Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları, 25.

1 (2015): 81-90
Festschrift for Uwe Bliising

Henryk J ankowski *
(Poznafı)

Bu yazıda az bilinen Orta Türkçe berna ~ barna 'armağan' sözcüğü

ele alınmıştır.
Sözcüğün kaynakları ve önceden yapılmış etimolojisi
gösterilmiştir. Elde olan etimolojisi uygunsuz sanılırken Doğu Slavcadan
yeni bir etimoloji önerisi sunulmuştur. Bunun yanı sıra, 'armağan'
anlamına gelen birkaç başka terim de tartışılmıştır.
Anahtar sözcükler: Berna 'armağan', Orta Türkçe, etimoloji

Abstract: This paper discusses a little known Middle Turkic word berna ~
barna' gift' . Attempt was made to quote the occurrences of this word from
the studies and old documents as well as to present the existing etymology
and offer a newone from Eastem Slavic. At the same time some other
terms denoting 'a gift, a present' were discussed with reference to
language contact.
Keywords: Berna 'gift', Middle Turkic, etymology

1. Some Turlde ""'r,n·.... nfl:.'l denoting a gift

The words denoting gifts or presents are frequent1y borrowed from
other languages. Some of them are evident loanwords, as Tur. hediye and
tuhfe from Arabic, or peşkeş from Persian, others are of unknown or
debated etymology. For instance, armağan is in elauson's view (1972:
232) probably a foreign word, while Eren (1999: 18) argues for an
unknown origin. According to Tietze (2002: 123) it is of Persian origin,

henko@amu.edu.p1, Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza.

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82 HENRYK JANKOWSKI

while in Nişanyan's opinion (2012: 35) Turkic. There are also some
derived words the etymology of which is dear, e.g. OT belilk ~ beZii- 'to
wrap', borrowed into Mong. as beleg and reborrowed by some NE Turkic
language s (Clauson 1972: 338), or Kaz. si"yli"q (QTS 594) ~ siy '1. gift. 2.
award. 3. esteem, respect' (ESTJa VII 395).
Diversity in the terms denoting gifts stems from viewpoint diversity.
One point of view focuses attention on the voluntary act of giying, as in
Kaz. tartuw, English gift, Rus. dar or podarok, the latter being often
borrowed by the Turkic language s spoken in the ex -Soviet Union and
Russia in the form padarka. ı A different perception of the gift emphasises
the focus on giying as an act required by the receiver, e.g. CTat. tiyis
(Samojlovic 1917: 1277-1278). in other cases, such as Kaz. tartuw-taraZyi'
emphasis is put on distribution, while in MT bölek (Kurat 1940: 135, 136,
Bodrogligeti 1969: 19) and Tat. büZilk 'giff (TRS 95) the focus is on the
share. There are also presents given as grants, rewards, an act of mercy,
endowment or bestowal, e.g. MT yarli"qav (Kurat 1940: 137), Mong.
soyuryaZ ~ OT soyurqa- ~ Chinese ci ~+Trk. +Urqa- -+ NW and NE
Turkic (DTS 583, Clauson 1972: 556, Doerfer 1963: 351-353). Awards
are also diversifıed according to the occasion of granting or the
benefıciary to whom theyare giyen, e.g. Kaz. sawya 'a gift given by the
hunter to whom he encounters' (Radloff 1911: 234, cf. Rasanen 1969:
406) or Kaz., CTat. ğüZde 'award given to the sportsman' (QTS 255,
Useinov 2005: 317).
There are many other terms for various types of presents in Turkic
languages. Some kinds of gifts, especially those scanti1y evidenced in the
documents, are not always clear. For example, as Yüce (1993: 26)
demonstrates the Arabic word for the gift in Muqaddimat aZ-Adab was
glossed with the following Turkic words, artut, köybet, sawgat,
soyurlsamış, tuşgu 2, tuzgu, the function and the character of some being
unknown.

This is a substandard word, absent :from dictionaries, often he ard by the author of
this artiele in the speech of Crimean Tatars, Noghays and Kazakhs.
2
Mistakenly tusgu.

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 MIDDLE TURKIC BERNA.' ,. . , 'GIFT' 83

relations and especially between the Golden Horde and

İts neighbouring and vassal states gifts were regularly required by Tatars
exchange for piece, e.g. bölak, berna (Bodrogligeti 1969: 19-
20). in those circumstances the goods required such as Khwarezmian
Turkic (but registered the Crimean Tatar setting) qolus-qolqa 'request'
(Kurat 1940: 66-67) can only be called a gift, a present euphemistically.

Among the modem Turkic languages, berna '" berne is attested in

Karaim, Tatar and Bashkir. it was first evidenced by Radloff (1911: 1603)
from Lutsk and Troki Karaim his dictionary as 6apH3 ~"Jı~ 'present,
gift', along with the verb derived from this noun, 6apH3ll3 'to forgive'. A
more exact Troki Karaim form berna 'giying; present, gift' is found in
Kowalski (1929: 168).
The next evidence comes from Zaj~czkowski (1932: 107) in his study
on word-formation suffixes. Zaj~czkowski provides Tat. and Bash.
equivalent birna and assumes an etymology from ber- 'to give'. it should
be noted that Tat. and Bash. birna has a more specific meaning 'a bride's
gift for the groom and his family' (TRS 73, BRS 102). Tuming back to
Karaim, this word is evidenced in all Karaim dialects, i.e. outside the
quoted Troki Karaim word, there is also CKar. and HKar. berne (KRPS
152, Aqtay, Jankowski 2015: 80, Mardkowicz 1935: 14).
The Middle Kipchak word berne is attested in Kuman in the derived
form berneli 'indebted, owing' (Gr0nbech 1942: 56), which must be
understood as 'he who has to give'. 3 Further evidence comes from one of
two registers of presents given to the Moscow envoy, recorded on the last
page of Sayf-i SadiyI's Gülistan, MaskovniiJ elCisina bir toquz berna
beri/di 'The Moscow envoy was given a present consisting of nine items'
(Bodrogligeti 1969: 20) where it was written \j~ (Uzluk 1954: 372). This
note is wrİtten in Khwarezmian Turkic, but in the Golden Horde serting.
The word in question was also used in Armeno-Kipchak, i.e. berna 'id'

This İs the only example listed in Toparlı, Vural and Karaatlı's Kipchak dictionary
(2007: 28).

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84 HENRYK JANKOWSKI

(Tryjarski 1968: 130) as well as in Crimean Tatar diplomatic letters in the

form 4..ly. berne 'id' (in a document of 1592, see Veliaminof-Zemof 1864:
16).4
The area of use of this word is not limited to the Golden Horde and the
Kipchak languages, it is also evidenced in Muqaddimat aZ-Adab written in
Khwarezmian Turkic 5 as \.j~ berne 'id' (Yüce 1993: 15, 101); there are
many occurrences of this word in this document.
Zaj~czkowski (1932: 107) assumed that the Karaim word berna was
formed with the suffıx -na, -na which is found only in this word and
which came into being from the ref1exive form berin- 'to give oneseır of
the common Turkic verb ber- 'to give', i.e. -na, -na ~ -n- + -a. Although
he put a question mark at this etymology, he risked the establishment of a
doubtful suffıx on uncertain grounds. Having no other sound examples,
Zaj~czköwski quoted three Karaim words which in his opinion could be
related to this suffıx, bayana 'pillar, column', bedna 'turtle-dove' and
jeina 'son-in-law', and provided a few Turkic equivalents for each,
though he stressed that their origins are undear.
The fırst two ofthese three examples should be rejected, since theyare
Mongolian loanwords, for bayana 'tent pole' see Rasanen (1969: 58) and
Clauson (1972: 316), for bedna ~ bödene 'quail' see Doerfer (1963: 218).
In addition, no Mongolian suffıx -nA forming nouns is known. The third
word is known in OT, attested in Karakhanid, as yezne 'the husband of
one's elder sister or one's father's younger sister' and in a few later and
modem languages, but its etymology is unknown (Clauson 1972: 998). A
few etymological proposals have been put forward, but none is convincing
(Doerfer 1975: 165-166, ESTJa IV 170).
Zaj~czkowski's idea of the suffıx -A as forming deverbal nouns from

4
Daftar etkan kisilerimüznil) tiyis bernesin aksiksiz yibargaysin 'you will send the
due present to our bookkeepers' .
This is abit complicated question. Firstly, Khwarezmian Turkic was not a uniform
language, it was composed of NW or Kipchak, SW or Oghuz and SE or post-
Karakhanid elements. Secondly, the chancery of the Golden Horde recruited the
scribes educated İn Khwarezmian Turkic.

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 MIDDLE TURKIC BERNA' ~ BARNA 'GIFT' 85

reflexive stems is for there are no other examples of such a

formation. Moreover, the meaning of berin- 'to give oneself is unsuitable
for a word to denote a gift, in contrast to the basic form ber- 'to give'. The
stern berin- is evidenced Codex Cumanicus, but its meaning is a slightly
complicated issue, for German translation is partially illegible.
Grembech (1942: 56) glosses it "sich ergeben" with a question mark, but
this verb should probably be understood as 'to endeavour; to devote
oneself to sth', cf. Drimba's (2000: 142) corrected reading "ich habe
gearb<eitet>" and Kuun's (1880: 227) uncorrected "ich habe gear(b .. )".
Anyway, berin- Codex Cumanicus evidently has nothing to do with the
principal meaning 'giying' which would yield a word like 'giff.
The suffix -A {-a -e} is usually regarded as a petrified converb
(Rasanen 1957: 114) and the examples of nouns formed from it inc1ude
öge 'farne', yara 'wound' (Rasanen 1957: 114), yana 'returning' and tapa
'finding' (Erdal 2004: 312).
In short, there is no evidence of the suffix -nA in Turkic language s and
no word formed from the suffix -A is derived from the reflexive stem. As a
result, Zaj,!czkowski's etymology must be rejected and the suffix -na, -na
must be considered to be ill-established. At the same time it should be
noted that this criticism does not solve the problem of yezne, though it is
almost certain that these two words are morphologically umelated. In my
opinion, yezne is akinship term of the proximity to ego similar to taya
'maternal unc1e', ye1Jge 'one's elder brother's wife; wife of one's father's
younger brother' and bağa 'husbands of two sisters in relation to each
other', of asimilar, unetymologisable pattern CAC(C)A. These words are
not part of basic vocabulary and are not as primordial as first proximity
kinship terms like ana, en e, cece 'mother', aqa iikii ,. . ., iike 'elder brother;
r-.J

father', apa, eğe 'elder sister; mother', ata, baba 'father; grandfather;
ancestor', with still other variants and denotations each, but all having
same or similar structure (C)ACA. Needless to say, any etymology of
these words was and will be a futile attempt.
This observation does not exc1ude a possibility of borrowing and fact
kinship terms are often objects of language contact. Therefore, yezne in
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86 HENRYK JANKOWSKI

principle can be a loanword, but no proofs have been deliyered as yet.

Tuming back to berna, the assumption that we have to do with a
loanword is more likely than in the case of yezne for the following
reasons: (1) berna is not a basic word and it appears in a text in which
interethnic contact are underlined; (2) it cannot be etymologised from any
Turkic base; (3) it is attested in a geographically limited area.
A possible origin of berna can be the Old Russian branie (6pcıı-de or
6pal-lbe) glossed as 'JITie, MMaHie, B3JITie' (Dal' 1956: 126), i.e. 'taking;
grasping' , Ukrainian branja (6paı-ıı-ıft) glossed as '6paHbe, ,ı:d;ücTBie
6ep~aro' etc. (Grineenko 1996: 92), i.e. 'taking, act of the taker' ~
*barne ~ berna. A more suitable source form would be berne, but this is
attested only in Westem Slavic, e.g. Pol. (ca. 1350) biernia 'collection (of
taxes)' (Bruckner 1998: 26), borrowed from Old Czech berne 'tax'
(SSJ(;), 6 now both being obsolete, with which Middle Turkic did not have
contact. The Czech word is derived from the verb brati 'to take', which
corresponds to Russian brat' (6paTb), see Vasmer (1986: 159).
This etymology has a phonetic difficulty with the consonant cluster br-,
though it could be adapte d to Turkic ber-. A possible support for the
Slavic origin is the unusual writing of berne in Muqaddimat al-Adab with
a fatl:ıa and aya, which is employed only in this word, in all other words
medial close -e- being written with ya (Yüce 1993: 15). Therefore, it is
likely that the vowe1 in the medial was not close, but open, marked with
the fatl:ıa, and the letter ya marked Slavic palatal pronunciation *b 'arna.
Note that the word in Crimean Tatar cited above also suggests the open
reading of the first vowel, i.e. barna.
The presumable time of the copy of Muqaddimat al-Adab edited by
Yüce is the 13 th century and it does not contradict the contact with Slavic.
As Yüce (1993: 25) has shown, there are two Russian loanwords in this
dictionary, i.e. samala 'pitch' and dögit 'pitch black, tar'. Therefore, the
existence of a third Russian loanword is quite possible.
Abbreviations

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 MIDDLE TURKIC BERNA ~ BımA· 'GIFT' 87

CKar. Karaim
'ru,rııp>-:ıı-n

CTat. Crimean Tatar

HKar. HaHcz Karaim
Kaz. Kazaklı
Mong. MongoHan
MT Middle Turkic
NE North-East(em) Turkic
NW North-West(em) Turkic
OT Old Turkic
Pol. PoHsh
Rus. Russian
SE South-East(em) Turkic
SW South-West(em) Turkic

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