Chuvash-Germanic Language Connections
Abbreviations
Accidentally finds of matches in the languages of the Indo-Europeans and Turks were not without serious attention of linguists. However, a lot of questions occur when owing to a large number of them, such as where, when, and under what conditions contacts between them had a place, as well as the most delicate of them – who from who loaned. All of these issues are interrelated and the answer to them cannot be given only by comparing the sample language correspondences. It is difficult to obtain a logical result by induction numerous linguistic facts. Difficulties arise not only because of lack of sufficient knowledge and methods of comparison of linguistic phenomena, but also because of the bias that is occurred by linguists of various nationalities, wittingly or unwittingly, preferring their own or related languages with diligence to find and prove if not greatness, then a high cultural level of its own people in the past.
Insults and accusations accompany these searches. Oriental scholars accuse western ones almost of racism, since the latter allegedly did not admit the possibility of a high level of development of some Asian peoples in the past, and common linguistic phenomena explain by borrowing of words and concepts from the Indo-European languages, while the reverse influence priori considered unlikely or insignificant (KARATAY OSMAN, 2003-2, 126). Obviously, such misdealing has place but we must pay tribute to European linguistics which due to long existence has accumulated a lot of experience and has developed more or less effective methods of research, often neglected by eastern scholars.
It should be borne in mind that some of compliance may pertain to the period of the Nostratic community and they can not be paying attention when we consider the interaction of cultures during a later period. Especially we have to be careful when finding similarities in words, the most common used and means simply concepts. In contrast, when we find similarities, for example, in the names of species of rare plants or tools, these cases are of great importance. The number of lexical correspondences found in these languages is also important, because the distribution of individual words together with their denoting concepts can be very complex and restore their ways is just not possible due to lack of explanation even visible phonetic correspondences. The names of the hops or soaps which are similar in many languages could be examples, but their diversity is not possible to restore their initial forms.
Astray studies are led also by views on the history of languages established at the dawn of linguistics. If we, for example, believe that one common paternal languages of some related languages existed at certain times, but its existence in fact has to be referred to an earlier period, the ignoring of the exceptional features of one of thees languages will not lead us to the truth. In the case of study of connections the Turkic and Indo-European languages, especially the Chuvash language is often neglected because of its peculiarities are explained by far-fetched theory of its origin. However, knowing that the ancestors of the Chuvash were inhabiting the territory adjacent to the settlement of Indo-Europeans and later the Germans during long time, we easily find correspondences between the Chuvash and Latin, Greek, and German languages.
Osman Karatai asserts that modern English has about 400 Turkic loan-words and a considerable part of them belong to the Old Turkic common fund, although he considers only a few examples of Germanic-Turkish correspondences, some of which are highly questionable (ibid, 135). Here is not a place for discussion, but indisputable matches given by Turkish scholar, should be noted. For example, you cannot object that the German suffix -lich corresponds to Turkic -lık (-lik). It corresponds to –lăk (lĕk) in Chuvash. However, the English suffix -ly was not arisen from reducing the Turkic -lık (-lik) to -lı (-li), as O. Karatai believes, but from the Chuvash -lă (-lĕ, -llă, – lĕ). There are no objections for borrowing English words such as girl, to tell from the Turkic languages. Below is a list of common vocabulary of the Chuvash and Germanic languages and it clear shows that Turkic matches to them are present not always. Cases of lack of such correspondences may have different explanation but no doubt that the Chuvash ancestors out of all Turks were closest neighbors of the Germanic people, we call the ancient Bulgars. The question of who borrowed what from whom, for the most part remains open. This is a topic of special study.
Chuv apat “food” – OE ofett, Germ Obst “vegetable”.
Chuv armuti “wormwood” (similar words are present in other Turkic languages) – Germ Wermut“wormwood”.
Chuv ătăr “an otter” – OG *utra, Eng otter , Germ Otter.
Chuv ăvăs “asp, aspen” – OG *apso, OE æps, Germ Espe “asp, aspen”.
Chuv avlan “to marry” – OE ǽwnian, ǽwan “to marry”.
Chuv çak(k) “to stick up” (the words of this root are present in other Turkic languages) – Germ Zacke “tooth, jag”.
Chuv čělkhe 1.“tongue”, 2. "language"(common Turkic root til) – Eng to tell. English word has matches in other Germanic languages and according many experts all they refer to PIE root *del "to aim,calculate", but only some gaven to it matches stand far in meaning (Lat dolus , Gr δολοσ "fraud"), in contrary, words til/tili/dili meaning "language" are present in all Turkic languages.
Chuv čětre “to tremble” (common Turkic root titr) – Germ zittern “to tremble”.
Chuv ja “yes” – Germ ja “yes”.
Chuv jěkel “acorn” – OG *aikel, Germ Eichel “acorn”.
Chuv kavle “to chew” – Germ kauen “to chew”.
Chuv kěrt “flock” – OG *herdo, Germ Herde, Eng herd, Sw hjord “herd, flock”.
Chuv karta “fence” – OG *gardon, Germ Garten, Eng garden.
Chuv lăbăr “thistle” – OE laber, leber “rush, reed”, Old High Germ leber.
Chuv lank “to touch” – Ger lenken “ro direct”.
Chuv latlă “good” – Eng little (West Gmc *lutila).
Chuv măkăn’ “poppy” – Germ Mohn “poppy” (old form *mæhon).
Chuv. năkă “stark”, Tat. nyk “stark” a.o. – OE ge-nàg “rasch, schnell”, Lett. naiks “heftig, rasch, schnell”.
Chuv palt “fast, quick” – OG *balþa, “bold, courageous”, eng. bold, Germ bald “fast, soon”.
Chuv papak, pebek “child” (other Türkic bebi, beba, bebek) – Eng baby.
Chuv patak "a stick, cane", other Türkic bodaq "branch" from Old Turkic bod "body, trunk; tribe, clan" – O.E. bodig "a trunk, chest", N.E. body, O.H.G. botah "body".
Chuv pěçen “sow-thistle” – Germ Vesen “siftings, bran”.
Chuv pike "woman, lady", Tat, Bash pikә "lady", Tat bičä "wife" – OE bicce "female of the dog, fox, wolf".
Chuv pulkkă “flock, herd” – Chuvash word was borrowed from Old Germanic where *fulka was restored on reason Ger Volk, Eng. folk, Sw. volc etc. “folk, army” of unclear origin. (Kluge Friedrich, 1989). No doubt, this is a travelling word, as similar words without clear phonetic correspondences are present in other Indo-European languages, e.g. Lat. volgus, vulgus “(common) folk”, “herd”, “mob”, Lat. volgō, vulgāris “ordinary, common”, O.-Ind. vargah “division, group”, O.-Sl. pъlkъ “regiment”, Lyt. pulkas, Alb. plogu “mod” etc. (See. Vasmer Max, 1971, V. III; Walde A.,1965). Obviously here also Lat. populus “folk”, plebs “folk, mob”, Gr. φυλον “people, folk, tribe”, ethnonyms "Volcae", "Poles", "Polans", "Bulgars" (Bulgar – Old name of a Turkic tribe, the ancestors of Chuvash).
Chuv pultăran “a kind of parsley” – Germ Baldrian “valerian”. Perheps, Latin name of the plant Valeriana, that is similar to parsley, is changed accordingly to Lat valere “be strong” and the first form of the name was other. German word is more similar to Tur baldiran “a kind of parsley” and other Türkic names of this plant (in Balkar, Tartarian and Altaian). Therefore, it is not clear, which of the languages, German or Latin, adopted the Türkic word first.
Chuv săpsa „wasp” – OG *wabso “wasp” (OE wæfs, wæps, Germ Wespe), (here also Sl osa “wasp”).
Chuv sepper „supper” – Eng supper. This word considered to be borrowed from Old French which itself is loanword from some Germanic language (Meyer-Lübke W. 1992, 8464).
Chuv sěnk „to drowse, doze”, Turkic *siŋ (Tat seŋü, Kaz siŋdirlu, Uzb singdirmoq etc) „to sink, to be digested – Ger senken, OE sencan „to droop”, Eng “to sink”.
Chuv sěre „very” – Middle High Germ sēre, OE sāre, Germ sehr “very”.
Chuv çirěp “stark”, Sir Gerard Clauson restores Turkic *jarp (jarpuz) as “herb” (Uzb jalpiz, Kaz žalbyz the plant mint (Mentha L.), Xakani- jarp “firm, solid”, etc”) – Eng herb, Germ herb.
Chuv šěpěl “a small special shovel” – OE scofl “a shovel”, Ger Schaufel “a shovel”.
Chuv tără “top” – Eng tor “stony top”. See Lat torus too.
Chuv tetel “fish net” – Ger Zettel “warp”.
Chuv tu “to do” – Germ tun, Eng to do, Dt doen “to do”.
Chuv turǎ “god” (from Turkic teŋgri) – OG þunre “thundergod, Thor”.
Chuv ulăp “giant, titan” – Ger Alp, Alb “evil ghost”, Eng elf . See also alap’-em “plunder”.
Chuv urpa (Turk arpa) “barley” – OG *arwa, Germ Erbse “pea”.
Chuv vak “wake” – OG *wakwo, Germ Wake, Eng wake, Sw vak “wake”.
Chuv větel “a double-snipe” – Ger Wachtel (O.H.G wahtel) “a quail”.
Chuv vulǎ “trunk, stem” – OE wala, walu “stick, staff”.
Chuv xaltară “to freeze” – OG *kalda, Germ kalt, Eng cold “cold”.
Chuv xatăr “cheerful” – OE hador, Germ heiter “cheerful”.
Chuv xăt, OT qut 1. “happiness, good, use”, 2. "soul, spirit, life vigor" – OE. gōd, Eng. good, Ger. gut, Eng god, Ger Gott.
Chuv xĕr “girl, daughter” (Old Turk – qyř) – Eng girl. Turkic long vibrating consonant ř (rz) could be converted into sounds r or z in different languages during their development. The sound ř had also an other modification ĺ (lš) which could be converted into l or š. Turkic word qyrz “girl” was borrowed in English at prehistoryc times and later it was developed into girl retaining the tendency to a long vibrating consonant at the ending of the word.
Chuv xitren “good, fine” – OE cytren “beautiful”.
Chuv xurlaxǎn (Uzb qorygat, Türkm garağat etc) “currants” – Eng currants.
Chuv xüšĕ “hut, cabin, light house” – Germ Haus, Eng house.
Chuv xüte “defence, shelter” – OG *hoda, Germ Hut, Eng hood, hat, Sw hatt“protection, defence”.
Chuv xyr, xyră (in other Turkic languages qarağaj) “pine” – OE furho, O.N.G fura, Cer Fohre “pine”.
Chuv ytla “superfluous” – West Germ. *ìdla “insignificant, vain”, Germ eitel, Eng idle, Dt ijdel.
