# Bakal... (Slavic/ ... ?)



## ThomasK

Would anyone be able to comment on the word _bakal_, linked with shops in Tagalog, in Turkish and Arabic and in Russian. I was informed by the Arabic section that baqqal refers to vegetables, but now I hear that there is word in Russian: 



> *бакалея* /bakaleya/ meaning something like "non-perisheable goods" like tea, flour, sugar, grains, spices etc



Yet, vegetables are very perishable... So ??? (tHanks)


----------



## ahvalj

The Russian Wikipedia (with a further reference to Max Vasmer) derives «бакалея» from the Turkish and Persian "bakkal" — "grocer" (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бакалея). The suffix itself is of Romance origin, like the ancient «либерея» [libereya] < librairie.


----------



## ThomasK

ahvalj said:


> The Russian Wikipedia (with a further reference to Max Vasmer) derives «бакалея» from the Turkish and Persian "bakkal" — "grocer" (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бакалея). The suffix itself is of Romance origin, like the ancient «либерея» [libereya] < librairie.



Thanks a lot, and though my command of Russian is nil, inexistent, I found out - thanks to Google Translate - that 'groceries' refers to *" dry edible **products*". So that implies food that does not perish really, I guess. 

Great, that is an interesting answer to my question !


----------



## ahvalj

By the way, this word almost definitely was borrowed to Russian from Persian: in the 16-17th centuries Russia had an active trade with Persia over Volga and the Caspian Sea, whereas the relationships with Turkey were always hostile. This can be even seen in the clothes of that time: the style of the Russian expensive clothes was definitely influenced from Iran (844293_nikolai_i_aleksandra.jpg), while those in Poland and Ukraine — from Turkey (attach.asp).


----------



## LilianaB

Why would Polish culture be influenced by Turkish culture at that time: they were at war with Turkey most of the time until the 17th century, as far as I know, I mean if hostility versus non-hostility was the factor in borrowings from another culture. There is not a word similar to _bakal _in Polish. I do not know about other Slavic languages. There is _bak_ - tank , as a container not a military vehicle. _Bakalejas_ means groceries in Lithuanian, but I do not know whether you wanted to know just about Slavic languages. Can _baccalaureate_ in Latin be connected to _bakal_?


----------



## bibax

I found the following explanation:


> Бакалея — происходит от турецкого: бак-ал (гляди и бери, то есть выбирай любое).


Bakaleia — comes from Turkish: *bak-al* (= _look and take_).

According to the Babylon on-line dictionary:

*bakmak* = v. look, look at, set eyes on, take a gander, give a look, look upon, see, take a look, take a look at, watch, supervise, ...;

*almak* = v. exchange, take, get, buy, receive, accept, take in, seize, capture, conquer, pick up, gain, ...;


----------



## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Can _bacalaureate_ in Latin be connected to _bakal_?


I guess you mean _ba*c*calaureate_. This is something you can easily check for yourself; e.g. here or here. _Baccalaureate_ is derived from Medieval Latin _bacca lauri = laurel berry_ (laurels as symbol of achievement).


----------



## LilianaB

Could _bacca_, as _berry_ be related to _bakal_?


----------



## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> Why would Polish culture be influenced by Turkish culture at that time: they were at war with Turkey most of the time until the 17th century, as far as I know, I mean if hostility versus non-hostility was the factor in borrowings from another culture.


I know nothing about the Polish culture, just most Polish and Ukrainian dresses of that time look similar (indistinguishable for an ignorant observer like me) to the Turkish ones (myriads of examples in the net, my link above with Ukrainian Cossacks among them, also http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Polski_szlachcic_i_rotmistrz.PNG). As to the fashion connections — the Soviet mass culture in the 70's was very little influenced by the American one (which was not bad at all, looking in retrospective), yet everybody here wore jeans.


----------



## LilianaB

I do not know that much about Polish culture either, to be honest with you, I just know there were wars with the Turkish Empire. I am not that familiar with the Polish dress styles of the past centuries. What about Styliagas in Russia, or in the Soviet Union? Didn't they accept the American style? OT. ( I am typing in some weird font, I do not know what happened)


----------



## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Why would Polish culture be influenced by Turkish culture at that time: they were at war with Turkey most of the time until the 17th century, as far as I know, I mean if hostility versus non-hostility was the factor in borrowings from another culture. There is not a word similar to _bakal _in Polish. I do not know about other Slavic languages. There is _bak_ - tank , as a container not a military vehicle. _Bakalejas_ means groceries in Lithuanian, but I do not know whether you wanted to know just about Slavic languages. Can _baccalaureate_ in Latin be connected to _bakal_?


As Thomas said initially, we have _Bakkal _(بقال in Arabic letters) in Turkish, Persian *and *Arabic meaning _grocer_. A word used in a very large area. Irrespective of through which of these languages it entered Russian, this (بقال) is the obvious root.


----------



## ahvalj

LilianaB said:


> I do not know that much about Polish culture either, to be honest with you, I just know there were wars with the Turkish Empire. I am not that familiar with the Polish dress styles of the past centuries. What about Styliagas in Russia, or in the Soviet Union? Didn't they accept the American style? OT. ( I am typing in some weird font, I do not know what happened)


But stilyagas constituted 0,0001% of the population, whereas jeans were worn by the majority of people of the relevant age, with or without sympathies to the USA. Anyway, my comment was mostly to the origin of the Russian word: there was a huge trade with Persia during many centuries with a fast and safe way by water, while it was incomparably more difficult even to reach Turkey, not to deliver goods for sale in either direction.


----------



## berndf

ThomasK said:


> Yet, vegetables are very perishable... So ??? (tHanks)


As you pointed out, بقال is derived from بقلة which you translated as _vegetables_. This is not entirely accurate. The precise meaning of بقل is _legume_, i.e. storable vegetables like peas and beans. So, the Russian meaning makes perfect sense.


----------



## LilianaB

Thank you, Berndf, for the cup to drink from, you mean? I just somehow cannot connect buying and groceries with a cup, but maybe the connection is possible. There is another word in Russian, close to bakal, bokal, which means a glass, or a cup perhaps in some contexts. I thought about the word bokal first, because the other one is an old word that is not used much these days. It is almost archaic, I think.


----------



## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Thank you, Berndf, for the cup to drink from, you mean? I just somehow cannot connect buying and groceries with a cup, but maybe the connection is possible.


We must have misunderstood each other somehow. I said that the Russian word is ultimately derived from Arabic بقلة = _legume_. There is little room for doubt (see #13).


----------



## Explorer41

LilianaB said:


> I thought about the word bokal first, because the other one is an old word that is not used much these days. It is almost archaic, I think.


As the discussion is done, a little comment of my own: the word is not archaic now, it is used, and I was quite surprised by its definition as "archaic". I have seen stores called "бакалея" myself in SPb; in the vary latter days (2000 +) they get supplanted by chains of low-cost food-universal self-service shops, but that word still exists and everybody knows it is a kind of a food store (macaroni, cereals and like). I believe there may be more of them in smaller cities where it may be less profitable to create big universal shop chains.


----------



## LilianaB

Was the word revived or was it always lingering somewhere, a little bit out of sight? It is understandable, I just did not think it was used that often. What about bokal? Is it connected to bakaleya?


----------



## Explorer41

LilianaB said:


> Was the word revived or was it always lingering somewhere, a little bit out of sight? It is understandable, I just did not think it was used that often.


Well, there is no need to use it very often. We do not think that often about pepper, do we? And in the very latter days we may prefer to get pepper in self-service shops, at least here where I live. But the word is a fact of our life; it's not something historical.


LilianaB said:


> What about bokal? Is it connected to bakaleya?


Max Vasmer suggests the origin from the French word "bocal" or from the Italian word "boccale"... As for "mind connection", in our minds it is connected with something French of course.


----------



## Christo Tamarin

Please do not confuse the following two words:

Russian *бакалея*, Bulgarian *бакалия*, Turkish *bakkaliye*, meaning *grocery*, perhaps loanwords from Arabic.
Russian/Bulgarian *бокал*, German *Pokal*, loanwords from French/Spanich/Italian *bocal/bocal/boccale*, meaning *jar/cup/mug*, from Spanich/Italian *boca/bocca *meaning *mouth.*
-
Neither of those words is ancient in Slavic.

Sorry, I started my posting before that of *Explorer41* appeared.


----------



## ahvalj

Indeed, the Russian suffix «-ея» can have multiple origins: Romance (as I had written above), German (-ei, though borrowed in German as well), Greek, or from the common islamic vocabulary. Since "bakkaliye" exists in Turkish, the Russian form may be directly derived from an oriental (still most probably Persian) source with the suffix borrowed together with the word. The shift «-ий-»>«-ей-» is typical for the spoken Russian of the past centuries (virtually all words with «-ий-» in the modern language are of a bookish origin or new borrowings), including the very name of the country (the extinct spoken "Roseya" instead of the bookish Greek "Rossiya").


----------



## apmoy70

We have it too in our language in the form of the neuter noun «μπακάλικο» /ba'kaliko/ which roughly corresponds (or rather corresponded, nowadays it's been replaced by the super market) to a convenient shop where one could buy anything from legume and pickled edibles, to dried fruits. Not fresh vegies and meat though (except for salami or other cured meats). In our language is definitely an Ottoman loan word. The shop owner was called «μπακάλης» /ba'kalis/ or in case it was runned by a female, «μπακάλισσα» /ba'kalisa/.
«Μπακάλης» (and «Βακάλης» /va'kalis/) is a relatively common Greek surname.


----------



## LilianaB

Would it be connected to bodega. We have bodegas in the United States.


----------



## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Would it be connected to bodega. We have bodegas in the United States.


No, the Spanish word _bodega _is from Greek _ἀποθήκη_.


----------



## CapnPrep

LilianaB said:


> There is not a word similar to _bakal _in Polish.


Yes, there is: _bakalie_.


----------



## LilianaB

Yes, that means sweets, such as raisins, nuts, etc.


----------



## rayloom

Checking the Turkish etymological dictionary NİŞANYAN, it does trace the word bakkal (grocer) back to Arabic بقال baqqāl (grocer). A grocery store is called بقالة biqāla.


----------



## إسكندراني

Just to add, the suffix [eya] is common in Arabic, and it is very possible the most common word was بقلية baqaleya.


----------



## sotos

ThomasK said:


> Would anyone be able to comment on the word _bakal_, linked with shops in Tagalog, in Turkish and Arabic and in Russian.


I cannot find _bakal_ in the Tagalog-English dict. of Leo James English (1987). However, many arabic words came to the Phils through the Moros of Mindanao and their contacts with the muslims of Indonesia and Malaysia. One of them is arak (the alcoholic drink).


----------



## ancalimon

bibax said:


> I found the following explanation:
> 
> Bakaleia — comes from Turkish: *bak-al* (= _look and take_).
> 
> According to the Babylon on-line dictionary:
> 
> *bakmak* = v. look, look at, set eyes on, take a gander, give a look, look upon, see, take a look, take a look at, watch, supervise, ...;
> 
> *almak* = v. exchange, take, get, buy, receive, accept, take in, seize, capture, conquer, pick up, gain, ...;



That sounds logical. It can also be BAK-KAL  (BAK: LOOK   KAL: ~Don't take, stay) As in you can look but you can't take it for free.

Even if the roots of the word can be explained using Turkish, it somehow sounds Arabic to be. Maybe it's a Turkic loan in Persian-Arabic- etc..  Or it's yet another coincidence. Turkic language in general is a language of coincidences.


----------



## Thomas1

CapnPrep said:


> Yes, there is: _bakalie_.



Just to add some etymological info:





> <ukr. _bakalíja_ lp kolonialne towary spożywcze (np. suszone daktyle, figi, rodzynki, cynamon, pieprz), z osm.-tur. _bakkaliye_ ts., od bakkal sprzedawca towarów spożywczych, w końcu przez ar. od łac. _baccalis _(u Pliniusza, od _bacca _jagoda)>
> Słownik wyrazów obcych PWN c Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN SA


My translation:
Ukrainian _bakalíja_, sing. colonial grocery goods (e.g. dried date, fig, rasins, cynnamon, pepper), from Osmanian-Turkish _bakkaliye _ts. [?], from _bakkal _a grocery seller, ultimately through Arabic from Latin _baccalis _(used by Pliny, from _bacca _bilberry)

Indeed, in Polish, it only means dried fruit, especially grapes, apricots, plums, nuts.


----------



## Ben Jamin

bibax said:


> I found the following explanation:
> 
> Bakaleia — comes from Turkish: *bak-al* (= _look and take_).
> 
> According to the Babylon on-line dictionary:
> 
> *bakmak* = v. look, look at, set eyes on, take a gander, give a look, look upon, see, take a look, take a look at, watch, supervise, ...;
> 
> *almak* = v. exchange, take, get, buy, receive, accept, take in, seize, capture, conquer, pick up, gain, ...;



This explanation does not look plausible. Using this method one could explain any word as originating from any language.


----------



## ancalimon

Ben Jamin said:


> This explanation does not look plausible. Using this method one could explain any word as originating from any language.



Can you give us an example?


----------



## Ben Jamin

ancalimon said:


> Can you give us an example?



Yes, I can: For example the Turkish word for information “bilgi”, comes surely from the Norwegian “bil” +”gi” (bil= car, gi=give).


----------



## berndf

Ben Jamin said:


> Yes, I can: For example the Turkish word for information “bilgi”, comes surely from the Norwegian “bil” +”gi” (bil= car, gi=give).


And the Türkish word "türban" surely describes something which prevents you from going through a door: From German "Tür"="door" and medieval German "ban"="ban" (modern German spelling "Bann").


----------



## Ben Jamin

More Turkish words: basit (“simple”) from English “base”, et (meat) from Norwegian “ete” (devour), “göz” (eye) from Russian “glaz” (eye), baba (father) from Polish “baba” (old woman), boyun (neck) from Norwegian “bøye” (to bend).


----------



## ancalimon

Ben Jamin said:


> Yes, I can: For example the Turkish word for information “bilgi”, comes surely from the Norwegian “bil” +”gi” (bil= car, gi=give).




And what does knowledge has anything to do with "giving a car" ?  On the other hand, I'm sure a market seems related with looking at things to choose and then buying them. At least that's what people normally do!

I wonder if you can follow my train of thought here. If I'm not making myself clear at this point, there's no point for me to discuss this any further.



berndf said:


> And the Türkish word "türban" surely describes  something which prevents you from going through a door: From German  "Tür"="door" and medieval German "ban"="ban" (modern German spelling  "Bann").



I'm sure the bakal example is not as far fetched as this example. On the contrary, it's the most logical reasoning especially if the same word is used among Turkic people living far away from Arabs.


----------



## berndf

ancalimon said:


> I'm sure the bakal example is not as far fetched as this example. On the contrary, it's the most logical reasoning especially if the same word is used among Turkic people living far away from Arabs.


It is exactly as far fetched as assuming IRAQ to be a name gives by a people as far away as the Turks were back then (see this thread of yours).

In this case, it was less far fetched... at the beginning of the discussion. By now we have learnd more about the history of the word and the explanations does not make sense any more.


----------



## CapnPrep

ancalimon said:


> I'm sure the bakal example is not as far fetched as this example.


Yes, _bak_ + _al _"look and buy" is quite appealing from a semantic point of view. Unfortunately, the word is _bakkal_, not _bakal_, and _bak _+ _kal _"look and stay" isn't such a great explanation. "You can look but you can't take it for free"?  That's what I call far-fetched.

Also, your idea would be more convincing if you could demonstrate that Turkish has (or had) a mechanism for forming nouns in this way, by simply juxtaposing two verb stems (or imperatives). Is that the case? Can you give us any other examples?


ancalimon said:


> On the contrary, it's the most logical reasoning especially if the same word is used among Turkic people living far away from Arabs.


So far in this thread no one has suggested that the same word is used in other Turkic languages with no influence from Arabic. Do you have any such evidence to offer?


----------



## ThomasK

CapnPrep said:


> Also, your idea would be more convincing if you could demonstrate that Turkish has (or had) a mechanism for forming nouns in this way, by simply juxtaposing two verb stems (or imperatives). Is that the case? Can you give us any other examples?



It would just be so interesting if that could be proved, but I suppose it would be more logical to ask the question at the Turkish forum - and maybe close this thread...


----------



## ancalimon

ThomasK said:


> It would just be so interesting if that could be proved, but I suppose it would be more logical to ask the question at the Turkish forum - and maybe close this thread...




Yes there are similar words in Turkish like this:

For example:  ÇEKYAT  (couch which can be made into a bed)

ÇEK: Pull
YAT: Sleep

or  GELGİT: tide

GEL: Come
GİT: Go

or   YAPBOZ:  puzzle

YAP: DO
BOZ: TO MAKE SOMETHING MIXED UP (UNDO, PUZZLED)

Although I've read in a thesis from Istanbul University that this happens in Western Turkic languages.


----------



## ThomasK

Thanks, Ancalimon, I have just copied your message to the Turkish forum.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Thomas1 said:


> Indeed, in Polish, it only means dried fruit, especially raisins, candied orange
> peel, apricots, plums, nuts.


----------



## berndf

LilianaB said:


> Could _bacca_, as _berry_ be related to _bakal_?


Very good question. The direct relationship would then be to بقلة and not to بقال.

The source quoted here suggests the Arabic word is indeed drived from Latin.


----------



## ThomasK

Great information !


----------

