# Kaz of Turkish & Goose of English...



## cynicmystic

Any suggestions as to how both Turkish and English share the same word for this animal? This is another similarity between the English & Turkish animal names that puzzle me quite deeply.


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## Chazzwozzer

The etymology of Turkish *kaz *is still disputed, but I personally think that it comes from an IE language, possibly Persian. (Persian: *غاز* _[gaaz]_ IE root: _**ghans-*_)


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## Flaminius

*Hi,*

*The topic of this thread is "**Kaz of Turkish & Goose of English**".*
*If anybody wants to discuss any other word (say "ordek"), then please open a new thread.*

*Edit: From the WR Rules (to be found here: Rules]*



> 8. Please stay within the topic area of the forum you are posting a message in.
> 9. Stay on the topic of the first post in each thread. If you wish to talk about a related subject, open a new thread.
> 10. Ask about only one topic in each thread. If you have more than one question, open a thread for each of them.


*

Regards,
Flaminius
in place of EHL modo*


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## Kurdistanish

[cynicmystic: Any suggestions as to how both Turkish and English share the same word for this animal? This is another similarity between the English & Turkish animal names that puzzle me quite deeply.]

Well the suggestion is that Turkish “kaz” is a Persian loanword “ghâz/qâz” (Kurdish “qaz”) < P.I.E “ghans-“* > English “goose”. Hence the Turkish “kaz” is same as English “goose” and Turkish owes this similarity to the Persian Language.


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## Rajki

cynicmystic said:


> Any suggestions as to how both Turkish and English share the same word for this animal?


 
Persian ghaz 'goose' has been cited before as the possible source of Turkish kaz.

Sanskrit hansa means both 'goose' and 'swan', whence Hindi hans 'goose'.

There is an interesting (incidental?) parallel as well:

Sumerian uz 'goose' > Akkad ussu > Arabic wazz, Hebrew avaz


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## Kanes

Rajki said:


> There is an interesting (incidental?) parallel as well:
> 
> Sumerian uz 'goose' > Akkad ussu > Arabic wazz, Hebrew avaz



Even more interesting that Sumerian and Semitic words sound similar to the IE ones. Especially Sumerian which presumably is the oldest example. I think the Semitic ones are suitably adapted to Semitic phonology as much as I know about the languages given. Does anyone know when they were domesticated? Sorry for no inputing much but I think the word in Turkish comes from IE as stated.


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## clevermizo

Rajki said:


> There is an interesting (incidental?) parallel as well:
> 
> Sumerian uz 'goose' > Akkad ussu > Arabic wazz, Hebrew avaz



Interesting, but goose evolved from *ghans-. The fact that the vowel in _Modern English_ and the vowel in _Sumerian_ are similar is hardly evidence of anything. _*ghans-_ and _uz _don't really appear appreciably similar to me at all. Not that Sumerian and PIE were contemporaneous, but that's exactly my point here.



Kanes said:


> Does anyone know when they were domesticated? Sorry for no inputing much but I think the word in Turkish comes from IE as stated.



Apparently geese were domesticated about 5,000 years ago in Egypt (3rd century BC). This may account for similarity of terms for the animal, but there's no way of really knowing that. Especially since IE languages I believe should have already been diverging much earlier than that, even by most theories. It could also just be coincidence.


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## Maroseika

According with some scientists, Egyptians haму really domesticated the Nile goose, but this bird has not spread over the Euro-Asian territory. The one spread now all over the world was domesticated in China. In this case it would be quite natural for the Chinese > IE word to become the base for the goose name in Semitic and Turkish languages, loaning the goose along with its name.

Chinese name for the goose is 鹅 [é]. Can anybody tell something about its etymology and possibility of loaning IE word from Chinese?


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## Awwal12

Well, I believe, there is no need to domesticate a bird to call it somehow. )


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## clevermizo

Awwal12 said:


> Well, I believe, there is no need to domesticate a bird to call it somehow.



Domestication is an important point because domestication causes certain species to spread throughout human societies. I don't know about the distribution of ancient geese or whether or not if they were ubiquitous. If ancient wild geese were ubiquitous then it's a little moot to talk about their domestication.



Maroseika said:


> According with some scientists, Egyptians haму really domesticated the Nile goose, but this bird has not spread over the Euro-Asian territory. The one spread now all over the world was domesticated in China. In this case it would be quite natural for the Chinese > IE word to become the base for the goose name in Semitic and Turkish languages, loaning the goose along with its name.



We're still talking about _language_ here, not actual geese. If Marco Polo brought us back spaghetti precursors from China we still call it by an Italian name (spaghetti) and not a Chinese name (miàn). 



> Chinese name for the goose is 鹅 [é]. Can anybody tell something about its etymology and possibility of loaning IE word from Chinese?


If you're seriously asking, well first the *Mandarin* name for the goose is [é]. But Mandarin is the least conservative, phonologically, of the Chinese family. 

I think the mods would consider it off-topic to bring Chinese into the discussion, but if you know of a dictionary of Middle Chinese or reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation you could potentially look it up (but the character might not be the same anymore). It may be of interest to note that for 鵝, Cantonese has _ngo_ and for 雁 it has _ngaan_ and the latter is the same character that Japanese has, for which the on'yomi is _gan_. I would guess that something like **gan *or **kan* is the original pronunciation of 雁 which in Cantonese is used for wild geese. But yet, PIE would still have predated Old Chinese. Nevertheless the similarity of *gan/kan and *ghans is pretty striking.


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## Awwal12

> Domestication is an important point because domestication causes certain species to spread throughout human societies. I don't know about the distribution of ancient geese or whether or not if they were ubiquitous. If ancient wild geese were ubiquitous then it's a little moot to talk about their domestication.


According to Wikipedia, different species of the Anser genus (usually known under the generalized name "wild geese") were and, more or less, are widespread throughout all areas of the Northern Hemisphere that are humid and cold enough.


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## Maroseika

No matter how wide a species was spread, but due to the unity of Eurasia once domesticated this species would be rather loaned from the neighbours than domesticated the second time: domestication takes centuries while loaning takes no time at all. That is why the most part of animals, birds and plants were domesticated only once in the history of each continent. Maybe the goose is not the case, but if it really was domesticated only once and this has happened 5000-6000 BC in China, Proto-Chinese stem is quite reasonable. 
Spaghetti was not loaned from the neigbours, and it looks like strings, that is why it was called like that. But goose in India did not look like anything similar (the more so that the most part of birds was domesticated in China).


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## Awwal12

> No matter how wide a species was spread, but due to the unity of Eurasia once domesticated this species would be rather loaned from the neighbours than domesticated the second time: domestication takes centuries while loaning takes no time at all.


Dear *Maroseika*! You're totally right about the domestication, but I'm just afraid that having a proper name for some kind of _wild birds_, people hardly would invent another name for their tame equivalents...


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## Maroseika

Awwal12 said:


> Dear *Maroseika*! You're totally right about the domestication, but I'm just afraid that having a proper name for some kind of _wild birds_, people hardly would invent another name for their tame equivalents...


Interesting idea. However just let's check.
If wild geese were spread all over Eurasia, why such different languages as IE and Turkish evidently use one stem (no matter exact direction of loaning)?
I believe for the ancient people domesticated animals had nothing to do with their wild relatives; in fact more probable seems to me that settled tribes forgot wild relatives names as changing from hunting to agriculture, that is why, for example, we say 'wild goose' and don't say 'domestic anser'.

By the way, it may happen original goose name (smth. like kaz/gaz) was just of the onomatopoetic nature. For example, Russian geese speak ga-ga-ga, English 'cackle', German 'gagen', Latvian 'gāgât', etc.


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## er targyn

Persian word is from Turkic.


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## Maroseika

Would you like to adduce some proofs?


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## er targyn

Turkic word has a clear etymology with protoform *Kāŕ. In Avestan*:* zā, zyāǝ̄. What is expected Persian form?


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## Awwal12

Well, even if it is a loanword in Turkic languages, it must be extremely old loanword - since it exists in *all* Turkic languages, from Chuvash to Yakut, as my quick investigation indicated. )


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## Maroseika

er targyn said:


> Turkic word has a clear etymology with protoform *Kāŕ. In Avestan*:* zā, zyāǝ̄. What is expected persian form?


According to my Turkic etymological dictionary Turkic 'qaz' originates from *qa:z. But this doesn't mean it was loaned from some IE language without fail - even if the goose really got to Turkic-speaking peoples from China through IE peoples.
Too many quite different languages use too similar names for this bird, and this may mean they just imitate its specific cry:

Evenk - gag (swan), gare (eagle-owl)
Nanay - gaa (goose, swan)
Mongolian - galagun (goose)
Manjurian - garu (swan)
Korean - kari (swan, goose)
and numerous IE names mentioned before and derivating from PIE *ǵʰáns.


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## er targyn

Maroseika said:


> According to my Turkic etymological dictionary Turkic 'qaz' originates from *qa:z. But this doesn't mean it was loaned from some IE language without fail - even if the goose really got to Turkic-speaking peoples from China through IE peoples.


I didn't get the logic. Turkic etymology is obvious. There are cognates in other altaic languages. What about persian derivation from PIE *ǵʰáns?


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## Awwal12

Well, but what can we suppose?
- a coincidence (quite probable because of onomatopoeic origin, but still just probable);
- an extremely old loan from one proto-language to another. This statement would be very difficult to prove or disprove, since another such loanwords are almost unknown.


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## er targyn

etymology of qaz


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## sokol

er targyn said:


> etymology of qaz


Although linguists contributed to this database you're linking to (e. g. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin) especially the Altaic etymologies have to be taken with a grain of salt: the theory of an Altaic (or even Nostratic) group is highly hypothetical.

So while (hopefully) the Turkic branch is given accurately and correctly on this site all the other information given there is at least doubtful.
As for linking this word to IE languages:


er targyn said:


> I didn't get the logic. Turkic etymology is obvious. There are cognates in other altaic languages. What about persian derivation from PIE *ǵʰáns?


That's even more bizarre.
Unless the Turkish word were an IE loan (or vice versa; and even that would be very difficult to prove, as Awwal12 already said) any suggestion of them being cognate is extremely hypothetical.


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## er targyn

Just one question: do you believe that Persian word was borrowed into Proto-Turkic? It's a Turkic loan in Persian, not vice versa.


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## sokol

er targyn said:


> Just one question: do you believe that persian word was borrowed into proto-turkic? It's a turkic loan in persian, not vice versa.


I beg your pardon?

So far no evidence has been shown either way (the Turkish word being a Persian loan, or the Persian word being a Turkish loan): all which has been said so far only is that it is believed to be a Persian loan in Turkic languages.

I do not believe either before I see convincing evidence before my eyes.  (And as said we cannot consider your source as quoted above - the starling.rinet.ru link - as evidence except for the relationship between Turkic languages.)


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## er targyn

Proto-Turkic: *Kāŕ gives us common Turkic qāz and Chuvash xor. Any doubts? If not, then your version is impossible. Are you Turkologist?
I want to ask again: what is expected Persian form of IE *ghans?


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## Frank06

er targyn said:


> Proto-Turkic: *Kāŕ gives us common Turkic qāz and Chuvash xor. Any doubts?


Sokol didn't doubt the Turkic etymology in itself ("we cannot consider your source as quoted above [...] as evidence *except for the relationship between Turkic languages*."). I thought that was clear enough.
He put a question mark, however, at the Altaic theory. Quite a difference.



er targyn said:


> If not, then your version is impossible.


It wouldn't be bad to actually _read _what people write. That's the _sine qua non_ of any debate (on a message board).
Sokol wrote that "So far no evidence has been shown either way (the Turkish word being a Persian loan, or the Persian word being a Turkish loan)".
In other words, Sokol didn't give a version. 



> Are you Turkologist?


It would be nice to have a real Turkologist on board. But in this case, we'll have to do with common sense.



> I want to ask again: what is expected Persian form of IE *ghans?


If the Persian word cannot be traced back to PIE *g'hans-, then that doesn't automatically mean it is a loan from a Turkic language, does it?

So far, you didn't give a shred of evidence that the Persian word is a loan from Turkic. Merely repeating a statement doesn't constitute proof.

I am *not* saying that your assessment is to be dismissed. However, I am not willing to *believe* you (or anybody else). I don't believe in believing. I am just wondering if you could give some positive evidence which goes beyond a slightly boring repetition.

Frank


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## er targyn

I just questioned impossible theory of borrowing Persian ghaaz into Chuvash xor. Persian has a lot of Turkic loans.


> If the Persian word cannot be traced back to PIE *g'hans-, then that doesn't automatically mean it is a loan from a Turkic language, does it?


Yes, it cannot be traced back to PIE *g'hans-, which supports my version. Isn't it obvious? It starts to be really boring here...


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## berndf

er targyn said:


> Isn't it obvious?


Not to me. There is at least one more possibility, namely that the Persian and Turkic words are unrelated.


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## Frank06

Hi,

A bit tired of waiting for arguments, I tried to sort out a few things myself:
1. According to this source (Lubotsky's Indo-Aryan inherited lexicon), PIE *g´hh2ens- (the later PIE form without the laryngeal *g'hans- will do for our purposes) gives the equally reconstructed Proto-Indo-Iranian form *j´h(H)ansa-.
I couldn't figure out a way to get from the Proto-IA form (and more especially word initial *j´h(H) to modern Persian _q-._

My (preliminary) conclusion is that the Persian word cannot be derived from the PIE form. But if that's a reason to jump to any other conclusion apart from "cannot be derived from PIE" is another issue (well, it's not even an issue, it's bad logic).

Oh, counterarguments are _more _than welcome.

2. Wiktionary gives a Turkish/Turkic etymology for Kurdish قاز and Persian غاز, قاز (and Armenian: ղազ (ġaz), by the way), but the "discussion page" is empty, hence no sources, no arguments 
The Wikipedia article on goose gives a PIE etymology for Persian _qaz_, so that doesn't help us either.

No sources, no arguments means no evidence, no matter how many times we repeat it and no matter how obvious we think it is.

Frank


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## er targyn

Persian reflex of PIE *g'h- must be z- just like Avestan I mentioned above. Persian has lost this root, but it's likely that Tajik (from Sogdian) has it: zogh "raven".


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