# Turkic words for "camel"



## Skatinginbc

I'm interested in the Turkic words for "camel", and I have the following questions: 
(1) Does Turkish _deve_ "camel" consist of two morphemes (i.e., de + ve) or a single morpheme (i.e., _deve_ is the smallest semantic unit and cannot be further divided)?  Oyrat _tȫ_, Kirghiz _tȫ_, and Sary-Yughur _te_ or _ti_ mean "camel", which seems to suggest_ de_- alone is a morpheme.  If _de_- is the stem and -_ve_ is a suffix, what is the function/meaning of the suffix?  
(2) As far as I know, the Uighur word for "camel" is _tögä_.  Is the -_gä_ in Uighur _tögä_ "camel" related to the -_ve_ in Turkish _deve_ "camel"?  If so, could you please explain how they can be related?
(3) How is the /g/ pronounced in Uighur _tögä_?  Is it devoiced and pronounced as [k] because the preceding consonant (i.e., t-) is voiceless? (Note: according to Wikipedia, "Devoicing of a suffix-initial consonant can occur only in the cases of /d/ → [t], /ɡ/ → [k], and /ʁ/ → [q], when the preceding consonant is voiceless.")

I'm not familiar with Turkic languages, so please give answers in English.  Thank you in advance.
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## dnzz

Hi, your question is interesting. 

I think de and ve are not meaningful alone (at least being related to camel). de is a suffix that means "at" 
ve means "and"

In wiktionary it says deve comes from tebe. Tebe and taba are old turkic words (uyghuror gökturk probably) That makes sense because we use taba for the color camel. But we use it only for the color. I just noticed that  

In mongolian deve is tamaga. These are all similar words. You can take a look at that article. http://www.turkishstudies.net/Makaleler/369944031_1_1gülensoytuncer.pdf

It's not used as a suffix now and I didnt see "ve" as an extinct suffix mentioned in articles (the old language looks a bit confusing though). Your question is detailed, these are the answers that i could gather. Sorry that i couldnt help you much with morphemes


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## fdb

Have you looked in Clauson, pp. 447-8 ?


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## Skatinginbc

Thank you, dnzz and fdb.


fdb said:


> Have you looked in Clausson, pp. 447-8 ?


_An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish_. Oxford. 1972 by Sir Gerard Clauson?  No, but I assume the information mentioned in that book has been incorporated in this etymological reconstruction since it makes a reference to EDT 447-448.  Pali _oṭṭha_, Prakrit _oṭṭa_ (cf. Old Indo Aryan_ uštra_), the Chinese morpheme *驝* *_tak_ of the Han Dynasty (before Old Turkic), and Samoyedic _tī_/_tia_ all refer to 'camel'.  What they have in common seems to be '_t_' (or Turkish de-), not the labial b/v (or Turkish -ve), which leads me to wonder if *-be was an extra element attached to Old Turkic te-.


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## fdb

Clauson posits a proto-form tevey. But you should look him up in your library.


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## jcpjcp

Turkish: deve
Azeri: deve
Kazakh: tüye
Kyrgyz: töö
Turkmen: düye
Uzbek: tuya
Uighur: töge
Tatar: döya


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## Skatinginbc

Is ge- in Uighur töge a natural sound correspondence to ya- in Tatar döya, Uzbek tuya, Turkmen düye, and Kazakh tüye?  I mean: Is /g/ in Uighur a reflex of Proto-Turkic /*b/ or /*v/?


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## Karatai

Skatinginbc said:


> I'm interested in the Turkic words for "camel", and I have the following questions:
> (1) Does Turkish _deve_ "camel" consist of two morphemes (i.e., de + ve) or a single morpheme (i.e., _deve_ is the smallest semantic unit and cannot be further divided)?  Oyrat _tȫ_, Kirghiz _tȫ_, and Sary-Yughur _te_ or _ti_ mean "camel", which seems to suggest_ de_- alone is a morpheme.  If _de_- is the stem and -_ve_ is a suffix, what is the function/meaning of the suffix?
> (2) As far as I know, the Uighur word for "camel" is _tögä_.  Is the -_gä_ in Uighur _tögä_ "camel" related to the -_ve_ in Turkish _deve_ "camel"?  If so, could you please explain how they can be related?
> (3) How is the /g/ pronounced in Uighur _tögä_?  Is it devoiced and pronounced as [k] because the preceding consonant (i.e., t-) is voiceless? (Note: according to Wikipedia, "Devoicing of a suffix-initial consonant can occur only in the cases of /d/ → [t], /ɡ/ → [k], and /ʁ/ → [q], when the preceding consonant is voiceless.")
> 
> I'm not familiar with Turkic languages, so please give answers in English.  Thank you in advance.



_täbä titigkä tüşmiş [deve çamura düşmüş] - Camel fell into the mud._
Source: Irk Bitig, The Book of Omens, ed. Talat Tekin, Wiesbaden 1993". (900 years old book)

_tevey_ 
Source: Divan-i Lugat-it Türk (1070) 

_Deve_ is evaluated from old Turkish word _tebe.
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Let's see the meaning of the root _te
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*te: *to touch

However, there is another word in Turkish: _tepe_
means _hill
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I think _tepe_ and this word comes from the old word _töpü (Orhun Scripts - 735 A.C.)
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Maybe _*tebe *_and _*töpü *_are related as camel's backhump looks like a hill.
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