Names and Etymology
- Ararat - The Bible says that Noah's ark landed on the mountains of Ararat. This does not refer to any specific mountain or peak, but rather a mountain range within the region of Ararat, which was the name of an ancient proto-Armenian kingdom also known as Urartu. Nonetheless, one particular tradition identifies the mountain as Mount Masis, the highest peak in the Armenian Highland, which is therefore called Mount Ararat. (As opposed to the Armenian and European tradition, Semitic tradition identifies the mountain as Judi Dagh located in Turkey near Cizre.) According to the medieval Armenian historian Moses of Khoren in his History of Armenia, the plain of Ayrarat (directly north of the mountain) got its name after King Ara the Handsome (the great grandson of Amasya). Here the Assyrian Queen Semiramis is said to have lingered for a few days after the death of Ara. According to Thomson, the mountain is called Ararat (Armenian: Արարատ) corresponding to Ayrarat, the name of the province.
- Ağrı Dağı (Mountain of Ağrı) - The Ottoman Turkish name was Aghur Dagh اغـر طﺎﻍ means heavy mountain. Ağrı is also a province in the Eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey, which derived its name from the mountain in 1949. During the Ottoman Empire era the Ağrı village was originally called Karakilise (black church).
- Masis (Armenian: Մասիս) - is the Armenian name for the peak of Ararat, the plural Masikʿ (Armenian: Մասիք) may refer to both peaks. The History of Armenia derives the name from a king Amasya, the great-grandson of the Armenian patriarch Hayk, who is said to have called the mountain Masis after his own name.
- Çiyayê Agirî (Fiery Mountain), Çiyayê Alavhat and Grîdax (Kurdish): This entire tree name referred a volcanic characteristic of Mount Ararat. It is the only name to have a clear, descriptive etymology while also indicating the preservation of folk memory.
- Kuh-e-Nuh (Noah's Mountain): (Persian: کوه نوح, Kuh-e Nuh), also influenced by the flood story, this time via the Islamic view of Noah.
Read more about this topic: Mount Ararat
Famous quotes containing the words names and, names and/or etymology:
“At night thousands of names and slogans are outlined in neon, and searchlight beams often pierce the sky, perhaps announcing a motion picture premiere, perhaps the opening of a new hamburger stand.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our “white mythology.” Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.”
—Ihab Hassan (b. 1925)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)