Names of Cereals in the Turkic Languages - Wydział Filologiczny UJ

oatsavena l.In comparison to other cereals, the cultivation of oats began relatively late, only about thebeginning of the Common Era. The plant was known much earlier but was regarded as beingmore of a usable weed, a supplement to wheat or barley. This is most probably the reasonwhy names for ‘oats’ are so often mixed with names for ‘barley’ (cf. commentary on julaf(point 2), harva, taγ arpasy ‘oats’, and sula and arpagan ‘barley’). 33 Because the cultivation ofoats began so late, it is not entirely clear which region is its homeland. Ancient Greece onlyknew it as a medicinal weed, the most important cultures of ancient Asia and Africa didnot know it as a cereal at all. In China, it appeared in the former role, as late as the 7 th c.It seems the the Tkc. peoples had already known oats in the period before written monuments(cf. commentary on süle). Presumably, however, it was not highly regarded, for inancient texts it is rarely mentioned, unlike e.g. wheat or barley.The basic name is definitely süle. It appears in very many phonetic variants, surprisinglymany given its simple sounding. The range of the word julaf, the second most commonname, is huge, but it is absolutely understandable from a cultural-historical perspective.forms:arpakanat tarāzy → a"tarāzya"tarāzybürdükebiesgara gyjakharvaholo → sülehölö → sülehŭlŭ → sülehuly → sülejolap → julafjulafnyxaovjosovjotovsasĕlĕ → sülesinir bozansölĕ → sülesolo → sülesölö → sülesōlō → sülesoly → sülesula → sülesülesuli → sülesüli → sülesully → sülesulu → sülesulū → sülesülü → sülesuly → sülesŭly → sülesūly → süleśĕlĕ → süleśĕlĕlli → sületaγ-arpasyurus arpauvusuwysxarva → harvazyntxy*ǯilap → julafǯylap → julaf33 Interestingly enough, this only concerns oats and barley, not oats and wheat. The only explanationwe can offer here is a guess that the Turks have always valued wheat more highly thanbarley, or that they had known wheat before they learned about barley. The fact that wheatappears in monuments more often seems to support the former rather than the latter. So doessüle (cf. commentary on süle). Concurrently, botanical sources emphasise the antiquity ofwheat. However, for how long exactly the Turks have been acquainted with it is unknown.