Names of Cereals in the Turkic Languages - Wydział Filologiczny UJ

80 kök najza || Ryespots on the ears. This possibility appears to be less probable as 1. ergot attackswheat, too (though less commonly); 2. it seems quite strange, that the name of acereal should be derived from a fungus which attacks it, and is therefore a symptomof an illness and not an integral part of the plant.bugdaj:Calling rye with a name for ‘wheat’ can be explained in two planes:1. biological: Rye behaves as a weed, i.e. it grows on the fields where other cereals had beensown, very often on fields of wheat. Because it ripens faster, and its stems are more fragileand break earlier, it soon equals the sown cereals in number, or even surpass them.2. ethnographical: In connection with the above, the Tkc. peoples, who never greatlyappreciated rye, have developed legends about wheat gradually turning (deteriorating)into rye. This fact shows clearly the relative order in which the Tkc. peoples becameacquainted with these cereals, and is also supported by the fact that while the namebugdaj ‘wheat’ is widespread, and is native or borrowed as early as the PTkc. period (oreven earlier, perhaps?), the names for ‘rye’ are more numerous and are all descriptive(including by comparison to wheat) or borrowed in the historic times.kök najzaforms: kök najza Kzk.: R III 635metymology: as yet not discussedcommentary:The meaning of kök is not entirely clear here. For certain, it is more about a shade of greenrather than blue: rye does not have a blue tint, neither as a plant nor as a grain. It is also possible,though, that this word is not used as a simple colour name here. Given that rye is oftenconsidered to be an inferior type of cereal, perhaps we should assume a semantic developmentsuch as ‘green’ > ‘unripe’ > ‘inferior’, even if, to the best of our knowledge, there is no attestationof such a shift. At least in respect to animals, kök can have meanings far from ‘blue’ or‘green’, e.g. ‘gray’, ‘silver’ and even Uzb. kök koj ‘brown sheep’ (Laude-Cirtautas 1961: 79).Kzk. najza means ‘lance’ and is derived (VEWT) from Pers. نايزه nāyze (~ نايژه nāyže)‘1. bronchus; 2. bugle, tube’. The usage of this word is not accidental; the hair on the earsof rye is exceptionally stiff and prickly.köktarāforms:kök tarā Tuv.: Dmitrieva 1972 || kök tara Dmitrieva 1979köktarā Tuv.: RTuwSetymology:1972: Dmitrieva: < kök ‘blue’ + tarā ‘grain’1979: Dmitrieva: liter. ‘dark millet’Assuming the meaning of ‘blue’ rather than ‘green’ seems to be strange. To thebest of our knowledge, no cereal or its grains are blue. Cf. kök najza.