Tuesday, August 13, 2013

BEREZAN'

If Ukrainian Greeks called Armenians with a Kartvelian word (see the previous entry), then what else could they call with Kartvelian words? Maybe, themselves?

Not as strange as it sounds. In Kartvelian 'Greek' is ბერძენი [berdzeni], which may have a variant of ´berzeni´ given the dz-z confusion. In Slav rendering the final i has high chances of being transformed into a soft sign, turning the whole word eventually in something like 'Берзень' (Berzen').

Once we come to the above conclusion, we must refer Berzen' to the isle of Berezan', located right in front of the Greek colony of Olvia where the Dnipro flows into the Black Sea. The isle does not have any reliable etymology. Now we have a right to assume it was called 'Greek' by the local Ukrainian Kartvelian-speaking population.

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