Talk:مرزبان

@Fay Freak, how did you know about Middle Armenian մարզպան (marzpan)? Is it discussed in some literature? --Vahag (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan I was searching measure names on Google Books and came upon the linked pages by A.S. Saiden, containing this word that is not found in Arabic dictionaries either, and searching the transcription further I found some other mentions of the Arabic, and at least two for Armenian. In the preview of this book Medieval Arab Cookery given as of Maxime Rodinson, Arthur John Arberry, Prospect Books, 2001, I can read: “was marzuban also used in the sense of a measure of capacity? I cannot be certain, but I have found indications of this use at Aleppo in Syria in the twelfth century, in Syriac and in Armenian, and evidence of its use in Arabic in the thirteenth century. It means a measure of capacity for grain and wine in all these languages.” And in this book Culture of the Fork (given as of Giovanni Rebora, Columbia University Press, 2001) stands: “The marzapane, from the Arabic marzaban, was a unit of measure used in Cyprus and Armenia as a submultiple of modius” – apparently relying on other more special sources. The former book Medieval Arab Cookery also proposes that the name of a measure is derived from the name of a margrave, but I don’t see how this would be possible for a household dry measure, only for a large square measure this is thinkable. Nothing specific linguistic, only touching the things. Seems like my findings are not helpful to find any Armeniaca.

How did you know about it? Only by checking the dictionaries given at մարզպան (marzpan)? Fay Freak (talk) 17:16, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I knew about մարզպան (marzpan) by looking in Ačaṙyan's HAB. It includes the complete vocabulary of Old Armenian and a large chunk of Middle Armenian. Ačaṙyan also records every etymology attempt of each headword ever made by anyone.

I agree with you that the identity with the Iranian governor title marzpan doesn't make sense. --Vahag (talk) 15:56, 18 April 2019 (UTC)