ÇİNÇAVAT KELİMESİNİN ETİMOLOJİSİ

İrfan ÇAĞATAY

Article Details

ÇİNÇAVAT KELİMESİNİN ETİMOLOJİSİ

Authors:

İrfan ÇAĞATAY

Publisher:

Türk Dil Kurumu

Journal:

Yearbook of Turkic Studies - Belleten 2019 Issue 67, pp.185-204

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

5/2019

Document Language:

Turkish

Document ID (Org No.):

2000646682

Frequency:

Bi-Annual

eISSN:

2651-5113

pISSN:

0564-5050

Abstract:

 


“Çinçavat” is a word used especially in the areas of Kars, Iğdır, Ardahan

and Artvin in Turkey, which means several negative denotations

such as “ill-tempered, stingy, selfish, quarrelsome, spoilsport, incompatible,

impudent, filthy, gossiper”. Not only in Turkey and in Turkish,

this word is used with similar meanings especially in Armenian but

also in Azerbaijani and Georgian languages. It can be traced since the

17th century that within the Çıldır-Iğdır territory, the nomad population

uses this pejorative term for the people who have a settled village life

basically engaged in growing fruits and vegetables. We find this word

being used as village names in Iğdır-Çıldır region in Turkey and also in

the Vedi valley of Armenia.

M. Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, who’s known for his pretentious works

about this region and its history, claims that the Çinçavats are Kipchak

Turks who settled in the area even before 1071. He also divides the

word into two part as “Çin+Çavat” by associating the first part “Çin”

to China. Furthermore, by relating the second part to Cavak (Cavax)

Kırzıoğlu claims that the t and k endings are suffixes that make the

word plural. Finally, Kırzıoğlu explained this word as “Çin-Çav-s”,

which means the people coming from China. He connected “Çav” to

“Çavuldur”, or “Çavdar-Tatars”, a tribe of Tatar Turks. This suggestion

by Kırzıoğlu has been accepted by most historians and researchers and

has been taken as a proof of the Turkish presence in the region before

1071. Yet, this suggestion of his is clearly a folk etymology.

The word Çinçavat is borrowed from Armenian. In Armenian this

word - čʿnčʿahavat չնչահավատ- means “non-believer, faithless” and

besides having various forms of local pronunciation, there exists a direct

-čʿinčʿavat չինչավատ- form. This Armenian word is composed

of čʿnčʿ- and havat parts. čʿnčʿ- is a form of privative prefix, while

havat հավատ means “faith, belief, creed; trust, confidence; fidelity,

faithfulness, good faith, sincerity; proof, testimony, evidence”. This

word, which originally meant “faithless” adopted different meanings such as “stingy, selfish, impudent, filthy etc.”, as commonly found in

Turkish local dialect studies, because it is also used as an ethnonym.

.

Article Details

ÇİNÇAVAT KELİMESİNİN ETİMOLOJİSİ

Authors: İrfan ÇAĞATAY

Publisher: Türk Dil Kurumu

Journal: Yearbook of Turkic Studies - Belleten 2019 Issue 67, pp.185-204

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 5/2019

Document Language: Turkish

Document ID (Org No.): 2000646682

Frequency: Bi-Annual

eISSN: 2651-5113

pISSN: 0564-5050

Issues

Authors:

İrfan ÇAĞATAY

Publisher:

Türk Dil Kurumu

Journal:

Yearbook of Turkic Studies - Belleten 2019 Issue 67, pp.185-204

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

5/2019

Document Language:

Turkish

Document ID (Org No.):

2000646682

Frequency:

Bi-Annual

eISSN:

2651-5113

pISSN:

0564-5050