# Etymology: Yir



## garipx

Since "experts" here said that "There is no any relation between Earth and Yir at all" when Yir was mentioned in "Etymology: Earth" thread, logically, if "Yir" is somethings else, "Yir" deserves another thread, thus, here is: 

What is etymology of "Yir"? (Its versions in the Turkics: Yir, Jir, Yer that I know of and also there is another word Yar which I claim is also related to Yir.)


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## Treaty

According to Clauson (cited in rinet.ru' database), the root is Proto-Turkish (PT) *_jẹr _meaning "earth" and "floor". Considering the lack of material, it is difficult to find the earlier stage of the word. PT had borrowed a few words from IE, notably Iranian and Tocharian. I don't know how PIE *_er _(the ancestor of _earth_) would have sounded in Old Iranian or Tocharian.

However, even if there is a word in the neighboring IE languages which is similar to PT _*jer_ it doesn't necessarily mean PT borrowed it from that language. Since you don't like "probably", here is a rough probabilistic approach:
Let's assume PT has around 10 consonant couples (i.e. close pronunciation) and three type of vowel (coupled by short and long). Therefore, there are 300 (10x3x10) possible three-letter CVC combinations in PT. Same goes for, e.g., Old Persian (300 CVC combinations). So, the base p=1/300. If there are the same number of uniques base meanings (so that each CVC represents a unique meaning) the chance (binomial distribution) that a word *randomly *exists in both languages with similar pronunciation and meaning is 63%. In other words, the chance of them being *related *(not-random) is only 37%.​
Apart from borrowing from IE to PT, there is no other way to think about it regarding the available material. The time gap between PIE (5000-6000BC) and PT (500BC) is too large to conclude a common source.


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## CyrusSH

I believe the original word is neither Indo-European, nor Turkic but Semitic.

There are some people who love to believe that Germanic was an isolated Indo-European language and try to find proto-Indo-European origins for all Germanic words, it is enough to find a similar word in Greek then a proto-IE word will be reconstructed and it will be considered as the original one!!

Proto-IE word for "earth" is _*dʰéǵʰōm_ and I see no reason to have another word for "erath", of course I mean the planet on which we live.


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## garipx

Please, do not mention "earth" here in this thread when you are making comments about "yir".
Your comments on "yir" here should be without mentioning "earth." Thanks.

("Experts" here made comments in "Etymology:Earth" thread by saying that "there is no relation between Earth and Yir, at all" and moderator deleted relevant posts there.)


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## Testing1234567

CyrusSH said:


> There are some people who love to believe that Germanic was an isolated Indo-European language



Sub-families of the Indo-European languages include: Anatolian, Tocharian, Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian, and Hellenic. If you meant that the latest common ancestor the Germanic languages and other language sub-families is Proto-Indo-European, then you would be right.



CyrusSH said:


> Proto-IE word for "earth" is _*dʰéǵʰōm_ and I see no reason to have another word for "erath", of course I mean the planet on which we live.



Words get replaced all the time. New words can be formed although there is already a word for the concept. There can be two native words for one concept. Old English had *hors* and *eoh* for horse. In Latin eventually *et* displaced *-que*. In English, *suffer* (borrowed from Latin) originally meant allow. "The original word for allow is *suffer* and I see no reason to have another word *permit* for allow" wouldn't make sense. Semantic changes can be outlandish.


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## garipx

You all are OFF topic.


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## CyrusSH

garpix, _yir_ is a Turkic word with a clear meaning, but you are talking about a relation and I don't know what you mean, do you want to say it is a loanword? or it is the original word? or there is a common ancestor? Two words can be similar without any relation.


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## Treaty

_garpix_ is clearly asking about the etymology of _yir _not its relation to "earth". The etymology, concerning the available sources, is mentioned in post #2. Older than that is a matter of wide speculation: whether it is a loan from IE, or native to pre-Ptoto-Turkic, or "Altaic" cannot be pinpointed as far as I know.


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## CyrusSH

As I said the original word is Semitic, the proto-Turkic word for earth is _toprak_ which can be explained well, so in all probability _yir_ is a loanword.


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## Treaty

Would you mind answering *all* following relevant questions so your belief can be taken seriously?
- What was that Semitic word of what language, loaned into Turkic?
- How and why did a Semitic word for such a basic concept migrated all the way from Mesopotamia to Mongolia's nomad before 500BC, especially without leaving a trace in Iranian?
- Why did the initial [j] appear in Proto-Turkic *_jer_?
- Why was the final [ṣ̂] removed from the Semitic root in *_jer_?
- Why can't a proto-language have more than one word for a concept (i.e. why not both *_jer_ and *_topra-k_ in PT "earth", or both _*er_, *_dʰéǵʰōm or *ǵʰdom _in PIE, or *six* roots for "earth" in Proto-Semitic)?


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## CyrusSH

Treaty, if you want to just deny then I can't reply to any of your questions, there are many evidences which show migrating Turkic tribes lived in central part of Iran even before Iranian-speaking people, as I mentioned in another thread Khalaj language in this region is the closest language to proto-Turkic, there are undeniable cultural similarities between Turkic and Sumerian/Elamite/Akkadian cultures, ...


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## garipx

"CyrusSH" and "Treaty", and also, "Testing1234567": 


I said "you all are OFF topic" above, because, as I repeated, you used the word "Earth" when you are commenting about "Yir". 
It is "forbidden" to use the word "Earth" in this thread because in other thread, in "Etymology: Earth" thread, when "Yir" was mentioned (by me), "Testing1234567" made a comment and he said "there is no any relation between Earth and Yir at all" and our boss here (moderator) agreed with "Testing1234567" and deleted (my) posts there later mentioning "Yir" there, probably claiming that I was Off-topic there. However, in this thread, as you see above, post of "Testing1234567" which is off-topic here is still here, undeleted. So biased... 

Having said these, whether it is meaningful or meaningless, our comments here in this thread about "Yir" should be without mentioning the word "Earth", as they are not related to each others, according to "Testing1234567" and moderator of this forum. If you still want to mention "Earth", then, please, go to the thread "Etymology: Earth" and make your comments there. Btw, what I was expecting from "Testing1234567" when he came into this thread was his comment on "Yir" as he said in "Etymology: Earth" thread "there is no any relation between Earth and Yir at all", but, he has not made any single comment on "Yir" yet though he made a lot of comments on "Earth". This is illogical, because to be able to say "there is no relation between two things", you need to have some knowledge on the both of two (Earth and Yir), having much knowledge on etymology of "Earth" is not sufficient if you have no any knowledge about "Yir." 

I guess, things are clear now. All these are about the methodology of science including this lingustic subfield of science. 

Now, lets back to the topic (without using the word "Earth" as rule of this thread, at least, for a while). 

"CyrusSH", you related "Yir" to "Toprak" (I correct, its more original is "Torpak", not "Toprak"), but, "torpak" is a subgroup of "Yir", that's, torpak=soil, kum/gum=sand. (a reference to this, an old Uigur (Turkic) script on a cave wall: "yeri kumı alkı kümüş", translated by a Turkish linguist into Turkey Turkish here as "toprağı kumu tümüyle gümüştü" which, to me, is wrong. In that script "yer(i)" is not torpak, it is "ground" (acc to rule here, I did not say "earth".) 

So, "toprak/torpak" is just another word which corresponds to "soil" in English. Toprak/torpak is (maybe) a derived word after proto-agricultural culture as it is about "ARable" land. So, we need to find some other better connections to "Yir" for its etymology. 

But, as "Treaty" said in his first post, 



Treaty said:


> According to Clauson (cited in rinet.ru' database), the root is Proto-Turkish (PT) *_jẹr _meaning "earth" and "floor". Considering the lack of material, it is difficult to find the earlier stage of the word.



"there is a lack of material (about yir)" which is most important point in this topic here. So, we are alone in this topic, due to lack of materials/documentation/reference that are about studies related to "yir." (I won't stay at "Jir" version as it looks like a "Jir"inovski kind of science, I'll keep using version "Yir". In any case, first letter there "Y" or "J" is a soft word, pronounced as "y" in "year" and it is almost not hearable when "yir" pronounced, so, it won't be much wrong if I write it as "ir" instead of "yir" and some Turkic communities write it as "ir".)

So, we now have "yir" and "ir" and now, I can also give some "meaningful" words related to "ir", for example, "iri" in Turkic which means "big/large" which, I claim, has a connection with "yir" due to its large/big of "yir". So, our root here is "ir"... "er/ar" in "yer" and "yar" also related to "yir", but, they show somethings a little different things in "yir". For example, high "yir" such as "tepe"/hill is "yar". As seen here, there are many close words to each others in Turkic and all are about "yir."

Any objection to all these? (any Turkic linguist here?)


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## Stoggler

garipx said:


> I said "you all are OFF topic" above, because, as I repeated, you used the word "Earth" when you are commenting about "Yir".
> It is "forbidden" to use the word "Earth" in this thread ...
> ...
> Now, lets back to the topic (without using the word "Earth" as rule of this thread, at least, for a while).



I'm not sure you get the right to dictate what can and can't be discussed on these forums - you don't "own" a thread just because you started it, and you certainly can't forbid anyone from using particular words.

I can't see how it's possible to discuss the word "yir" in English without resorting to some reference to the English word "earth" anyway.  (oh damn it, I've gone any mentioned the taboo word now.  Out with you then Stoggler!)


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## garipx

@Stoggler , 

I see that you didn't get the point of my those words. 

(Think about why I started a seperate thread here while there was "Etymology: Earth", in which I used "Yir", but, I was stopped there. So, "yir" became "forbidden" there in that other thread "Earth". If you prefer to talk about "earth", you better go there to that other thread, not to make our boss (moderator) angry.) Thanks.


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## CyrusSH

garpix, I think your posts won't be deleted in the "earth" thread, if you clearly talk about the possibility of a Turkic origin for this English/Germanic word, not an unknown relation, for example it is believed the word "bad" in Persian and English (two IE languages) which are pronounced exactly the same and have 8 same meanings, don't relate to each other at all.


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## garipx

CyrusSH, from your comments (and also from all other comments of all other posters here), I see that "this word is originally that word, loaned from that language, etc" is the way how you are talking here. That's not my way. I never said "origin of Earth or Yir or whatever word is this or that language", it is what you are doing. 

Questioning "origin" is another subject of science. We have not come to that point, yet. Just do not jump immediately to "origin" and I never claimed the origin of "earth or yir or whatevever" is Turkic or Semitic or PIE or Altaic, etc, that's a thing what you are doing. 

And, we see such "jumpings" also in his post of "Testing1234567" when he said "there is no any relation between Earth and Yir", which needs to be explained. But, (my) questioning (post) such an illogical comment was deleted by the boss (moderator) here. Are we here talking scientifically? If so, objectivity is required... 

If there is no any relation between them, a seperate thread is deserved for "yir" and here it is. 

Ok, lets stop critisizing "garipx" and lets go on. Our topic here is "Yir".


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## Treaty

garipx said:


> so, it won't be much wrong if I write it as "ir" instead of "yir" and some Turkic communities write it as "ir".)


This is where your problem begins. I try to simplify it here:

We find roots with reverse engineering. Regarding _yir_, there are a dozen of Turkic languages which feature a related word meaning "earth". These words may start with different consonants including _j, zh, sh, y_, etc. Then we also have a number of other words with other meanings which show the same consonant relation: in Turkish, they start with _y_ but in other Turkic languages start with those other sounds, respectively.

So, this is the available material. Using this material and some other linguistic tools, an etymologist discovers the very likely root of those _y_- words. We call this discovery as "reconstruction" and show it by an * before the word. In this case, _yir _was pronounced *_jẹr _by the your linguistic ancestors around 2500 years ago, whom we call Proto-Turks (PT). Later, the Proto-Turks were divided into groups and each group developed their own dialect. However, as mentioned, these dialects followed certain laws. Some of your linguistic cousins start to pronounce that initial _j_- as _c_-, while another used _sh_- or _y_ like your closer ancestors.

Therefore, when you want to find the meaning of an old Proto- word, you should find it in the Proto- language. You cannot compare the current state of two words in one new language (like _iri _and _yir_) to study about their possible relation 2500 years ago. Their roots could have been different back then and went through different laws. In this case, the PT root of _iri_ is *_ērig _which is not similar to *_jẹr._

This is why I said there is a lack of material about *_jer_ (not _yir_), at least to my limited knowledge about PT. There is no PT word similar to *_jẹr _- in both pronunciation and meaning. There are two other *_jer _but meaning "copper" and "hate". There are a number of *_jar-_like words which mean "spread", "flat", "broad", "steep bank", etc. Unfortunately, no one from PT people is still around to clarify if they made derivatives by changing the mid-vowels so to make *_jari_ and *_jẹr _related. Probably, we will never be able to find an older meaning (if any) behind PT *_jẹr_.



CyrusSH said:


> Treaty, if you want to just deny then I can't reply to any of your questions, there are many evidences which show migrating Turkic tribes lived in central part of Iran even before Iranian-speaking people, as I mentioned in another thread Khalaj language in this region is the closest language to proto-Turkic, there are undeniable cultural similarities between Turkic and Sumerian/Elamite/Akkadian cultures, ...


You should understand that objecting to the lack of evidence is not denial, it is being rational. You need to refer to a peer-reviewed publication which supports your claims. If you can't provide those, I don't really care if you "answer" my questions. By the way, the relative archaism of Khalaji doesn't prove anything about geography.


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## garipx

"Treaty", if we summarize your post, with a list, these are in your (recorded, right?) sources:

c/j/sh/zh/y/etc + ir/er + (maybe, some other letters) = all about "yir", different versions of "yir" in PT... Did I correctly summarize what all you said?

Okay, some linguists may study each of "c,j,sh,zh,y,etc" as those each studies may tell somethings else, eg, "garipov" with "ov" (instead of "garip+oglu/olu"), where "ov" tells about Russian "Jirinovski effect" in languages in Soviet time... All such studies can be "side" studies, can be "side" topics NOT related to the "core", to the root, to the etymology of "yir"... And, as you said again, there is lack of materials/documents/references about "yir", so, we are alone in this, in etymology of "yir."

Also, most of written sources are full of errors/lies. (eg, majority of written documents now say that "Neil landed his foot on the Moon", and they may show many evidences against  counter-claims that they may call "conspiracies", but, they could not convince a totally illiterate old person who passed away 2 decades ago and who never known to read&write&etc, because, she had a very basic simple logic... Anyway, this is another story, but, related to your written sources. This is also an answer to your words to "CyrusSH" in your last paragraph... Again, I repeat, we are alone in etymology of yir... )

Back to the core of topic you contributed:

c/j/sh/zh/y/etc + ir/er + etc .... all about "yir"... How will we go ahead from here to study&find its etymology of "yir"?


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## Treaty

garipx said:


> c/j/sh/zh/y/etc + ir/er + (maybe, some other letters) = all about "yir", different versions of "yir" in PT... Did I correctly summarize what all you said?


I'm not sure if you summarized it correctly. To be honest, I have problem understanding your English sometimes. If you meant the below sentence, then you're correct:
c/j/sh/zh/y/etc + ir/er = "earth" *in modern Turkic languages* are different versions *descendants* of *_jer _in PT (I stand corrected, that "j" was phonetic, and so should be read as [y]).​
Apart from above, I can't understand your point regarding literacy and written source. I feel you are under the impression that:
1- "recorded/available material/source" only means "written" material.
2- written material is erroneous or insincere (because it was written by Soviets?). 

Of course all research are published as "written" papers and books at the end of the day. However, it doesn't mean their sources were in writings as well. Majority of Turkic material comes from oral sources: listening to and recording the voice of Turkic people. Even the ancient writings like that of Kashghari (a Turk scholar) was based on what he had *heard*, first hand, from different Turkic tribes in his surveys.

The line that _[linguistic] written sources [by Soviets] are full of errors/lies _is unfortunately a plague in some nationalistic circles as a blank check to to dismiss mainstream history and linguistics to open space for their pseudo-historical and pseudo-scientific claims, usually for political gains. I don't blame you for having this kind of belief. However, this forum is not the place to advocate for these ideas (rules #15 and #16).

I don't understand your mention of the illiterate lady. Are you comparing yourself to an illiterate simple-logic person who can't be convinced? If so, why do you bother asking questions here then if you know you won't accept the answers?


garipx said:


> c/j/sh/zh/y/etc + ir/er + etc .... all about "yir"... How will we go ahead from here to study&find its etymology of "yir"?


To go ahead, we need evidence. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no convincing evidence beyond the PT *_jer_. So, that's it: *_jer _meant "earth" and we don't know why. We may not be able to go ahead and know why, maybe never.


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## garipx

Treaty said:


> *_jer _in PT (I stand corrected, that "j" was phonetic, and so should be read as [y]).



On behalfs of all viewing this thread, I thank you, "Treaty", for your contribution "jer/yer" to this topic, that was highly informative about etymology of "yir/yer."


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## berndf

Treaty said:


> I stand corrected, that "j" was phonetic, and so should be read as [y]


Just to avoid further notational confusions. In phonetic transciption:
[j] is the sound of English _*y*oung_.
[y] is the sound of French _t*u*_ or Turkish _T*ü*rk_.
[d͜ʒ] is the sound of English _*j*et_.


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## Treaty

Thank you berndf. But my point is that it may be important if we don't know the phonological history and changes prior to PT, which garipx is asking for. In this case, it would be just another consonant. I couldn't find any source that can explain this. I hope someone else will.


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## garipx

So, if [j] is the sound of English "y"oung, then, "jer" given by "Treaty" can also be written as "yer". But, it was already mentioned in the first post here.
If "yer" is origin of "yir" or if "yer" is an explanation to "etymology:yir", then, this thread can be closed...


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## garipx

Testing1234567 said:


> Words get replaced all the time.



This answers every relevent question in this forum...


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