From: cluster.user@yale.edu (Cluster User)
Subject: Re: The Bulgars are Bulgars (Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars)
Date: 14 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <376585fb.4456868@news.yale.edu>
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Organization: Yale University
Newsgroups: sci.lang

from vassil's corerespondence forwarded to me:

the animal names all seem to be turkic (whatever their external
connections). only "vereni" is ambigious, but it seems to represent
"evren" - large snake (among other meanings), thus presumably
"dragon" (represented in turkic with various loanwords). evren,
form evir= to turn round is a descriptive "meaningful" name
and thus native (in this meaning it is found in old anatolian 
turkish). "evren" is found as a personal name (as the father of 
"urum alIp" - "long hero"; coincidentally "urum" - long, c. turkic 
uzun- is mentioned as an alternate source of this word). furthermore 
in some calender systems "year of the  dragon" seems to be represented
as "year of the fish" (apparently so among  the hsiung-nu as well). 
dobrev's explanation as "varan" (monitor lizard, the large ones now 
popularly called "dragons"), a european rendering of arabic waral
through a colloquial, is untenable. a novelty introduced by dobrev is
teku as an alternative for "horse". this has been generally associated
with turkic teke, (or tekegu") "billy goat", instead of the more 
usual "year of the sheep". however, this also has a chuvash
equivalent, tIxa related to turkic tay, "pony". for the ending see
"etx" below.

it seems that the bulghars mainly used local names for the calender
animals, not merely adopted the tUrkUt usage.

the equivalents in other languages, noted by pritsak, are
nevertheless interesting.

>>One Bulgarian researcher - Peter Dobrev, recently proposed the parallels, 
>>listed in the table below. Perhaps, they might be of
>>some interest for you.
>>

the problem is that chuvash forms are not taken into consideration.

the turkic words come via danubebulghar, presumabely of the chuvash
group, whose exact phonetic characteristics one has to recontstruct.

another problem is determining how the phonetics were rendered in
greek 
and slavic (cyrillic).

>>Bulgar word    Turkic parallel   Ugro-Finnic p.      Tungus p.
>>somor (mouse)    sbchkan        senger              szomor
>>                                 sungur (hedgehog)
>

sIc,qan, sIc,g~an is a "meaningful" (descriptive) name - defecator.

chuvash has se~ve~r (< * sug~ur, a mountain rat).
sug~ur is found in the middle qychaq as sug~ur sawsar for "weasel",
(sansar, sa*ng*sar = weasel).

somoran is also a type of mouse in kazan and bashkIr,
perhaps from volgabulghar.

one would thus reconstruct * su*ng*ur and this would tie in
with the words in other languages.

elsewhere bobrev mentions persian samu:r (sable). first found for
parthian, this is regarded as a turkic (or neighboring language)
loan by doerfer, presumabely on account of the distribution
of the animal, as well he above words.


>   Tungusic szomor does not look familiar to me. The usual word for
>'mouse' is singgere (Ma. singgere, I don't remember other Tungusic forms
>from the top off my head. szomor is strange because it apparently uses
>Hungarian spelling sz-.
>
>>eth (dog)        it             eb, empe            etek (wolverene)
>

(eth is for etx) pritsak has * yetki.

turkic It, later it.

chuvash has yIda, yIta < Ita (a velar might have been 
dropped earlie). for xazar one has the proper name Itax,
itex. so perhaps * itexi

there are a few other instances of the chuvash group
having a "long" form, and common turkic a "short" one.
the suffix may be an ending for animal names or a 
dimunitive.

>   It is routinely believed that Tungusic *ng+nta 'dog' (Ma. indaxun)
>corresponds to Turkic +t, not the word for 'wolverine' (I use + sign for
>high central vowel).
>
>>dilom (snake)    ilan           ...                 ...
>

ilan is azeri.

>Comparison of Bulgar dilom with Turkic ilan (more exactly y+lan) is
>problematic not only due to the discrepancy in final consonants, but also

these may be explaned.

>due to the fact that Volga Bulgarian inscriptions have j- for the common
>Turkic y-, not d- (that j- later became c,- in Chuvash)
>

turkic yIlan. 

comparative evidence suggests that some turkic y- < d-.
pritsakj has d' (i.e. palatized d).

there is no problem in d-, it is archaic. danubebulghar
also has * doxtar < * dog~dar (old ch. slavonic doxtor)
"pillow", chuvash s'e~dar, s'e~tar. turkic (kashg.) has
yog~du (camel's beard - used for stuffing pillows).

dulo (royal clan name) may be another case. hungarian has gyula 
(a group of nobles) preesumably from turkic yula (torch, lamp),
existing in hungarian as gyula as well (thus presumably refering 
to "leader"). according to pritsak dulo represents the name of the 
royal hsiung-nu house.

 a few words from ptolemy (the river dayik, later yayIk - the ural)
 and byzantine sources show that turkic, particularly bulghar had 
 d- in the the early and mid 1st millenium).

in early loans slavic frequently has /o/ for turkic /a/,
presumabely because in these cases it was labialized.
greek, when taking directly from turkic generally has /a/
(alpha), though in some hunnic names it might be omega.
as menges says, it is the difficulty of reconciling
slavic, greek and turkic vowels.

on occassion turkic -n appears as -m in the chuvash
group (but cognates of yIlan have -n chuvash)

turkic qarIn (chuvash xIram) appears as korem (all "stomach")
in bulgarian, presumably from danubebulghar.

>>toh (cock)       tauk (bird)    toh, tyuk           togo (bird), but        
>>                                              also the Dargin taha.
>
>Turkic taquq means 'chicken', not 'bird' which could strengthen the

yes. taquq, tag~uq and other variants. tauq is a common form
found in some languages and dialects. tox is found for azeri.

>comparison. The usual Turkic word for 'bird' is qush. I cannot recognize
>the Tungusic word in the list either, at least not from my memory.
>
>