Talk:գինձ

Dubious Indo-European

1. It’s too easy and it is ad hoc to derive գինձ (ginj, “coriander”) from the Proto-Indo-European root *wendʰ- (“to turn away”) by a meaning “round”, like deriving from “long” or “green” or the like.
2. this is all somewhat far from the alleged meaning of the Indo-European root
3. while it is claimed as found in գինդ (gind, “round”), is there even a գինդ (gind) meaning “round”? We have only “earring; collar, necklace”.
4. it is dubious that the whole plant would be called by the seeds, even though they are allegedly in most common use. The whole plant has always been utilized and present.
5. the seeds are not spherical but oval.
6. As it is a plant native to Iran and less typical in nature the farther one goes to the north and west (but introduced and feralized in obscure times), I want to derive it from an Iranian cognate of گشنیز (gišnīz) per metathesin, assuming the -īz is just a suffix, if it does not turn out to be from a more obscure language of these latitudes like Elamite and Hurro-Urartian of course. I almost wanted to put кинза́ (kinzá, “coriander”) etc. (there are other Caucasian words that would belong under the Armenian) under the Persian, so close this shape is, under consideration of the distance of some forms.
7. Again the first point therefore, of course it was easier for those Armenologists to find a root in Armenian and thus explain away the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian forms than to browse the material of Iranian and even more obscure languages of which only in the last decades research has amassed.
8. I doubt the whole Indo-European root “*wendʰ-” which is heavily based on Germanic, the uncompounded form Umbrian 𐌅𐌄𐌕𐌖 (vetu) means “divide, part, shed (imperative), dividito” so you see where the meaning abwenden in 𐌀𐌇𐌀𐌖𐌄𐌍𐌃𐌖 (ahauendu) “avertito” comes from, and whence {𐌐𐌓𐌄𐌖𐌄𐌍𐌃𐌖 (preuendu, “to turn towards, advertito”) comes (which Latin-speakers could only express so, there isn’t really a word for shedding off). Albanian is arbitrarily claimed like always. The Indo-Iranian seems to be something off.
9. գինդ (gind, “earring; necklace, collar”), no less but even more so if it means “round”, I want instead to see as the same Iranian word as գունդ (gund, “spherical object”), also found in Classical Syriac ܓܰܢܕܽܘܪܴܐ (gandūrā, “round”) ^CAL, Classical Syriac ܓܢܕܪ (gndr, “to roll”), Jewish Babylonian Aramaic גנדר (gandar, “to roll”) ^CAL, also גנד (gnd, “to roll”), related because a) an earring is regularly discoid or spherical, and a necklace approximates a circle b) or also in the necklace meaning via the idea of a necklace being put around the neck like rolling c) or perhaps by being originally a generic term for small valuables that are round or otherwise contain round forms (like a necklace round pearls). @Vahagn Petrosyan Fay Freak (talk) 19:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak, I will look at this later. In the meantime read Henning. --Vahag (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I have read this Henning, W. B. (1963) “Coriander”, in Asia Major, New Series‎^[1], volume X/2, pages 195–199 and also the simultaneous paper by Bailey he mentions: Bailey, Harold Walter (1963) “Arya IV”, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies‎^[2], volume 26, number 01, →DOI, pages 69–72. So it’s from Median, I understand, as inherited Persian -šn- corresponds to Median -nz- and that to Armenian -նձ- (-nj-) as with գանձ (ganj) and co – I could have remembered this row.
This leaves only the explanation of the underlying word, the original meaning so to speak, which is apparently the problem by reason of which you hesitated to add the etymology. I could fully go with Henning up to the second to last paragraph where he explains as “the round seed” (or “the little round seed” after with diminutive suffix), which has obscure comparisons presented obscurely, and the same way I stagger with Bailey’s explanation “the small/thin/flat one” – the difference in ascribed meaning between the two authors is of course revealing about the problem. It could also be “little treasure”, or “little plentiful”, doublet of գանձ (ganj).

This is of course assuming that there even was an Iranian proto-form for coriander containing -zn- – I am not sure now that there are enough forms in Iranian and outside Iranian that point towards it. Fay Freak (talk) 20:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

To this comes the additional question of whether the variant with k- anlaut is real in Middle Persian, or perhaps in Classical Persian before the 13^th century, which would influence the etymology. MacKenzie’s dictionary containing it is from 1971 so our two aforementioned authors could not disclaim it in 1963. Fay Freak (talk) 21:37, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: I have updated the Armenian with the Iranian etymology discovered after Acharyan. I like Henning's explanation of the underlying word. The roundness of the seeds is implied in ქინძისთავი (kinʒistavi, “pinhead”). The various translations of Exodus 16:14 have "small round substance" corresponding to "coriander seed". Note also Korn's support of Henning in the reference I just added.

The initial k- cannot be explained by Turkic influence; Old Georgian ქინძი (kinʒi) is from the 5th century.

As for, գինդ (gind), it is probably PIE. The basic meaning is "circular, winding", not "spherical". This meaning and the derivative գնդ-ակ (gnd-ak, “vine”) correspond well to the Germanic. --Vahag (talk) 09:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)