The Mysteries of the Eggplant

We are all familiar with eggplants, but not so much with the fact that their name actually has something to do with eggs. The word “eggplant” was born in the eighteenth century from the association with goose eggs.

However, that’s American English. In British English, the word “aubergine” is used, which, of course, sounds French. The exact same French word (aubergine) actually came from Catalan, which designates the eggplant with the word albergínia. As a matter of fact, most Spanish and Catalan cultural words starting with al-, like Spanish alcohol, algodón (cotton), almohada (pillow), or albaricoque (apricot), show their Arabic origin (the al particle being the English “the”). Not to be surprised then, that albergínia comes from Arabic al-barangan, one of the many variants of the standard form al-badinjan.

As it happened with many Near Eastern or Eastern Asian cultural items, Arabs happened to be their carriers from East to West. This is how the word al-badinjan, together with the eggplant, was derived from Farsi badenjân-էն, which at its turn came from Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language.

Now, if you are a standard Western Armenian speaker, especially, but not only from the Middle East, you will find yourself in familiar territory. You will say that the Arabic and the “Armenian” words for eggplant are the same: պատընճան (badunjan). Unfortunately, this is only a fact in your imagination. That’s why “Armenian” appears in quotation marks. The fact that the abovementioned word is used in colloquial language does not make it more Armenian that the Turkish word daha, also commonly used in oral language instead of the Armenian word տակաւին (dagaveen “still”).

The renowned linguist Hrachia Ajarian noted in his Armenian etymological dictionary that the word for eggplant should have a foreign origin like the plant. One may assume that, like in the Spanish case, Arabs also introduced eggplants to Armenia, perhaps even before.  

Now, the Armenian designation for eggplant is սմբուկ (sumpoog). Ajarian’s hypothesis was that its source was the Classical Arabic word anab, which means “eggplant.” The word may have entered Armenian as amboog. Later, an unknown copyist of a manuscript confused the ա (a) with a ս (s), and a word was born: sumpoog.

In the end, if you still doubt about adopting the actual Armenian word, perhaps you will be convinced by the law of less effort: badunjan has three syllables, while sumpoog has two.

The “No” Came First

When you ask for something, a negative answer is always likely, but a positive answer does not fall out of the realm of possibility.

 

The “no” came first, at least in Armenian, where the word ոչ (voch) is original to the language, while այո (ayo “yes”) does not have a recognized explanation, even though it appeared as early as the Armenian translation of the Bible (fifth century A.D.).

 

The compound word voch (literally “no one, none”) is formed by the negative particle ո (vo) and the sign of indefinite, չ (ch ). The combination of ոչ (voch “no”) and ինչ (eench “thing”) yielded the word ոչինչ (vocheench “nothing”). Voch later transformed into the other negative word, չէ (che), formed by the sum of չ (ch ) and է (“to be”).

 

The Armenian ayo sounds very close to aye in English (“Aye, captain”) or even to yes, but actually, according to the great linguist Hrachia Ajarian, it is an onomatopoetic word, unrelated to its English, German (ja ) or French (oui) counterparts . The word “yes” did not even exist in Greek or Latin. Actually, it was absent from the mother language, and thus, there is not a common word for the family of Indo-European languages.

 

Most strikingly, ayo had fallen from usage by the twelfth century, when it was replaced by its equivalent հա (ha). The Armenian jurist Mekhitar Gosh, the author of the first codification of Armenian laws, Tadasdanakirk (“Legal Corpus”), was even forced to explain that ayo meant ha to make it understandable to his readers.  

 

The word ha entered Armenian dialects, where (for instance in Van) it was pronounced խա (kha) –the dialect aspired the h like a kh (hats “bread” > khats)--and became abbreviated into խ (kh). So, when they asked a Vanetsi, “Are you OK?,” he answered, “Kh.”

 

In modern times, ayo made a comeback. Today we normally use it as “yes,” while ha has become a colloquial way to answer affirmatively (like the English “yeah”), but not very well regarded when it comes to polite use. However, when you answer negatively, you can say either voch or che, and both will work equally well.

 

In the end, it is always harder to say “yes” to anything, isn’t it?

 

Watermelons in Winter?

In the East Coast, we may be used to having summer fruits during winter time. However, can you imagine that the Armenian Plateau would have watermelons in freezing periods? 
Actually, it did not. This is, nevertheless, something that the facts of language might suggest. 
Let’s start with the name of “winter” in Armenian: ձմեռ (tzumerr). This word has an Indo-European origin and shares it with many languages (for instance, Russian zima “winter”). It was attested from the fifth century A.D. onwards, and like several others, including մուկն (mookn “mouse”), ձուկն (tzookn “fish”), or ամառն (amarrn “summer”), it had a suffix –ն (n) at the end. Such words maintained this suffix in some derivative words like ձմեռնային (tzumerrnayin “winterly”), ձկնորսութիւն (tzugnorsootioon “fishing”), ամառնային (amarrnayin “relative to summer”), and others. On the other hand, a phonetic rule of Classical Armenian established words like tzumerr, amarr, and others, which had a strong r (ռ, like in English “curriculum”) in their roots, were declined with a soft r  (ր, like in English “chores”) and lost their suffix –n in the process. There were also derived words that went through the same rule. This is how we have, for instance, the words ձմերանոց (tzumeranots “winter place”) and ամարանոց (amaranots “summer place”), where the ռ has been replaced by ր. In the same way, we have the Armenian word for “watermelon”: ձմերուկ (tzumeroog). Linguist Hrachia Ajarian, the author of a foremost five-volume etymological dictionary of the Armenian language, suggested that tzumeroog was derived from tzumerr (the suffix oog is a diminutive, like in the word արջուկ/archoog “little bear,” but there are also words formed with this suffix, without necessarily being diminutives; e.g. hեղուկ/heghoog “liquid”). 
How did this happen? Ajarian said the reason for the connection between winter and watermelon was unknown; he assumed that it was because of the refreshing liquid of the fruit, which the villagers may have felt like ice during the hot summers in the Armenian Plateau. Nevertheless, he brought a comparative example: Georgian has the word zamtari (“winter”), from which the word sazamtro (“watermelon”) is derived (the Georgian language forms its words, unlike Indo-European languages, with prefixes). 
Going back to the beginning of this conversation, Armenians did not enjoy watermelons in the winter, but the fruit brought some of the winter cold to their bodies. This was enough to give them the idea for the name.