My Croatian dictionary says that this is a borrowing from Hungarian sátor, which is in turn a pre-historic borrowing from a Turkic langauge. Hungarian word is also much more phonetically compatible than Ottoman Turkish çadır. --Ivan Štambuk09:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
шатра is considered by modern Bulgarian linguists a Proto-Bulgarian word, which means with Eastern Iranian origin (Persian is Western Iranian language). One author compares it with Avestan shôithra. They are most likely cognates. How it ended up in Russian, Hungarian and SC is not certain. Bogorm19:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense, the word is a cannonical example of Balkanism spread by the Ottoman Turks. Proto-Bulgars were a Turkic tribe according to the traditional doctrine, and the talkpage you link to seems to be some heavy nationalism-ridden historical-revisionism self-published non-verifiable piece of somebody's imagination. I'm sure that Sanskrit and Avestan are much more prestigious-ranking etymons instead of Turkic, but no. --Ivan Štambuk20:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A leading theory about the origins of the Bulgars is that they were Turkic speaking people from Central Asia, and their language was, alongside with Khazar, Hunnic and Chuvash, a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family.
This concocted Turkic figment... Please, do not mention it henceforth in discussion with me. Prof. Petar Dobrev, Prof. Bozhidar Dimitrov + many other have refuted the Panturkist encroachment. Well, now in a more sober way: how would you explain the striking similarity with the Avestan word? Just to mention that Turkic tribes spread outside Altai in the 5th century AD and Avestan is extinct since at least 1st century BC. There are loads of words occurring only in Bulgarian, the closest to Proto-Bulgarian Ossetic( < Alanian) and in other East Iranian languages. Proto-Bulgarian inscriptions are being decyphered with analogues in Ossetic and the current historical research in Bulgaria explores this connection. Just do not remind me of yonder obsolete theory. Bogorm21:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I'm sure that the Bulgarian academics have a record of plenty of publications "proving" that Bulgars where non-Turkic tribe, and that Turkic loanwords in Proto-Slavic have other explanations, but I suspect that these have something to do with the abovequoted sentence having 27 consecutive citations ;) I mean, regardless whether I mention it to you or not, we must stick to the current overwhelmingly dominating scholarship in matters such as this! This is not a result of some kind of "Pan-Turkist movement" (note the difference in meanings between words Turkish and Turkic, as Turks didn't exist when this loaning took place, as it was still "Common Turkic" back then). I'm quite aware of some Pan-Turkic movements as regards the etymological "explanations" of various words, as the ones illustrated in apparently "objective" and "scientific" essays you can find on this website, but I can assure you that the etymology of šator has nothing to do with this. If (or better said: when) some pan-Turkic fanatic comes providing faulty etymologies reflecting such minority views generally held to be unsubstantiated nationalism-driven imaginations, he will be dealt quickly and efficiently, I can assure you.
You ask how come the striking similarity with the Avestan word - note that the origin of Ottoman Turkish word in the etymologies here is Persian, a closely associated Iranian language, so these two are cognates dear Bogorm. Avestan never became extinct, as it represents an attestation (at least the "Old Avestan", the "Young Avestan" was artificially maintained by the priests to bestow dogmatic prominence of the newly-written "holy scriptures") of a spoken Old Iranian dialect that eventually transformed into another spoken language. I'm not sure whether there is a particular modern-day Iranian dialect that can be proven without doubt to be descending from dialect equal/most closely related to that of Avesta scriptures, but it doesn't matter anyway.
I wouldn't know of status of modern Bulgarian scholarship on the issue of proving of Iranian origins of Bulgars, but essentially I (and Wiktionary, for that matter) don't care as long as it doesn't hit the mainstream handbooks, invalidating that yonder obsolete theory held by the rest of the world. --Ivan Štambuk22:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that Bulgarian (deprecated template usage)шатра(šatra) is much more similar to Avestan (East Iranian) shoithra than is West Iranian Persian chador (due to the Protobulgarian origin). Even you expressed concern about the phonetial compatibility of Ottoman Turkish and SC and Bulgarian. With extinct I meant without native speakers. If there were such dialect, it would have got its own article like Xibe language which is the only vestige of virtually extinct Manchu. But... even Crimean Goths in the most optimistic theories might have preserved their language until the 16th-17th language and by no means until now. Bogorm22:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I expressed no such concerns, as is obvious that Bulgarian šatra, West South Slavic šator, Russian, Hungarian, Albanian etc. are all obviously equally "phonetically similar" to Avestan word, which completely rules out the Proto-Bulgar source. The historical attestations of the term šator, čador etc. in various Balkanic (and non-Balkanic) languages are compatible with the spread of Ottomans in the territory, and are not reconstructible for e.g. Proto-Slavic, hence another argument unsupportive of Proto-Bulgar source. Why don't you confide in Skok in this particular etymon? :)
Exclusively literary and liturgical languages don't have "native speakers".. The whole concept of the "native speaker" is silly IMHO as one can acquire almost perfectly-native proficiency of any non-mother-tongue language during the proper schooling period, which doesn't make them any less "native" speakers. E.g., there are few tens of thousands proud Hindus in India that can tell you whatever you like in perfect Pāṇinean Sanskrit, and even some villages such as Mattur where saṃskṛtá is living vernacular, yet by your definition it would be "extinct". Though in this particular case the issue might be a bit more contentious as Sanskrit was prob. never spoken in the exact form it was codified, it's more like of a world's first conlang.
Avestan, OTOH, was originally a spoken, organic vernacular that was eventually transformed into other language, so to speak of its "extinction" would be equal to speaking of the extinction of Vulgar Latin or Old English. They simply "evolved" (as would be the commonest anthropomorphic description). Spoken languages are not biological species with clear-cut genome-determined boundaries, they're much more flexible entities. --Ivan Štambuk23:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
West South Slavic šator, Russian, Hungarian, Albanian etc. are all obviously equally "phonetically similar" to Avestan word, which completely rules out the Proto-Bulgar source. the justification of the proponent is that between 632 and 679 Bulgaria was situated in what is now Eastern Ukraine, Rostov and Stavropol oblasti. Thence the contact with the East Slavic languages. I personally would feel sceptical about the arguments of the author if any West Slavic language shewed similarity to the claimed Protobulgarian word (which is almost never the case), since Proto-Bulgarians did not have any contact with West Slavs (Asparukh and Kuber on the Balcans, Alcek around Benevento, Kotrag in Volga Bulgaria. Batbayan remained to fight with the Khazars - these are the venues where vestiges of Proto-bulgarian are to be sought). Bogorm23:23, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So let me get this straight, you're saying that Bulgarian šatar (and also Russian šatjor) is inherited from Proto-Bulgar (despite the fact that you cannot reconstruct the Proto-Slavic term on the basis of these two, which should be a piece of cake generally), under the assumption that the Proto-Bulgars did not speak Turkic but Iranian language (another assumption held by an insignificant minority), which could then be compared to Avestan, and at the same time that West Sout Slavic šator, Albanian çadër, Hungarian sátor etc have absolutely nothing to do with Proto-Bulgar, being later borrowings from Ottoman Turkish? :) --Ivan Štambuk23:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is not despite, but because Proto-Slavic cannot be reconstructed that I concur with the author's conclusion about the East Iranian Proto-Bulgarian word (and because of the similarity (deprecated template usage)шатра(šatra)~Av. shoithra with the Avestan word, an East Iranian one). I am not willing to guesstimate about how the word ended up in SC and Russian, but they were neighours of Proto-Bulgarians. As for Hungarian, I told you already about the Jassic Ossetians who settled in Hungary and had a huge impact on the development of that language. I would not add the East Iranian origin of the word (and I would preferably not add it for the SC, but only for Bg.) before the breakthrough achieved by current research in Bulgarian history and linguistics is summarisеd in a respective liguistic work, so that I can source it. I just wanted to make you familiar with the sound hypothesis East Iranian ( > Avestan shoithra, Alanian) > Proto-Bulgarian * > Old Bulgarian(OCS) > Bg. (deprecated template usage)шатра(šatra), SC (deprecated template usage)шатор, Ru (deprecated template usage)шатер, after you expressed your misgiving about the difference with Ottoman Tr. This is not what I claim, but what the lunguist explains. My position is for now sympathetical and I already told you when it would become sceptical - if any West Slavic language seemed to have akin words. I did not count with such a pertinacious imperviousness, though. But you know, magna est vis veritatis et praevalebit... even if it takes time for the straightforward explication to assert itself against the hackneyed. As soon as these achievements are summarised in a publication, I would gladly quote the East Itanian origin of the respective Bulgarian words, but currently I am not keen on adding unsourced etymologies about Iranian origin, however convincing they might sound. Bogorm09:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
