is "buono" i think.
The doge is like everyone knows is the title of the elected leader of the republic of Venice, and means only that: leader or chef. It comes from the Latin word _Dux that gave Duc in French and Duke in English)._ 
So the town of el bon doge, (the magnificent leader) becomes in Arabic Albondoqia.

that's my theory


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## Mahaodeh

V52 said:


> I'm checking on the net, and I found that "Venetia" was the name of the whole italian north east aera during Roman Empire, then it became the name of federation of small villages on the islands of the lacoon, does it help?
> Vittorio


Interestingly, Lisaan al-Arab and Taaj al-Aroos refer to it as "بلاد البندقية" and "أرض البندقية" respectively.


RompiAP said:


> The term _Bunduqiyyah _comes from _bunduqī_ ("Venetian"), which is the Arabic version of the Byzantine Greek term βενετικός (_venetikós_).
> The word بندقية for "rifle" comes from بندقة "bullet" and might well be coincidental.


I find this the most convincing.


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## Outsider

I thought Josh's hypothesis was plausible, too:


Josh_ said:


> I wonder if the Arabic name for Venice just came from the Arabic word for hazelnut. Italy is one of the worlds leading producers of hazelnuts and there are areas around Venice that grow hazelnuts. Maybe, sometime in the past (Middle Ages? Who knows?) there was hazelnut trade between Italy and the Arab World with Venice being the main trade area. And somehow the Arabs just began to refer to this area of Italy as al-bunduqiyya.


It certainly explains better the phonetic changes. The derivation _Venetik(ós) --> Bunduqi_ would need to explain how that _-nd-_ cluster would come about, and how the front vowel _e_ would change into the back vowel _u_.

On the other hand...


Anatoli said:


> If you're interested, the final *g* in Venedig is not pronounced as g in German.


Not today, but what about centuries ago?


cherine said:


> [...] i don't think hazelnuts were that important as to name a city after them.


What if it was the fruit which was named after the city?


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## SaiH

I found this: 


> «                           Al-bunduqiyya » البندقية                           is the Arabic word for a rifle. It is derived from « al-bunduqa »                           البندقة  the                           hazelnut, as the first bullets shot by the crossbows, before the invention of                           the firearms, were similar to the fruit of the hazel tree : « al-bunduq                           » البندق .
> In the Middle East, the first firearms were introduced by Venetians merchants,                           this is why nowadays Venice is called in Arabic « madînat al-bunduqiyya »                           مدينة البندقية                           , the city of the rifle.


Source


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## clevermizo

Outsider said:


> The derivation _Venetik(ós) --> Bunduqi_ would need to explain how that _-nd-_ cluster would come about, and how the front vowel _e_ would change into the back vowel _u_.



While I actually am starting to believe the etymological hypotheses more than the phonological hypotheses, it's probably worth noting that:

*venetik- > *ventik- >*vendik-

is plausible, because after loss of the the second vowel, you can have a forward feature spread of the voicing from /n/ to /t/ changing the cluster *nt > *nd. Forward spreading can be seen in English: *_talked> *talkd > [takt]_ (I'm not using strict IPA because I don't want to involve any problems with Unicode characters. The form "*talked" is starred because I'm positing the 'e'  was pronounced and then lost, which is not necessarily the case. I may edit this with a better example of forward spreading when I think of one.)

The vowel change I have no easy explanation for.


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## HassanE

I am a late-comer to this thread. Venedig is obviously a pretty valid possibility for 'Bondoqeyya'. I would also like to advance yet another possibility.

The Venetians built 'fondacos', the Italian word for caravanserail, hotel, etc. in Venice as well as in various parts of the Near East. This word is pretty similar to Fondoq in Arabic, which means hotel.

So it could be that 'Bondoqeyya' was derived from Fondaco and attributed to Venice. Thus, when people wanted to say: "we are going to the Venetian caravanserail" in Arabic, they may have said: "Ana zaheb ela'l Fondoqeyya (al-finiseyya), or simply "Ana zaheb elal'l Bondoqeyya".

Any comments?

H a s s a n
P.S. Sorry I did not succeed in inserting Arabic letterings


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## lorenzogranada

It seems likely that bunduqiyya comes from the German Venedig, but the "rifle" theory is also intriguing.  Muslim merchants were customers of the Italian arms industry, to be sure.  And when I was in Venice last year I noticed in Saint Mark's a curious effigy of the Madonna on a column near the altar (left side of the nave) with an old musket clamped to the wall beside it! It looked like the sort of thing used in the French Revolution, and it stood vertically next to the Madonna's feet (I took a photo when the guards weren't looking which came out too blurry to be of any use).  I never saw a gun in a church before so I couldn't help thinking about the bunduqiyya enigma.


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## djara

HassanE said:


> The Venetians built 'fondacos', the Italian word for caravanserail, hotel, etc. in Venice as well as in various parts of the Near East. This word is pretty similar to Fondoq in Arabic, which means hotel.
> 
> So it could be that 'Bondoqeyya' was derived from Fondaco and attributed to Venice. Thus, when people wanted to say: "we are going to the Venetian caravanserail" in Arabic, they may have said: "Ana zaheb ela'l Fondoqeyya (al-finiseyya), or simply "Ana zaheb elal'l Bondoqeyya".


I would certainly go in this direction as well. Please see this very interesting discussion of the Greek etymology of the words fondok and bondok, here
As to Venetian fondacos, here is an interesting article.


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## lorenzogranada

All these theories including my own "rifle" are intriguing but none of them are really satisfying.  Why call a town for rifles or hotels or for that matter for a German name for it which may not have existed then?


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## alenaro

^In order to find the best answer a long and detailed search should be carried out, especially by checking old dictionnaries and sources. None of the answers will otherwise be ever satisfying. Furthermore, answers at times can be more than one, as many factors can play a role over the centuries.


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## freia lund

ibn Hawqal (_Sûrat al-ard_) quotes a _jûn al-Banâdiqin _(Gulf of Venetians) at the end of the 10th c. AD, when firearms did not exist. Other writers speak of: _al-bunduqiyya _= Venice;_ banâdiqa_ = Venice; _bilâd al banâdiqyyin_ = land of Venetians, _Jun al-banâdiqa_ = Gulf of Venice,_ bahr al-banâdiqa_ = Sea of Venice , _h__alij al-banâdiqa_ = Channel of Venice. In Arabic dictionaries (Kazimirski, Lane, Barthélemy) you may find: _bunduq_ = hazel; _bundûq_ = bastard; _bunduqa_ = hazelnut, bullet; _bunduqîyya_ = rifle, musket; _bunduqî_ = ducat, piece of thin linen cloth. According to Maria  Nallino (_Venezia in antichi scrittori arabi_, «Annali della facoltà di lingue e letterature straniere di Ca’ Foscari», 2, 1963, 111-120), _al-bunduqîyya_ comes from the name of the inhabitants of the city in Latin (_Veneticus_) > Byzantine Greek (_ouevetikós_) > Arabic. The first ducat was coined in 1282 and it too cannot be the source of this word. Take also present that before 1000 AD in Italy the official language was Latin and not Italian and that in 829 the doge changed his title: he was no longer the ruler of the Byzantine province of ‘the Venices’ (plural) (_Veneciarum provincie dux_) but became the ruler of the Venetians (_dux Veneticorum_). The only link I found with a hazelnut is that in the Middle Ages (before 1000 AD) Venice was called _Olivolo_ (= such as an olive), from the shape of the island where its bishop lived and its castle stood (cfr. M.P. Pedani, _Venezia Porta d'Oriente_, Bologna, 2010, p. 243).


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## Interprete

Maybe at the very beginning of rifles they used hazelnuts as ammunition. Hence the name bunduqiya.


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## aurelien.demarest

freia lund said:


> ibn Hawqal (_Sûrat al-ard_) quotes a _jûn al-Banâdiqin _(Gulf of Venetians) at the end of the 10th c. AD, when firearms did not exist. Other writers speak of: _al-bunduqiyya _= Venice;_ banâdiqa_ = Venice; _bilâd al banâdiqyyin_ = land of Venetians, _Jun al-banâdiqa_ = Gulf of Venice,_ bahr al-banâdiqa_ = Sea of Venice , _h__alij al-banâdiqa_ = Channel of Venice. In Arabic dictionaries (Kazimirski, Lane, Barthélemy) you may find: _bunduq_ = hazel; _bundûq_ = bastard; _bunduqa_ = hazelnut, bullet; _bunduqîyya_ = rifle, musket; _bunduqî_ = ducat, piece of thin linen cloth. According to Maria  Nallino (_Venezia in antichi scrittori arabi_, «Annali della facoltà di lingue e letterature straniere di Ca’ Foscari», 2, 1963, 111-120), _al-bunduqîyya_ comes from the name of the inhabitants of the city in Latin (_Veneticus_) > Byzantine Greek (_ouevetikós_) > Arabic. The first ducat was coined in 1282 and it too cannot be the source of this word. Take also present that before 1000 AD in Italy the official language was Latin and not Italian and that in 829 the doge changed his title: he was no longer the ruler of the Byzantine province of ‘the Venices’ (plural) (_Veneciarum provincie dux_) but became the ruler of the Venetians (_dux Veneticorum_). The only link I found with a hazelnut is that in the Middle Ages (before 1000 AD) Venice was called _Olivolo_ (= such as an olive), from the shape of the island where its bishop lived and its castle stood (cfr. M.P. Pedani, _Venezia Porta d'Oriente_, Bologna, 2010, p. 243).



I don't know if this source is reliable but it seems to say the same thing _bundûq_ = bastard (bastardo in Italian). They also say "different".


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## freia lund

The first primitive firearms were invented about 1250 A.D. in China, about 3 centuries after ibn Hawqal and the first quotation of the word al-bunduqiyya. The Europeans and Arabs (first Mamluks) obtained firearms in the 14th century. The Mamluk sultan Baybars (1260-1277) was called al-Bunduqdârî, from the profession of his master, 'Alâ' ad-Dîn Aydakîn al-Bunduqdâr (d. 1285), a word usually translated as 'slinger' (cfr. also L.A- Mayer, _Saracenic Heraldry_, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933, pp. 13-14, 83-84). In A. De Biberstein-Kazimirski, _Dictionnaire arabe-français: contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe_, 1, Paris: Ed. G.P. Maisonnenve, 1960, p. 167, there is written: "_bundûq_, bâtard, fils naturel." I do not find 'different'.


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## bee049

In his book GUN ISLAND (2019), Amitav Ghosh tells about the Arabic _al_-_Bunduqeyya_ for Venice, guns, hazelnuts and bullets, the bullets...[were cast precisely in the foundry of the old _getto_] ghetto in Venice, [the island that was allotted to the Jews... had previously been a foundry where armaments, including bullets, were cast. The word for foundry in the old Venetian dialect was getto and this had become the name of the city’s Jewish settlement. Not only would this settlement become a great centre of Jewish learning, it would also lead to the coining of certain words, of which _ghetto_ was only one.]

The link bundûk / bastard / bâtard could be related with the idea of Jewish discrimination who  already occurred in Venice.

Interesting also that banduk / banduka / bonduk are also Hindi, Nepalese and Bengali words for gun.


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