Dancing with Words

Forty broken jars, forty with broken handles!

Come on, sing this nursery rhyme.

They even made a song, I came across a children's song on the internet, that's where I heard this nursery rhyme.

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Berk found that bart in the house or the barn or something!

What's a bart? 

Do you know what a bart is?  

Well, bart is the root of the word glass. 

We used to call a water jug a bart. Then we heard the Persian, dasdi, and forgot bart.

I don't know why we started calling it a jug when we had the original Turkish, but today we have completely forgotten the word bart. The word bart is not even in the TDK dictionary.

So where did I find it? 

When I was looking up the word bardak in the etymological dictionary, I saw it in the explanations.

Bardak must be the diminutive of bart. Bartçık! It is mentioned in the etymological dictionary as Middle Turkish. 

There is also something called "bart droplet" on the internet, but it has nothing to do with our bart. 

Clouds of gas and dust, first observed in the sky by astronomer Bart Bok in the 1940s, were called bart droplets. 

Bart droplets are dense, dark clouds of gas and dust in which star formation sometimes continues. 

But it's not just a little bit of gas and dust clouds; these bart droplets have 10-50 times the mass of the sun, so they often give birth to double stars over time. Sometimes even more.

Anyway, we called Berk, didn't we?

Do you know Berk? 

I have a nephew named Berk, but this Berk is not that Berk. Actually, Berk here is a fictional character for writing purposes.

Berk is an old Turkish word. It means strong, strong, firm.

Look, there was also the word bark in our sentence, right?

Bark actually means dwelling, residence.

Nowadays we mostly use it as a dilemma in the form of "ev bark". We prefer to say "I'm going home" rather than "I'm going to bark".

Berk, bark, bart!

So many words with "erk" and "ark". 

As if we were saying "cart curt". 

We also say "velcro", don't we? 

I think there's also "cort".

We also say, "Don't be a dick!"

"I'll make you go crazy!", that's what we say.

Wait, wait, I'm not saying anything bad to anyone, I've been taking notes of four-letter words as I come across them in the dictionary for a while. Today I wanted to talk a little bit about four-letter words. 

Look, I said "four" in this sentence, and there was "forty" in the nursery rhyme at the beginning.

We probably have more four-letter words than the ones I took notes on, but even my list is quite long.

***

In fact, if we go in the ordinary way, there is also "börk" starting with the letter "B".  Again an old Turkish word, börk means a kind of headdress, a cone. 

By the way, the four-letter word we are most proud of is naturally Turkish!

Of course, we also have Kurdish brothers and sisters, Kurdish also has four letters. Since I don't want to get into ethnic issues here, let me just remind you that it has four letters. It is not mentioned in the etymological dictionary anyway, I don't know its source.

***

In fact, many of these four-letter words of ours are meaningless words, many of them derived only by sound echoing. 

For example, cart curt is one such word.

Sometimes there are also verbs.

If we go back to the ordinary, börtlemek, burkmak are such words. 

The origin of the verb börtlemek is unclear. The börtlek in the expression börtü böcek is known as a kind of insect that stings animals. Also, in Anatolian dialects, bört means a kind of berry. There is also bürtek, which means grain.

You probably know the word "twist", we say "my foot is twisted", it is cognate with "twist", "crumple".

***

Ordinarily, there are also slam, clap and notch. I think these are verbs derived from sound echoes. 

Then there's "dank". 

It hit me in the head! 

The etymological dictionary explains it as a resonant impact sound. 

We also say dangadak or dangadanak. These are also mentioned as related words.

***

One of my favorites is the word "equal". 

Maybe because my name is derived from this word, I like the words "equal" and "balance" very much. 

The sea actually means water whose surface is in balance. Equal means equal.

Our next word is dinç! 

It is a Middle Turkish word, formerly tınç or tinç. Its root comes from the old Turkish word tın, today we say dinlenmek, to breathe, to rest. The din here is that old tın.

While we are on the subject of rest, "young" is our next word. 

The old form kenç, also an old Turkish word, means offspring or baby.

***

Gırt is next, kırt means the same thing, scratching or scraping sound, and it is also mentioned in the dictionary as a gnawing sound. They also call it a guttural sound.

Throat is also derived from this word.

Of course there are also gark and gurk. Although gark is an Arabic word, and gurk is defined as the sound of an angry chicken in the dictionary, an angry chicken. Gurk is Turkish.

***

Continuing with the letter H, I have noted two words, "hırt" and "hort-lamak". 

The origin of the word "hırt" is unclear. The dictionary defines it as a person with bad manners and lack of refinement.

Similar words are hırtapoz, hırtı pırtı, hırtık, hırtlamba, hırtlamboz, hırtlaşmak.

The dictionary defines ghouling as the sound of a sudden appearance. Spectre is the most familiar related word. I used this word for Tansu Çiller in a previous article, and a friend of mine liked it very much.

Do ghouls really exist? A creature believed to come out of the grave and scare people!

Zombie in its modern form! 

I don't like zombie movies either.

***

There are many four-letter words beginning with the letter "K".

The verbs are: kalkmak, kertmek, kırpmak, korkmak.

The following words are forty, fortyt, wolf, fur. 

Kırk and Kırt have already been mentioned above. 

Kürk is also an old Turkish word. It means animal hide. Post is also a four-letter word, but it is Persian. I think we should call it fur instead of post. 

There was also "Madonna with a fur coat", right? A novel written by Sabahattin Ali. I think it's a good novel, if anyone hasn't read it, I recommend it.

***

The wolf, on the other hand, I remember writing about this before, is the new name we gave to the wolves we call wild wolves today, instead of böri, so as not to mention its name. 

In fact, the wolf was actually the name we used to give to tree wolves in the past, today we despise them as maggots, but the real wolves are tree wolves.

We started to call the böri wolves because of our beliefs, but today the böri has been forgotten, the böri has become the wolf. 

Isn't it ridiculous, they said, I will not mention your name! So, now that you call it a wolf, do you not call it by its name, or has its name changed?

In some things, the experience of the ancients is important, but I think they have done some very ridiculous things in their time.

***

Mert! 

See, that's a Persian word. It means man, man, human being. I don't know why we have mert when we have man.

Pırt and pert!

We say "pırt pırtlamak", slipping out of its place, I think it's a word derived from sound echo.

Pert, on the other hand, comes from French. To be pert means to be scrapped, mostly for vehicles.

***

Dangle, sprinkle, rub!

These are verbs starting with "S". I will not go into their meanings, because this article has gotten quite long. Suffice it to remind you that all three are old Turkish.

Sarp and sırt are also old Turkish.

Sert is Persian. Circus is French.

Charter, şark, shirk are Arabic

***

Tartmak is an Old Turkish verb, from tar, to distribute. Probably a word related to divide equally.

Ters is also old Turkish, meaning contrary, opposite, difficult.

Tunç and Türk are also old Turkish words. Although I read somewhere that the Chinese gave us the name Türk. It used to be Türük, the name of a tribe. In the etymological dictionary, it is written that Törü may also be derived from the verb to create, to organize, to order, but they note that this information is not certain.

***

Our next words are yırtmak and yontmak. Both are old Turkish verbs.

Look, there is also "yunt" in Old Turkish. It means horse. Horses as we know them. 

This word is not in the TDK dictionary. Again, it is one of the forgotten words. 

However, in Irk Bitig dating back to 900:

"Beg er yuntınaru barmiş", the person in charge went to his horses.

I wonder why we forgot it?

***

Yurt! Again, an old Turkish word.

The rest is a zart zurt zort zort. These have already been mentioned above. They are sound-reflexive words. 

Apart from these, there are also four-letter syllables used in the second syllable as in the word yogurt, but I think that's enough for today.

We started with a nursery rhyme, let me end with a nursery rhyme: 

They planted a shinik (scale) of kekere mekere (birdseed) in this field.

They planted a chinik of kekere mekere in this field.

One chinik of kekere mekere planted in this field was haunted by a dirty badger with a gray head.

A chinik of kekere meker planted in this field was also haunted by a dirty badger with a grizzly head.

The grizzly-grizzly-headed dirty badger that haunted a chinik kekere meker planted in that field said to the grizzly-grizzly-headed dirty badger that haunted a chinik kekere meker planted in the other field: "Since when did you become the grizzly-grizzly-headed dirty badger that haunts a chinik kekere mekereye planted in this field?"

In reply, he said, "As you are a grizzly-grizzly-headed dirty badger that has been haunting a tiny kekere mekereye planted in that field, I am a grizzly-grizzly-headed dirty badger that has been haunting a tiny kekere mekereye planted in this field since then."

Everyone is wishing a good Friday, as if there is something good about Friday, it is a day of God, in the past men used to go to the mosque (gathering place) on Friday (gathering) days and discuss the problems of the country with the congregation (community) after the prayer. This is the only difference of Friday from other days. 

Nowadays, neither on Fridays nor on other days do you discuss the problems of the country in the mosque? 

No, the mosque is not a place for discussion, the mosque has become a place of worship over time. However, it is clear from its name that it was once a gathering place.

Good for you, of course, may Allah accept your worship. But I wanted you to know that there is no other good in Friday.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.