RE: [Cz-L] On Euromaydan

'Maydan' is of Persian origin (cf. the famous Maydan [or: "Maidan"]-e Shâh, "King's Square" in Esfahan, Iran), and, related to the fact that in medieval Persian culture people played polo in such large city squares AND that polo, like chess, was regarded as a stylized version of a battlefield. Persian "maydan" also means "battlefield".

Every Persian word is also potentially a word in older, non-purist Ottoman Turkish and the related languages, like Azerbaijani, Tatar and Uzbek, and in Kurdish or Pashto (non-Persian Iranic languages) and in Urdu (original Muslim as opposed to later Hindu version of the Indo-Aryan language Hindi). (Every Arabic word is also a potential Persian word, a relationship very like that of Hebrew and Aramaic to Yiddish.)

As far as I know, the presence of "maydan" in Ukrainian is unique within Slavic (though with their background of Turkish occupation, Serbs and Bulgarians may inform me otherwise), and is presumably due to Ukraine's having been for generations on the "frontier" (which is what "ukrajina" means) with the Ottoman Turkish empire as well as with the Tatars dominated by the Crimean Khanate (the last dynasty descended from Chinggis/Genghis Khan, the current heir being a New York interior designer).

Charles Polák
mailto:charles.polak_at_bbc.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-111109141-3499287_at_list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-111109141-3499287_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Miriam Taylor
Sent: 6 December 2013 15:49
To: HARDY BREIER
Cc: Christian Herrmann; CZERNOWITZ-L
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] On Euromaydan

Calling the Ringplatz Euromaydan is not an improvement over Centralna
Plojza.
The meaning of "maydan" is "market" and the word is either of
Turkish or Slavic origin.
I do not know what religion, either Russian Orthodox, or Greek
Orthodox or Jewish,
has anything to do with any of this.
Neither Putin nor Yanukovich are going to be impressed by these
demonstrations,
but I am glad that the current inhabitants of Czernowitz want closer
ties with Europe
and wish them well.

Mimi

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Received on 2013-12-06 11:19:49