Saturday, August 10, 2013

MGAR / МГАРЬ

A village with this name is situated in Eastern Ukraine on the river Sula, which bears, as we remember, a Kartvelian name. Neither Ukrainian, nor Russian dictionaries have an answer to etymology of this highly Kartvelian-sounding toponym. While in the Kartvelian dictionary of Rayfield we find the word მღარავი/მღარველი [mgaravi/mgarveli] meaning 'milling-machine operator'. The two words definitely contain the root 'mgar', but the village seems to be mentioned for the first time when no milling-machines existed. Hence, seems reasonable to connect the root to Laz dictionary where the word 'mgari' is translated as 'something that roars'. For example, a milling machine.

Also, 'something that roars' matches very well the wolf, who in Kartvelian and Megrelian languages is 'mgeli', 'mgeri', 'geri'. So, a solid hypothesis for Mgar etymology may be considered registered (other interpretations simply don't exist). Author of the idea - Nana Kobaladze.

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