A Comic Word

For those of our readers who are into comics, particularly the series X-Men, there is a female character called Jubilee in them, whose actual name is Jubilation Lee. How do the English words jubilee and jubilation relate?

We do not know for sure. Jubilation comes from the Latin verb iūbilō (“shout for joy”). Hebrew yovel (= English jubilee) marked the year at the end of seven cycles of sabbatical years, which had a special impact on the regulations of property and management of land in the land of Israel, according to the Bible. The Latin translation of the Bible (Vulgata) translated the word as iobeleus, while the Greek translation (Septuaginta) rendered it as “a trumpet-blast of liberty.” The reason for the latter was that the Jubilee year was announced by a blast on a shofar (Armenian շեփոր, shepor), an instrument made from a ram’s horn (Hebrew yobhel “ram”).

The Armenian word յոբելեան (hopelian), which today means “birthday” or “anniversary feast,” is used to mark an anniversary of any kind (for instance, 2013 was the 95th hopelian of the creation of the Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918), whereas the English jubilee is most commonly used to mark a twenty-fifth (“silver”) or a fiftieth (“golden”) anniversary. The Armenian word derives from Greek yobelos, where the Greek suffix –os was replaced by the Armenian եան (ian), which means “belonging to.”

However, there is an alternative explanation, after all. It has been suggested that Latin jubilo and Ancient Greek iuzo (“shout”) both come from a common Indo-European root *yu- (shout for joy) that predates the Bible. (There is also the Modern English word yowl.) If such were the case, then the Hebrew word yovel would be a borrowing from a neighboring Indo-European language rather than a derivation from another Hebrew word. And then the Greek yobelos, Armenian hopelian, and English jubilee would have an ultimate Indo-European origin, even if kept by the Bible.

Words can be fun and mysterious.

How Do You Call Him?

You call someone. This means that you tell someone to come to your side, you give an invitation to someone, or you name someone.

These three meanings of the English word call are all covered by its Armenian equivalent կանչել (ganchel).

There is a fourth meaning, very common in English American usage, as a synonym of “to telephone.” Thus, if we mean to say “I called my brother” in Armenian, we should simply say «Ես եղբայրս կանչեցի» (Yes yeghpayrs ganchetsi) and end of the story.

It sounds perfectly right: English call, Armenian ganchel. But it is perfectly... wrong.

Why? The English word is the shortened version of “to call over the phone,” but we do not have this expression in Armenian: we do not say հեռաձայնով կանչել (herratzaynov ganchel), but ... հեռաձայնել (herratzaynel “to telephone/to phone”). This being the case, we are not allowed to shorten an inexistent expression in Armenian (herratzaynov ganchel) and turn it into... ganchel.

You will find yourself before amusing, and confusing, situations. For instance, someone might say in reference to a friend who has been missing for a long time:

«Թիւը գտիր ու կանչէ, խօսինք» (Tivuh kdir oo gancheh, khosink, “Find the number and call him to talk”)

How would you understand this gancheh? Would you phone him to talk or . . . invite him to come to talk? If your interlocutor had said հեռաձայնէ (heratzayneh) instead of gancheh, there would be no confusion.

Some people may think that this mistaken usage is only common in Armenian American speech, but, in fact, the same fourth meaning exists in other languages (French appeler, Spanish llamar, for instance). Therefore, you may find ganchel inaccurately used in many other corners of the Diaspora. Don’t think that because someone knows Armenian better than you, that then he necessarily speaks better than you.

Sweet in Every Language

There are words that have an ultimate common source from another language, but have found their way through different itineraries. Such is the case of the word sugar.

The sugarcane was originally from India. The soldiers of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, after reaching India in the fourth century B.C., brought back to Europe “honey bearing reeds” that produced a product called sharkara (“ground sugar”) in Sanskrit, which they transcribed as ζάκχαρι (sacchari). The Indian product spread to different Asian regions and reached Iran, where it was called shakar. The word was borrowed straightforwardly from Persian into Armenian, where it first appeared in the seventh-century Atlas ascribed to Anania Shirakatsi as շաքար (shakar). Another Iranian language, Kurdish, borrowed it as sheker, which is the likely source for the Turkish word sheker.

However, the actual expansion of the sweet substance to the West occurred when Arabs began to cultivate it in Sicily and Spain, while the Crusaders did their part too. The Arabic word sukkar entered Europe and spread through various languages: Medieval Latin succarum, French sucre, Spanish azucar, Portuguese açúcar, Italian zucchero, and German Zucker. The ultimate source for English sugre > sugar was, most probably, the French language.

One of the many Voskeporik (Ոսկեփորիկ, “Miscellanea”), collections of useful and not-so- useful material of various origins compiled during the Middle Ages, included  the following phrase quoted by the most important dictionary of Classical Armenian, the New Haigazian Dictionary of 1836-1837 published by the Mekhitarist Fathers: «Յիմաստուն ձեռացս ի՛նչ առնուս՝ շաքար է». Whether said in Classical Armenian or in Modern Armenian («Ինչ որ առնես իմաստուն ձեռքերուդ մէջ՝ շաքար է»), the phrase has not lost its eternal meaning: “Whatever you take in your wise hands, is sugar.” Sweetness comes with wisdom, at all times.

Why Is She the Queen of the House?

In Armenian the word “woman” has various meanings; կին (gin, pronounced kin in Classical and Eastern Armenian), can be used to mean either “woman” (հայ կին, hay gin “Armenian woman”) or, by extension, “wife” (կինս, gins “my wife”). It has the same double meaning as the Greek word γυνή/gyné (“a woman, a wife”), and both have a common origin: the Proto-Indo-European root *gwen (“wife, woman”).

By now, you may have intuitively grasped that gin/kin is related to the English word gynecologist and all other words compounded with gyn. But perhaps more unexpectedly, it also comes out that the Armenian gin has the same source as the English queen, derived from Old English cwen “queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife,” which of course has its ultimate origin in the same Proto-Indo-European root. Thus, when they talk of the “queen of the house,” it is not only an honorific title, but also a literal meaning.

For those who are familiar with the intricacies of Armenian grammar, the word gin has an irregular declension (հոլովում, holovoom), which has its origin in Classical Armenian: nominative/accusative կին (gin, “woman/wife”), genitive/dative կնոջ (gnoch, “to the woman/wife”), ablative կնոջմէ (gnochme, “from the woman/wife”), instrumental կնոջմով (gnochmov, “with the woman/wife”).

This reminder is important, because colloquial Armenian has a very common word, կնիկ (gnig), which means “married woman” and “wife.” It comes from the combination of կին and the diminutive/affective suffix իկ (ik). The word was also used in most Armenian dialects. However, it is strongly advised not to use it in literary Armenian (Armenian writers have always used the word for literary reasons, not because of grammatical accuracy), as it has a certain derogatory flavor, and above all, it is incorrect to use the genitive/dative կնիկին (gnigin) or կնկան (gngan) in sentences like Ես կնիկին ըսի (Yes gnigin esi, “I told the woman”), instead of the accurate form: Ես կնոջ ըսի (Yes gnoch esi, “I told the woman”).

Talent Weighs a Lot

People look for talent everywhere, starting with talent shows in elementary school. Interestingly, we have the same word talent in Armenian, only pronounced a little differently: daghant (տաղանդ). The use of gh instead of l shows that the word appeared in Classical Armenian when the Greek λ (l) was written down as ղ (gh).

Both English and Armenian, therefore, share the same ultimate origin: Greek τάλαντον (talanton), a word that meant “scale” and “weight,” and also indicated a certain amount of weight (26 kilograms or 57 pounds), as well as the monetary sum equivalent to a talent of gold or silver. When Carthago lost the Second Punic War (218-203 A.C.) to Rome, it had to pay the exorbitant amount of 10,000 gold talents (= 570,000 pounds)!

The Armenian translation of the Bible already showed the figurative meaning of daghant as “ability or skill.” But, while Armenian borrowed the word directly from Greek, English used an intermediary, the plural form of Latin talentum, and the figurative meaning was reinforced by the Old French talent (“will, inclination, desire”).

If you want to delve into the gradations of a talent, the Armenian language gives you several choices, from the bottom to the top:

անտաղանդ (andaghant) “untalented”
տաղանդաւոր (daghantavor) “talented”
տաղանդաշատ (daghantashad) “much talented”
մեծատաղանդ (medzadaghant) “of great talent”
բազմատաղանդ (pazmadaghant) “multi-talented”

However, the limit between a multi-talented person and a հանճար (hanjar “genius”) is a matter for others, not for this column.

A Little Word and a Bigger Problem

The word որ (vor) in Armenian has several meanings; “that,” “which,” “who” are the most common. For instance:

-- Կը յուսամ, որ կը շահին (Ge hoosam, vor ge shahin, “I hope that they win”)

-- Այս գիրքը, որ շատ լաւ գրուած է (Ayt kirke, vor shad lav krvadz eh, “This book, which is very well written”)

-- Մանուկը, որ կը խաղար դուրսը (Manooge, vor gue khaghar toorseh, “The child who played outside”)

Like any substantive, vor is subject to declination (հոլովում, holovoom), something that various Indo-European languages do not have, like English or French, but others do, like Latin and German. Thus, we have three declined forms of vor, besides the root word vor itself: որու (voroo, “for which, for who”), որմէ (vormeh, “from which, from who”), and որով (vorov, “with which”)(*).

Our focus is on the latter, vorov. An example of its use appears in the title of a poem by the great Armenian writer Vahan Tekeyan (1878-1945). It is called «Լեզուն որով գրեցի» (Lezoon vorov kretsi). The title is literally translated as “The Language with Which I Wrote."

However, it appears that people have started to forget the meaning of some little words in the last years. Both in colloquial and written language, we may currently notice the use of vorov as a synonym of an apparently similar word, որովհետեւ (vorovhedev), which has a totally different meaning, “because.” Here is an example of such wrong use:

Wrong: Չեմ կրնար դուրս երթալ, որով կ՚անձրեւէ (Chem grnar toors yertal, vorov g’antsreveh “I can’t go outside, because it’s raining”),

Right: Չեմ կրնար դուրս երթալ, որովհետեւ կ՚անձրեւէ (Chem grnar toors yertal, vorovhedev g’antsreveh”).

We may even hear children who, asked why such and such happened, reply: “Vorov,” as if they answered in English with the laconic “Because.”

Even worse, sometimes vorov replaces ուրեմն (ooremn, “then”), as in:

Wrong: Անօթի ենք, որով կրնանք ուտել (Anoti enk, vorov grnank oodel, “We are hungry, then we can eat”),

Right: Անօթի ենք, ուրեմն կրնանք ուտել (Anoti enk, ooremn grnank oodel)

An affair to remember:

a)    Որով (vorov) = “with which”
b)    Որովհետեւ (vorovhedev) = “because”
c)    Ուրեմն (ooremn) = “then”

(*) You may ask why there is no mention of “with whom.” This is because the use of vorov is not applicable to persons. If one wants to say “the boy with whom I went to school,” he or she should say «տղան որուն հետ դպրոց գացի» (dghan voroon hed tbrots katsi).

The “Apple” That Came from China . . . or India

You cannot compare apples with oranges, but of course, you can compare an orange and a նարինջ (narinch), because both refer to the juicy fruit used to make your everyday breakfast beverage and both have the same origin. And, as we will see, apples were somehow part of the origins of the English orange.

Oranges probably originated in Southeast Asia, and were already cultivated in China around 2500 B.C. However, the ultimate origin of both English orange and Armenian narinch (pronounced narinj in Classical Armenian) is India. The fruit was called naranga, which means “orange tree,” in the Vedas, the sacred books of Indian religion written in Sanskrit, although the origin of the word is unknown. It seems to come from a non-Indo-European language of the Indian peninsula, such as Telugu, Malalayam, or Tamil.

The fruit went from India to Western Asia with the Arabs as intermediaries. Along went the name: it remained as narang in Persian, turned naranj in Arabic (Arabic does not have a g), and became narinj in Kurdish and Armenian. According to German linguist Heinrich Hubschmann and his disciple Hrachia Adjarian, the Armenian word originated from Persian narang.

The fruit went to Europe through Portuguese travelers to China, and through Arabs. It received the name of “Chinese apple” in some languages: they are called sinaasappel in Dutch and appelsin in Low German, literally “China’s apple” (hence Russian апельсин apelsin “orange,” which you may hear sometimes in Eastern Armenian). Interestingly, “Chinese apple” is the name of the pomegranate in British English.

Interestingly, Spanish and Portuguese most probably adopted the word through Arabic influence in the Iberian Peninsula (Spanish naranja and Portuguese laranja), but Portugal helped spread the word to Southern Europe and the Middle East: Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli) and Turkish portakal. Believe it or not, Arabs today call the fruit burtuqāl برتقال; the word nerinj is used for a different citric.

The name and the fruit reached England through a more indirect path. Old Italian borrowed the word from Arabic and turned it into melarancia (mela + (n)arancia “apple of orange”). The French calqued the word from the Italians and turned it into pome orenge (“apple of orange”). Finally, Old English borrowed orenge/orange from Old French, without the “apple” part. (In the end, the French dropped the word “apple” too.) And this is how English orange sounds quite close to Armenian narinch, only with the vowel o at the beginning.

There is one difference, though: orange in English means both the fruit and the tree. In Armenian, we have two different words, although close enough: narinch for the fruit and նարնջենի (narncheni) for the tree. The suffix eni is equivalent to the English “-tree,” as in khntzoreni “apple tree.”