# Güzel



## badgrammar

I really love the Turkish word "güzel".  It can be used to say pretty/handsome, good, great, cool, and just the opposite when used ironically (as in  ne güzel!=oh, great! .

Anyway, I am wondering about the origins of the word, and if there are similar sounding words in distantly related languages like afghan farsi or arabic, and if it is a word shared by other turkic languages.

Any thoughts or ideas on the subject?


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## Gul

In the ethymological dictionnary of Eyuboglu it says that the word  "güzel" is an oral deformation of the word "gözel", which comes from the word "göz" (the eye) and it means anything good for the eye.


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## badgrammar

Aah!  That makes perfect sense!  Thank you for the explanation, Gul!


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## sound shift

badgrammar said:


> Anyway, I am wondering about the origins of the word, and if there are similar sounding words in distantly related languages like afghan farsi or arabic, and if it is a word shared by other turkic languages.
> 
> Any thoughts or ideas on the subject?


Neither Farsi nor Arabic is related to Turkish, though that doesn't preclude the borrowing of vocabulary. As to whether it has happened in the case of _güzel_, I don't know.


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## badgrammar

Yes, I know that neither Farsi nor Arabic are altaic languages, and neither is reltaed to Turkish.  But there has been more than a little word borrowing and exchanging going on over the centuries.  There are a few threads on the shared words and their origins here on the forum...  One I can think of off the top of my head is 
tesekkürler - tashakor (see this thread http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=252655&highlight=farsi+arabic

Here are just a few threads on the subject
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=223332&highlight=farsi+arabic

And of course this one http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=149365&highlight=farsi+arabic, aptly entitled "Persian/Arabic/Turkish: Influences"...

Which is why I asked the question  

P.S. Sorry I don't know how to make my links just say "here" instead of giving the actual address.  They are all different threads, though...


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## Chazzwozzer

Hi badgrammar,

The etymology of _*güzel, *_which is basically peculiar to Oghuz languages,is somehow disputed. It's often argued that the function of the suffix _*-el*_ is not clear if _*göz *_is root and those etymologists who are for _*gözel *_claim the root to be Turkish, but -_*el *_is Mongolian. Not need to tell how Mongolian affected Turkish and vice versa, I guess. 

By the way, the typical people of Anatolian villages pronounce the word _*"gözel,"*_ not _*"güzel".

*_*P.S: *A handsome man is usually said to be *yakışıklı *rather than _*güzel*_.


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## ex-Aysegul

I think "Güzel" able to use as Delicious. Ama, I didn't know Anatolian pronouce "Gözel"


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## badgrammar

Yes, if you were eating something yummy, I think you could say "çok güzel" to mean "very good/beautiful/delicious".  In a way it is a synonym for anything that is positive, right?


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## Chazzwozzer

badgrammar said:


> Yes, if you were eating something yummy, I think you could say "çok güzel" to mean "very good/beautiful/delicious".  In a way it is a synonym for anything that is positive, right?


Pretty much, yes.


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## ex-Aysegul

or, can say "Çokça" instead of Güzel for delicious food and something you like.


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## Chazzwozzer

Aysegul said:


> or, can say "Çokça" instead of Güzel for delicious food and something you like.


Well, not actually. *Çokça *is the adverb form of *çok*; _much_.


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## Spectre scolaire

In order to show how güzel and çokça may be used in a context, here are some lines excerpted from part 8 of the poem “Bir Dosta Mektuplar 1-12” [Letters to a friend] by Özcan Nevres:



> Dün topladığım sebzeleri
> Yükledim benim külüstüre
> xxx
> Cebim doldu çokça parayla
> Ne güzelmiş emeğin bedelini almak


 
The fruits I picked yesterday,
I loaded it on to my shabby vehicle
xxx
My pocket was filled with money in abundance
How nice it is to see that the work is worth it

PS: _külüstür_, “shabby, out of date”, is here a ‘stranded adjective’. It probably alludes to a vehicle.


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