# How to proceed in this case (about Turkic)



## ancalimon

According to Divanü Lügati't-Türk written between 1072-1074.

Balıq meant city before Turks didn't know about Islam, and they named some of their cities with words related to Balıq 
(I don't know why Mahmud of Kashgar needed to include information like this and say that only pagan Turks called balıq:city. It makes no sense to me, after all it's only a word. And why shouldn't Muslim Turks use the same word to name cities? Why would "balıq" be so bad that Muslim Turks shouldn't use the word to name cities? )

balıq, balq: mud

bal: honey
---------------------------------------------------
"Balık" today means "fish" in Turkish, Azeri, Bashkurt, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek Tatar, Turkmen, Uighur dialects.

Bol means abundant, plenty, wealth in Turkish, Azeri and Turkmen. http://www.seslisozluk.com/?word=bol

Bashkurt, Tatar: mul
Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Uighur: mol

"Bolluk" means abundunce in Turkish.
"Balçık" means "daub, clay, plaster over, like mud"
"kalabalık" means "crowd, uproar, disorder" (although it might mean a bad crowd, or a good crowd so it could also mean "order" (for example army: ordered kalabalık, mob:chaotic kalabalık)
"kalabalık" is a word I've found in Swedish too, though I don't know if it's a coincidence or not.

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Question: Should I assume that these words could be related? Especially old balık (city) and new balık (fish), bolluk (abundance)


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## Tjahzi

_Kalabalik_ really does exist in Swedish with roughly the same meaning as the one you described above. According to the _Dictionary of the Swedish Academy, kalabalik _was loaned from Turkish _ghalabaliq_ by Charles XII around 1713 (he sought refugee in Turkey after losing some wars in Russia). It's also stated that the original Turkish meaning was _crowd_ but that while borrowed, the word came to mean _unrest/disorder _in Swedish. Interesting that the Turkish original has gone similar ways (although not completely). 

Unfortunately, I can't help with your remaining queries.


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## Aydintashar

The exact etymology of "Balık" is unknown. Resemblance to _balçık_, _bal_, etc., is a matter of coincidence. I have 2 conjectures. The original form might have been "_obalık_". On the other hand, IE languages use words like _town, city, grad, stadt, ville_ etc. Greek, however, uses a unique form *πόλις *(polis). Could this be the root of _balık_?*
*


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## ancalimon

Aydintashar said:


> The exact etymology of "Balık" is unknown. Resemblance to _balçık_, _bal_, etc., is a matter of coincidence. I have 2 conjectures. The original form might have been "_obalık_". On the other hand, IE languages use words like _town, city, grad, stadt, ville_ etc. Greek, however, uses a unique form *πόλις *(polis). Could this be the root of _balık_?*
> *



What's the etymology of polis?
I'd also like to ask something else: Is there a similar word in languages spoken in India and China which has some kind of "protector", "guard", "tyrant", "horde" or "ruler" meaning?"

I've also found out that Turkic "balık" (fish) in Finnish is "kala" which means "castle" in Turkic dialects.


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## Edguoglitigin

According to Gülensoy who has recently published an etymological dictionary of Turkish (only for words whose origins are Turkish)


qala- 'to pile, to stack; to put into a chest' (DLT) -ma + lık

You can say "Ok but the word is *kalabalık* not *kalamalık*". Yes, thats true but in Turkic languages, alternation in -ma (deverbal noun suffix) or -ma- (negatiation suffix) are possible.

If there was a hendiadyoin as kala baliq it would be seen in old texts.


As to baliq 'city', in my opinion, ancestors of Kokturks had cities which consisted of buildings. And you have to use some materials to build a house like stone or whatever. Most certainly they used soil-mud to mould bricks and they established their cities one by one.


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## Aydintashar

Edguoglitigin said:


> As to baliq 'city', in my opinion, ancestors of Kokturks had cities which consisted of buildings. And you have to use some materials to build a house like stone or whatever. Most certainly they used soil-mud to mould bricks and they established their cities one by one.



Another etymological conjecture for balık would be "_barık_", which clearly means: shelter, place for protection, a fortified area, etc. But, at the same time it means a place where one may be nourished. Compare with examples with contemporary Turkish:

Barınacak: shelter or refuge, accomodation
Barınak: shelter, refuge (harbour), hiding place
Barındırma: nourishment
Barınma:to live, to lodge, to enjoy the safety of

Hope this will be convincing to a certain extent.


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## artion

Aydintashar said:


> The exact etymology of "Balık" is unknown. Resemblance to _balçık_, _bal_, etc., is a matter of coincidence. I have 2 conjectures. The original form might have been "_obalık_". On the other hand, IE languages use words like _town, city, grad, stadt, ville_ etc. Greek, however, uses a unique form *πόλις *(polis). Could this be the root of _balık_?


 
If you want to contemplate the possibility of "polis", you may take into account these:
- The turks who came to the eastern lands of the former Byzantine empire did not establish any cities. They were only capturing existing cities and usually were adapting their names to turkish.
- Many of those cities originally had the part "-polis" in their name (-ople in western languages). Quite often this "polis" is pronounced "-bolis" depending on the preceding consonent and _pol'_ or _bol'_ in local accents. Compare with "_Is-tan-bul_" < "_Eis ten Pol'_" (to the City). 
"balik" is not very close to "polis" but the example of Istanbul does not exclude this possibility. We are talking about the meeting of two completely different languages. 
- The suffix -ik sounds like the latin/greek diminutive -icium / -iki but I haven't here  this used after the "polis".


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## ancalimon

artion said:


> If you want to contemplate the possibility of "polis", you may take into account these:
> - The turks who came to the eastern lands of the former Byzantine empire did not establish any cities. They were only capturing existing cities and usually were adapting their names to turkish.
> - Many of those cities originally had the part "-polis" in their name (-ople in western languages). Quite often this "polis" is pronounced "-bolis" depending on the preceding consonent and _pol'_ or _bol'_ in local accents. Compare with "_Is-tan-bul_" < "_Eis ten Pol'_" (to the City).
> "balik" is not very close to "polis" but the example of Istanbul does not exclude this possibility. We are talking about the meeting of two completely different languages.
> - The suffix -ik sounds like the latin/greek diminutive -icium / -iki but I haven't here  this used after the "polis".



You are right about Turks capturing Byzantine cities instead of building new cities when they entered Anatolia.

Astana probably is related to "capital city" in ProtoTurkic (which in turn entered Persian changing its meaning a little). That's really weird. The capital of Kazakhstan is named Astana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astana#Etymology
Though at this point, I think it's hard to decide if the word was Persian or Turkic.

Astana means "hang to the dawn, twilight (or maybe heavens?)" in modern Turkish. Or maybe "connected, hanged to heavens"?

Turks called their cities Astana if there was a saint buried in that city or if there was throne in that city.

Also in China, there is a Turkic city named BEŞ-BOLIQ (which is also an Astana city)

BEŞ: in my opinion, is related to either "five", "head" or "hanged to heaven" (beşik: cradle - the place where baby sleeps, which is hanged to heaven. It is believed that babies can see angels and they are protected by them here)
BOLIQ: city

Ordubalık: army, horde city
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordu-Baliq

There is also a word called "Asitane" which was used for İstanbul. It might mean "the brigde, doorstep to the state" in Persian. But I'm not sure about this.

In my opinion, there is a slight chance that the Greek and the Turkic words are connected. There is a chance that Zulkarneyn built cities named _Can-balık, Béşbalık, Yanğıbalık._ 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulkarnain
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%9Fbal%C4%B1k

But that's not what I'm trying to find out. I'm trying to find the relation between "fish" and "city"

There is also a word we use in Turkish: "balık istifi" which means "ordered, crowded", "packed like sardines".
Bağlık: which is pronounced nearly the same as balıq means "place abounding in vineyards"
bağ: connection, nexus, to tie

SO:  could balıq also be related to some kind of "connection to God through a saint or a ruler?"
But what does fish have anything to do with a saint or ruler? (I remembered something about a saint named Yunus and I think he was swallowed by a fish which wanted to hide him from his enemies. Later he got out of the fish.)
I guess there is a problem with my approach


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## Aydintashar

ancalimon said:


> But what does fish have anything to do with a saint or ruler?
> I guess there is a problem with my approach



I think we should give up the idea of any relationship between _fish _and _city _altogether, as it is only a coincidence.  Since the word _balık _was popular among the Turks at much earlier times, and since there was contact between the Turks and the Greeks due to Alexandre's invasion of the East, it is highly likely that the Turks borrowed "_polis_" and converted it to _balık_. But, more convincing, in my opinion, is the idea of _barık_. This word, which explicitly means _a place for protection and nourishment_, is central to the concept of _city _in all languages. The word _barık _is even adopted into Persian in the form of _baaru, _which means_ wall and fortification. _In almost all languages of the world, the word for city encompasses the concept of _fortification_, _protection_, etc. Examples: _burg_, _gorod_, Also in some languages the word for city expresses the concept of _a place to stand, to settle_, etc. Examples: _city_, _stadt_, etc.
In some other languages, the concept of city has developed from the concept of _village _or _farm _such as _
ville _ in French and related languages.
Therefore, I strongly support the idea of _barık_, and even suspect that the historical town of _Balkh _presently located in Afghanistan (_Baktra _in ancient Greek) is also linked to _balık_.


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## ancalimon

Aydintashar said:


> I think we should give up the idea of any relationship between _fish _and _city _altogether, as it is only a coincidence.  Since the word _balık _was popular among the Turks at much earlier times, and since there was contact between the Turks and the Greeks due to Alexandre's invasion of the East, it is highly likely that the Turks borrowed "_polis_" and converted it to _balık_. But, more convincing, in my opinion, is the idea of _barık_. This word, which explicitly means _a place for protection and nourishment_, is central to the concept of _city _in all languages. The word _barık _is even adopted into Persian in the form of _baaru, _which means_ wall and fortification. _In almost all languages of the world, the word for city encompasses the concept of _fortification_, _protection_, etc. Examples: _burg_, _gorod_, Also in some languages the word for city expresses the concept of _a place to stand, to settle_, etc. Examples: _city_, _stadt_, etc.
> In some other languages, the concept of city has developed from the concept of _village _or _farm _such as _
> ville _ in French and related languages.
> Therefore, I strongly support the idea of _barık_, and even suspect that the historical town of _Balkh _presently located in Afghanistan (_Baktra _in ancient Greek) is also linked to _balık_.



I agree that there could be a connection between bark and balık.

But still I'm not convinced because 

Tuncer Gülensoy's etymology dictionary which also fixes the overlooked Turkic words in Nişanyan's dictionary tells me the following:

Bark is given as: property, asset, territory
(EVLİ BARKLI): with house and with property, wealth

BARK is actually BARLIK (VARLIK: property, asset, wealth, existence, presence) (you can continue your life with the help of your wealth and live "well and sound":"esen"

The dictionary also gives me these Turkic words which I think could be related:

Balkan: steep mountain with many trees.
Bulgar: to mix with (for example different cultures mixing with each other)
Balık ~ Balk : mud, water mixed with earth
Balbal: sculpture carved from stone on graves depicting things the dead did.
Balta: axe
balıklawa: a place adjacency to a water source with fish
bul (=Mongolian "buli"): to catch, take by force

Could this word be related?
buluş: to get together, gather, assemble, cluster - invention - finding


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## artion

ancalimon said:


> You are right about Turks capturing Byzantine cities instead of building new cities when they entered Anatolia.
> 
> Astana probably is related to "capital city" in ProtoTurkic (which in turn entered Persian changing its meaning a little).


 
Astana reminds me the ancient Gr. asty (άστυ) which means city. May be related to other IE words. I think that the geographic origins of Turkic language in Central Asia had a good contact with "IEans", like the Tohars and the Greeks of the hellenistic kingtoms.  Btw, do we have scriptures in prototurkic? 

A connection between "city" and "fish" seems as unlikely as that between "fish" and "school"  . Therefore can exist.


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## ancalimon

artion said:


> Astana reminds me the ancient Gr. asty (άστυ) which means city. May be related to other IE words. I think that the geographic origins of Turkic language in Central Asia had a good contact with "IEans", like the Tohars and the Greeks of the hellenistic kingtoms.  Btw, do we have scriptures in prototurkic?
> 
> A connection between "city" and "fish" seems as unlikely as that between "fish" and "school"  . Therefore can exist.



Could there be a possible relationship between asty and castle?

I am trying to figure out if the root bal (which also means honey) is related to some kind of "mixing" "building (a hive)" "connecting"  As you can see above, some words starting with bal have "mixing" & "building" meanings. Maybe they learned to build cities from bees?

About Proto Turkic Inscriptions. Most of them are understandably disputed. Like Sumerian writings. Apart from those, Kazım Mirşan claims to have deciphered undecipherable writings around the world in Proto-Turkic (including Etruscan, Egyptian and Scandinavian ones), he has many books but that as well is understandably not accepted.


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## Abu Rashid

ancalimon said:
			
		

> (fish) in Finnish is "kala" which means "castle" in Turkic dialects.



Qala'ah (قلعة) is Arabic, meaning castle, fortress, citadel.


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## ancalimon

Abu Rashid said:


> Qala'ah (قلعة) is Arabic, meaning castle, fortress, citadel.



Now Arabic is connected to the equation too. It's getting more complicated 

kala (Finnish) :  fish
Qala'ah (Arabic): citadel
Balık (Turkic): both fish and citadel.

Does this mean Turks bought fish from the Finns and learned to build castles from the Arabs and decided to use the same word for two different things because they mixed up the Finnish "kala" with the Arabic "Qala'ah" ? Also they stocked all the fish in the castles and thus the word "kalabalık" was created?


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## Edguoglitigin

Aydintashar said:


> Another etymological conjecture for balık would be "_barık_", which clearly means: shelter, place for protection, a fortified area, etc. But, at the same time it means a place where one may be nourished. Compare with examples with contemporary Turkish:
> 
> Barınacak: shelter or refuge, accomodation
> Barınak: shelter, refuge (harbour), hiding place
> Barındırma: nourishment
> Barınma:to live, to lodge, to enjoy the safety of
> 
> Hope this will be convincing to a certain extent.



Your words can not be considered wrong but the word barık is already *bark* in a hendiadyoin *ev bark* (or *evlenip barklan-mak* "to own a house together with marrying") which both mean "house, residence". Besides, I have thought over the sound change r > l . It is possible with example of **sarkım* (which is derived from the verb sark-mak "to hang down") > *salkım* "corymb" üzüm salkımı "bunch of grapes".
Nevertheless, we talk about "city", it is different from house.


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## ancalimon

A word came to my mind:  ALA

it means "mixing of several colours (or things)".
it also means "something and its opposite".

With this knowledge, I suspect a relation between the following words:

BAL (honey)  ALA (as honey is made by combining many different flowers)
HALAY: A folk dance in which several people hold hands and dance together.
ALAY: legion, crowd, people that come together to do something like (a wedding, a funeral, a festival, a parade).
ALAY (from Rum): derision, to mock someone.

Could the "containing" - "belonging to" suffix be related as well? (-LI, -LU)
http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/suffix.htm#contain

So if I assume that it consists of three parts and divide BALIK into three: "BAĞ" "ALA" and "IK", I get:

BAĞ: connected, tied

ALA: many different colours mixed

IK: archaic suffix for "we, us, being together" (today modern usage in Turkey is IZ, İZ)

ex: gelirik (we come), giderik (we go), geliriz (we come), gideriz (we go)
yörük: people that walk
-----------------

Also I agree that Obalık seems related as well.


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## er targyn

Turkic words for city and fish are both balıq, but they are just homonyms with different origin: PTurk. *bālɨk 'fish', cognate to PMong. *bilaɣu 'carp, salmon' and PTurk. *bialɨk 'city, fortress', cognate to PMong. *balaga-sun 'city, fortress'.


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## er targyn

About mud: 
PTurk. *bạl- mud, clay (грязь, глина): 
Karakh. balčɨq (MK,IM), bal(ɨ)q (MK); Tur. balčɨk; Az. palčɨG; Turkm. palčɨq; Sal. palčɨx (ССЯ 435 и 
др.); Khal. palčoq ( < Az.); MTurk. balčɨq (Pav. C.), palčɨq (Sangl.); Uzb. 
balčiq; Uygh. balčuq; Krm. balčɨq; Tat. balčɨq; Bashk. balsɨq; Kaz. balšɨq, 
balqaš; Kum. balčɨq; Nogh. balšɨq; Khak. palčax (Sag.); Oyr. bal-qaš; Tv. 
balɣaš, malɣaš; Tof. ba’lxaš; Chuv. pɨlǯъk; Yak. bɨlk ‘sand, silt, brought by 
water’ (Пек.).  
◊ EDT 333, 336, VEWT 60, Мудрак Дисс. 179, Лексика 374. Turk. > Mong. balčig 
(Щербак 1997, 103). In Chuv. one would rather expect pɨśəx, so the form may reflect a 
slightly different morphologically *bạlɨ-čak.


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## Edguoglitigin

er targyn said:


> About mud:
> PTurk. *bạl- mud, clay (грязь, глина):
> Karakh. balčɨq (MK,IM), bal(ɨ)q (MK); Tur. balčɨk; Az. palčɨG; Turkm. palčɨq; Sal. palčɨx (ССЯ 435 и
> др.); Khal. palčoq ( < Az.); MTurk. balčɨq (Pav. C.), palčɨq (Sangl.); Uzb.
> balčiq; Uygh. balčuq; Krm. balčɨq; Tat. balčɨq; Bashk. balsɨq; Kaz. balšɨq,
> balqaš; Kum. balčɨq; Nogh. balšɨq; Khak. palčax (Sag.); Oyr. bal-qaš; Tv.
> balɣaš, malɣaš; Tof. ba’lxaš; Chuv. pɨlǯъk; Yak. bɨlk ‘sand, silt, brought by
> water’ (Пек.).
> ◊ EDT 333, 336, VEWT 60, Мудрак Дисс. 179, Лексика 374. Turk. > Mong. balčig
> (Щербак 1997, 103). In Chuv. one would rather expect pɨśəx, so the form may reflect a
> slightly different morphologically *bạlɨ-čak.




Resource: Starostin, Anna Dybo, Oleg Mudrak, *Etymological Dictionary of The Altaic Languages*


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## ancalimon

Does anyone have the etymology of "kalamar": Turkish for squid. It sounds Greek or Italian to me. And please don't tell me it's unknown because it's Etruscan in origin


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## Frank06

ancalimon said:


> Does anyone have the etymology of "kalamar": Turkish for squid. It sounds Greek or Italian to me.


For example here, here, here and here. 


> And please don't tell me it's unknown because it's Etruscan in origin


Please don't tell us it's Turkish in origin.


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## er targyn

1560s, from It. calamari, from L. calamarius, lit. "pertaining to a pen," from calamus "a writing pen," lit. "reed." So called from the cuttlefish's pen-like internal shell and perhaps also from its being full of ink.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=calamari
In Latin from Greek http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/calamari


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## ancalimon

Frank06 said:


> For example here, here, here and here.
> Please don't tell us it's Turkish in origin.



Why should I?

So is this "kalamar" related to Turkish kalem (pencil) (which I think is a word created in Arabic)

What's the etymology of "kalem": "pencil". Is it Arabic or Greek? Is "kalem" (pencil) related to "kala" (castle)

Kalem also means: "a sharp tool that's used for cutting, sculpturing stones"
Would this make kalem related to kala?


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## Frank06

ancalimon said:


> Why should I?


Indeed.


> So is this "kalamar" related to Turkish kalem (pencil) (which I think is a word created in Arabic)


I fail to see what this has to do with the original question, but there is a whole thread about Arabic qalam, see here.


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## ancalimon

Frank06 said:


> I fail to see what this has to do with the original question, but there is a whole thread about Arabic qalam, see here.



Because: it sounded related to some of the following words and also castle.

Ala: hidden, mixed, connecting I think it's a special word and it also means two different poles joining together.
Fish: kala (Finnish)
Castle: kala (Arabic)
Kalem: pencil (from Arabic I think), also a chisel used for cutting stone, shaft, cognate to pillar, column.
KALIN: crowded (cognate to kalabalık), thick, powerful
Qala'ah (Arabic): Castle (Turkic: Kala)
KALK<KALI-K- to raise (for example a wall), to erect (for example a pillar), to build
KAL:to stay,  <KA: to hoard, to gather, to store, to amass.
KALAY: tin, mixing tin and lead. (as "ALA" means mixing, connecting together as in HALAY, ALAY, understanding this word is easy)
KALAY: It's also the substance who place on the tip of the fishing rod. (apparently a link with Finnish kala)
KOVA: bucket could be related to Finnish "kala"
KALDIRIM: pavement


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## Frank06

ancalimon said:


> Because: it sounded related to some of the following words and also castle.


Oh, it _sounds_ related. That's your starting point: it sounds related.
First of all: how do you mean? Can you please explain? What is the relationship? Does it go further than "having some sounds/letters (heck, who cares about the difference) in common (more or less)".

Secondly, how does it work? You read the word and something goes "ping, oh, this modern word from language X sounds the same as a bunch of other words from a bunch of other languages from a bunch of periods and hence I find it necessary to think/say/write it is related and goes back to whatever period or language as long as it obsessively involves Turks and Turkish?"

Thirdly, I have another word that "sounds related" to a bunch of words in this thread _and_ to the level of linguistics in this thread: calamity.


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## sokol

Moderator note:

So long as etymology suggestions are only based on chance similarities we do not really see a point in continuing this discussion.

For this reason this thread is now closed.

If and when somebody thinks he or she can contribute something interesting and relevant (i. e., referring to the original question in the first post, _*and*_ based on scientific evidence rather than chance similarities) please contact the moderators of this forum and we will consider re-opening that thread.

Thank you very much for your understanding!
Cheers
sokol
moderator EHL


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