Objective: Research shows that parallel toponyms exist in different types of toponymy, including oikonymy, oronymy, and hydronymy. Comparative analysis of parallel toponyms reveals that the people's ethnic origin, household, economic activity, and other areas are reflected here. Agriculture, cattle breeding, primarily sheep and horse breeding, crafts, and other fields had a special place in the life of the Turkic peoples. The mentioned economic fields are also of some importance in the toponymy of Azerbaijan. The large number of toponymic parallels of Azerbaijan and other Turkic-speaking countries once again proves the settlement of Turkic-speaking peoples in these areas since ancient times. Method: Every event or object can be studied from a certain point of view, which reflects the ultimate task of cognition. In the research process, certain concepts were clarified by using analysis and synthesis methods. Results: Examining the dictionary of geographical names of Turkic-speaking countries, information books, maps, and other materials shows that the toponyms of the countries of the Turkic world correspond to each other according to their linguistic affiliation, origin, and meaning. It is known that each of the Turkic peoples has its own ethnic name and language. Conclusions: Examining the residing areas of Turkic-speaking peoples elucidates that unlike peoples of Indo-European origin who settled in different continents, Turks live in the areas where they historically lived. These areas mainly cover a large extent, including some parts of the Asian continent, southeastern Europe, the northern part of the Caucasus, the South Caucasus, and South Azerbaijan. The units involved in the processes of the generation of names in the Azerbaijani system of toponyms are different, and this difference is clearly manifested. Toponyms are created gradually and in a consistent manner. When giving a geographic name to any object, all aspects of the language to which the name belongs are carefully contemplated. In this case, when conducting research on the origin of a toponym, it becomes easier and more reliable to find out to which language the object belongs. Research conducted for many years shows that most toponyms in the region, as well as paleotoponyms, are of ancient Turkish-Azerbaijani origin. These geographical names occupy a vital place in the toponymic stratification of Azerbaijan.

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Middle East and Beyond Western Armenian at the crossroads : A sociolinguistic and typological sketch Anaid Donabedian-Demopoulos

Helen Giunashvili (G. Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies) PRE-ISLAMIC IRAN AND GEORGIA: QUESTIONS OF CULTURAL-LINGUISTIC INTERRELATIONS (artošan/atrošan) Iranian-Georgian historical contacts have the most ancient tradition. The geographical position of both countries has supported the existence of practically uninterrupted interrelationships of these neighboring regions from the remotest past. Dissemination of Iranian culture in Georgia has already been clearly distinguished from Achaemenid period (VI-IV cc. BC), when firm foundations of Iranian statehood and culture were laid. Consequently, Iranian beneficial influences were continued in later periods – Hellenistic, Parthian and particularly, Sassanian. Emergence of the Sassanian Empire in III c. AD was of great importance for the historical development of the Caucasian countries, and particularly, for the Iberian kingdom (East Georgia), known later as the state of Kartli. Sassanian influence on Iberia was deep and strong from the beginning, covering all the spheres of political, social-economic and cultural life of the country, affecting therefore different sides of Georgian civilization throughout the whole period of dominance (III-VII cc. AD). Archaeological evidences, epigraphic materials, historical records and mostly linguistic data, testify to the Iranian-Georgian intensive multilateral interrelations of that period. Sassanian expansion in South Caucasian region was followed by wide-spreading of Middle Persian, the official, religious and literary language of the Empire. Already Georgian monuments of V-VI cc. AD “The Martyrdom of St. Shushanik” and “The Passion of St. Eustace the Cobbler” attest the presence of Iranians and the use of Middle Persian in Ancient Georgia. Many Old Georgian literary sources (V-XI cc.), such as translations and commentaries of the Scripture, homilies, apocrypha, hagiographic texts, exegetic writings reveal a large number of Middle Persian lexis ranging over various semantic fields, rendering, correspondingly, different cultural designations, being penetrated as a result of these close contacts. Systematic research on Middle Iranian-Georgian linguistic interference was first presented in M. Andronikashvili’s extensive “Studies on Iranian-Georgian Linguistic Contacts”, Tbilisi, 1966 (in Georgian, see Chapter II, pp. 144-279). There was an established opinion among scholars, that most of Middle Iranian words, as they look similar or even identical with their Armenian counterparts, have entered in Georgian through Armenian (“via armeniaca”). In M. Andronkashvili’s work it was consistently shown, that there existed considerable phonetic differences between Middle Persian as well as Parthian lexical borrowings in Georgian and their Armenian parallels. Comparative empirical analysis of Georgian and Armenian forms revealed principle differences between their morphophonemic structures, consonant system and vocalism, reflecting, thus, significant divergences in adopted Middle Iranian words. This research provided an important basis for the assumption that there must have been direct Iranian influences on Old Georgian during Parthian and Sassanian periods and many Middle Iranian words might have entered independently. J. Gippert’s book Iranica Armeno-Iberica. Studien zu den iranischen Lehnwörtern im Armenischen und Georgischen, Wien 1993 (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Kl. , Sitzungsber., 606. / Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Iranistik, 26) [2 vols.] presented a new contribution to Iranian-Georgian linguistic research. By using contemporary methods of historical-comparative lexicology, the author reconsidered relationship of Western Middle Iranian, Armenian and Georgian and clearly distinguished linguistic stratum transferred in Georgian through Armenian, from direct Middle Iranian borrowings. There were systematically reconstructed common as well as different Middle Iranian archetypes from which Georgian forms and their Armenian counterparts were derived. J. Gippert’s new methodological approaches and conceptions created theoretical fundamentals for Iranian-Georgian etymological studies. Recent research and publications of Old Georgian sources as well as of Middle Persian monuments (in particularly, Sassanian inscriptions of III-V cc AD, Manichaean texts of III c AD, and several specimen of Zoroastrian spiritual literature, IX-X cc AD, known as Book Pahlavi) makes it possible to examine these languages comparatively, offering a new interpretation on their historical relationship and lexical interference. Among Middle Persian lexical borrowings attested in Old Georgian, Sassanian religious (cult) terminology (Manichaean, Zoroastrian) presents a special interest. Some of these terms became essential Christian notions (such as, (h)ešmak’ _ “demon”, jojokhet _ “the hell”, unas _ “sin, evil”, iadgar _ “memorial”, and so on), while others were used for expressing foreign, non-Christian and sometimes pagan cultural meanings, cf. dev-“evil spirit”(indo-european daiva), art’ošan _ “ fire worshipping”, mogu-i _ “magician”, etc.). The paper deals with the Old Georgian term artošan, atrošan-, only attested in early hagiographical text, “The Martyrdom of St. Shushanik”, written by the priest Jacob Tsurtaveli (see a critical edition of the Old Georgian text along with its Old Armenian translation by Ilia Abuladze, Tbilisi, 1938). According to this writing, at the end of the fifth century Kartli was governed by Varsken Pitiaxsh, who was married to Shushanik, the daughter of the chief commander of Armenians Vardan Mamikonian. Due to the political consideration Varsken adopted Zoroastrianism, but his wife opposed him and the Queen Shushanik thus became victim to this opposition. In this monument we come across many pieces of interesting evidence about the religious state of Kartli, also a whole array of sacred terms are witnessed in it and among them– artošan-i. According to the Georgian text of the Martyrdom, when the Queen Shushanik learns about conversion of Varsken to Zoroastrianism, she says: “sac’qalobel ikmna ubadruk’i Varsken, rametu uvar-Iqo češmarit’i g’merti da ag’iara art’ošani” “Pitiable indeed has become the unfortunate Varsken! He has forsaken the True God, and embraced the religion of fire and united himself to the godless” (the English translation is by D. M. Lang, in: Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, London, 1976, p. 46). In Old Georgian concise dictionaries this term is explained as “Zoroastrian (=fire-worshipping) temple, fire-worshipping place”. In Armenian the form atrowšan (atrušan) is attested “fire-worshipping temple” (see H. Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, I, 1895, p. 110, 72) considered by H. Hübschmann as originated from Pahlavi *āturōšān – “fire burning place” (ātur-“fire”, ōšān- “a place”). Later, for *ātur-ōšān, E. Benveniste (“Sur la terminologie iranienne du sacrifice”, in: Journal Asiatique, t. CCLII, pp. 45-58, Paris, 1964) reconstructed Old Iranian *ātṛ-aušana _ “a place of fire combustion” stemming from *aušana _ “place of fire burning” < *auš -“to burn, to be on fire”(cf. Vedic ósati), corresponding to Greek πυρ-αιθεĩον _ “place of a cult”, cf. πύραιθοι _ “fire worshippers” (op. cit. pp. 56-57). G. Tsereteli’s considered Georgian atrošan/artošan and its Armenian counterpart as descending from Middle Persian ātur rōšān “sacred fire” comparing it with forms like ātur farnbāγ, ātur gušnasp, ātur burzēn miθr, cf. also frēštag rōšān (G. Tsereteli, Selected Writings in Five Volumes, v. V Georgia and Iranian World, Tbilisi (in Georgian), p. 124 ( a manuscript)). According to Andronikashvili’s point of view, both Georgian and Armenian forms were derived from Middle Iranian (Parthian) *ātarš-ān, aturš-ān _ “fire place”(where -ān is used to denote a collective singular, Andronikashvili 1966, p. 225). The Georgian shows metathesis of original tr, preserved in the Armenian (Andronikashvili, op. cit. p. 173). T. Chkheidze considered this term as reflecting Middle Persian aturān šāh , the name of the main Zoroastrian sacral fires (T. Chkheidze, From the History of Iranian-Georgian Relations, Typological Researches, Tbilisi, 2000, pp. 466-467). According to the Martyrdom’s editions, the oldest manuscript A 95, of the 11th century, has art’ošan-i, while all later manuscripts attest at’rošin-e. Initial form in Georgian is to be reestablished as *at’rošan (see J. Gippert, Iranians and Iranian Languages in Ancient Georgia, in: Perspective-XXI Indo-Iranica et Caucasica, Studies in Honor of Prof. M. Andronikashvili, Tbilisi, 2004, p. 112, n. 17), and subsequently, etymology of the Georgian form would be *ātr-ōšan _ “(a place of) fire burning”. Denotation of Zoroastrian fire was transformed on the Georgian basis as a general expression of Zoroastrianism (as well as another term mogoba, derived from Middle Iranian mogu _ “Zoroastrianist”, also attested in the Martyrdom’s text, cf. švilni igi šenni miakcina mogobasa – “He has converted your children to Zoroastrianism” (see I. Abuladze, Ch. XII, 6). Studies on Sassanian lexicon in Georgian are significant not only for the history of Middle Persian vocabulary, and that of Iranian-Georgian linguistic contacts, but also for revealing Georgian cultural realities originated in long, complex and deep interrelations with pre-Islamic Iran.

The publication of the Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon by Hrach K. Martirosyan offers the opportunity to posit new etymologies with the aid of further and helpful investigations not only of linguistic but also of onomasiological and ethnological nature, e.g. astełkʻ molarkʻ, " wandering stars " , astucoy eznak, " ladybird " , babič', " witch-doctor " , cʻncam, " to rejoice ". 1. The publication of the Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon by Hrach K. Martirosyan, which came out in 2010, offers the opportunity to reflect that even in the present day it is by no means unfeasible to embark on a wide-ranging etymological project, and that such an undertaking can be accomplished with the aid of further and helpful investigations not only of a linguistic but also onomasiological and ethnological nature. 2. Martirosyan has the great merit of presenting the headwords in transliteration, thereby enabling those who do not have a good command of the Armenian alphabet to benefit from direct access to the Lexicon, which has been broadened by the inclusion of dialect material. The work thus takes on a completely new aspect as compared to the historical studies of Ačaryan and J ̌ ahukian, who focused mainly on the classical language. In the new dictionary, many of the entries provide a detailed description and a wealth of information, and some of them are actually the first scientifically acceptable and complete treatment of the word involved. The decision to illustrate only the inherited vocabulary inevitably implies a selection upstream, which means that the reader cannot become acquainted with the terms that have been excluded, namely the loanwords from Persian and Syriac. Furthermore, on closer inspection, it may seem that not all the entries are genuinely inherited (echtarmenisch) and, vice versa, that some inherited terms do not appear in the Lexicon because they are classified as loanwords. 2.1. First of all, one may have reservations concerning the inclusion of ampar, " planet " (pp. 51–52), a term which – on the assumption it is not a ghost-word – will be critically reexamined here. The word ampar appears only in an Armenian

Dichotomy between endo-ethnonyms (the way certain people call themselves) and exo-ethnonyms (what the nation is called by the neighbours) is well known from Europe. Also the etymology of both the types of ethnonyms (and also toponyms) in Europe is usually widely known. However, it is not only Europe the phenomenon of endo- and exo-ethnonyms (and toponyms) is obviously typical of. In our paper we deal with the region of the South Caucasus and the endo- and exo-ethnonyms and toponyms of the three most numerous South Caucasian nations – Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians.