Recommended | Family Tree of Words

I can not help but notice another wonderful Turkish Blog.
Kelimelerin Soyağacı Family Tree of Words
with articles by Hatice Yatsıgüney and Firdevs Kapusızoğlu this site as the name implies brings commentary on the origins of Turkish words.

The blog is unfortunately only in Turkish. So, maybe in time?

The real importance also lies in the fact that Turkish women are not only launching many truly fantastic sites on food and cooking but are now moving into other areas as well while most of their male counterparts are flaming the world in chats and forums.

Boys will be boys you say? Enough already.

Mavi Boncuk |

Ağaç TR Tree EN | Soyağaci TR Family tree EN
Shamanistic rituals give great importance to beech (Kayin TR) Tree. The Hawthorn blossom has the strong scent of female sexuality and was used by the Turks as an erotic symbol. In many cultures, the month of the Hawthorn (May) is a month of bad luck for marriages. Tree cult of the Turks has been practised for centuries, but cult under fruit trees like pear-tree has not been noticed. In this article traces of the pear-tree cult in the Caucasus is outlined. The Karachay-Balkar Turks living in the Caucasus denote pear with the word kertme, while it is not so in the majority of Turkic languages. This word was borrowed by Hungarians most probably around the Kuban river north to the Caucasus before the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, their later homeland. Hungarians might also have acquired the worship of the pear-tree that time and in that area, because already in the first written sources (in the form of family- and place names) it is well documented. Hints of the pear cult can also be seen in the children's songs in connection with the 'pear-tree'. We can state that the pear-tree cult was known in the Kuban region before 680-700 A.D., for the Hungarians left for Etelköz in those years and did not return there ever after.[1]

In the epics of Turkish speaking peoples the tree was the center of life which functioned as an orientation point in time and space: many epic themes concentrate around the tree, principal events and decisive encounters of epic heroes take place there...Yakut women believed that childless woman could conceive a child after spending a night under a larch-tree having an unusual crown.[2]

[1]Traces of the Pear-tree Cult in the Caucasus by Éva Csáki
Source: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Volume 55, Number 4, 20 December 2002 , pp. 345-352(8)

[2] Traces of Tree Worship in the Decorative Patterns of Turkish Rugs by Galina Serkina (from 11th International Congress of Turkish Arts - Utrecht, the Netherlands, August 23-28, 1999)

See also: Abdülkadir Inan (1966), 'Türk Boylarinda Dag, Agaç ve Pinar Kültü' [The cult of mountains, trees and springs among Turkish tribes]