Erebuni Fortress - Etymology

Etymology

On an inscription found at Karmir Blur, the verb erebu-ni is used in the sense of "to seize, pillage, steal, or kidnap" followed by a changing direct object. As an unchanging direct object, scholars have conjectured that the word may also mean "to take" or "to capture" and thus believe that the Erebuni at the time of its founding meant "capture", "conquest", or "victory."

The Circassian historian Amjad Jaimoukha gives an alternative etymology, however: eri (referring to the Èrs, the people living in the area) + buni. Buni comes from the Nakh root which spawned the Chechen word bun meaning shelter or cabin; the root however simply means lair or shelter. It may have spawned the word van in Armenian (a language with a strong Urartian substratum), albeit possibly through different roots (Urartian biani rather than Èr buni) which similarly means shelter. Interpreted in that way, the fortress would be the capital city of the Èr people. Van as a root is also present in numerous other placenames in historical Armenia, including the city Van, Lake Sevan, and Nakhichevan, so it is probable that the van in Yerevan is another direct translation of the root. Jaimoukha states furthermore that the name of the Èr also serves as the root for the Arax valley (the Erashki gorge) and for the Medieval Georgian name used in the Georgian Chronicles for Lake Sevan- "Lake Ereta".