Names of Cereals in the Turkic Languages - Wydział Filologiczny UJ

Millet || tarā 43sokpaforms: sokpa SarUyg.: Tenišev 1976etymology: as yet not discussedcommentary:While morphologically this word is absolutely clear (sok- ‘to stick, to poke’ + -ma), itsmeaning is quite strange. The literal meaning of *‘seedling’ indicates ‘rice’ or ‘corn’ ratherthan ‘millet’. One could try to look for a semantic parallel in tögü 32 but the meaning of*tög- ‘to beat, to hit’ enables an evolution to basically any cereal, and makes it impossibleto compare with sok-. Perhaps this is an example of unifying/mixing ‘millet’ with‘corn’ (cf. (kömme) konak)?tarāforms:čingetarā Tuv.: RTuwS, Dmitrieva 1972darā Tof.: ÈSTJatarā Tuv.: R II 135b (in: kara ~ ‘black millet’), Brands 1973: 33, ÈSTJaxōtarā Tuv.: RTuwSlanguages:Tof.: darā || Tuv.: čingetarā, tarā, xōtarāetymology:1972: Dmitrieva: < Tuv. činge ‘thin’ + tarā ‘grain; cereal’1973: Brands: 33: < Mo. tarijan, tarān ‘harvest; cereal’1979: Dmitrieva: Tuv. tarā, Oyr. tarān, Brb., Tat. taran ‘millet’ < Mo. tarijan ‘grain’,where -ān < -γancommentary:tarāAs opposed to tara(ga)n, this form has no -n in auslaut, and thus it can be hardly expectedto contain a trace of -gan, as has been proposed by Dmitrieva 1979, or that it isborrowed from Mo., as Brands 1973: 33 has suggested (cf. taragan). What seems muchmore probable is that they are -g derivatives from tar-a-. For. tar-a- and the semantic ofOUyg. forms cf. ÈSTJa’s commentary on dary ‘corn’.čingetarāDmitrieva’s 1972 etymology is quite obvious, and it would be wrong to assume anyother origin of this word. ‘Thin’ surely refers to the shape of this plant: millet stalksare much thinner than those of other cerals. They are also more elastic, making milletbend and lie down which makes the impression of thinness even stronger.kara tarā: name fully clear etymologically and semanticallyxōtarā: name unclear32 Perhaps also tüjtary.