On the Turkish, Azerbaijani and Georgian Lexical Parallels of Persian Origin

Abstract

As a result of longstanding and close language contacts with Persian, numerous Persian loans are found in Turkish, Azerbaijani and Georgian. The lexical layer of Persian loans is especially notable in Anatolian Turkish and Azerbaijani. This is due to specific historical and cultural factors, namely, the high prestige of the Persian language in the Moslem world.

We have found approximately 270 Turkish-Azerbaijani-Georgian parallels of Persian origin1 and analyzed the relation of these units with Persian. The analysis also embraces the peculiarities of adaptation of these units in the borrower languages. The research also focuses on the relation between the Persian loans found in Turkish, Azerbaijani and Georgian.

The etymons of the analyzed loans embrace 250 nouns, 10 grammatically monosemantic adjectives, 6 numerals and 2 interjections. At the same time, it should be noted that some borrowed words are grammatically polysemantic in Persian and embrace the meanings of both noun and adjective. In two cases, the words have the meanings of both noun and interjection – آفرین [āfarin] 1. interjection “Good job, well done! “; 2. 1) noun “Praise, admiration, approval “; 1) noun “ode, panegyric“;  افسوس [afsus] 1. interjection “Alas! “; 2. noun “regret, disappointment “.

Grammatical polysemy is mostly preserved in Turkish (40 examples) and Azerbaijani (71 examples); it is less preserved in Georgian (16 examples). For instance, Persian نامرد [namard] Turkish nâmert; Azerbaijani namərd; Georgian ნამარდი [namard-i] 1.adj. “evil, inhuman “; 2. noun “scoundrel “.

In extremely rare cases, the morphological category of the etymon is changed in the process of borrowing, for instance, Persian نر [nar] adj. 1) “male “; 2) „brave, courageous “; Azerbaijani nər adj. 1. “brave, courageous “; noun 2. “male camel/bull camel “; Georgian ნარი[nar-i]2 noun, archaic. “male camel/bull camel “, cf. Turkish ner adj. “male “, where the initial meaning of Persian نر [nar] remains unchanged.

From the viewpoint of lexical polysemy, in all the three borrower languages, the polysemantic volume of the Persian etymon is reduced.

1 Out of these, about 20 units are not found in Turkish. In our opinion, this can be explained by the fact that there were closer language contacts between Persian and Azerbaijani than Persian and Turkish.

2 -i is a nominative case marker for nouns with consonantal stems in Georgian.

The number of meanings of polysemantic lexical units of Persian origin in Turkish and Azerbaijani varies between 2 and 6, and seldom exceeds this number, whereas the Persian etymon itself may have more than ten meanings. Georgian tends to decrease the number of meanings of the polysemantic etymons even more. The number of meanings of Persian loans in Georgian rarely exceeds two.

In the Turkish parallels, there are 29 monosemantic units. Out of these, only ten are derived from monosemantic etymons. In Azerbaijani, there are 38 monosemantic units. In this case, 11 etymons are monosemantic. In Georgian, there are 78 monosemantic loans, out of which 20 are derived from monosemantic etymons. In other cases, monosemantization of loans, as well as restriction of the polysemantic volume of the etymon in the process of borrowing, must be due to less intense language contacts between Georgian and Persian. For this reason, many of the Persian loans are no longer used in Georgian. This, above all, refers to concrete everyday vocabulary.