Saturday, May 17, 2014

AGUR!

Jan Potocky in his The Manuscript Found in Saragossa tells us from the depths of XVII century that 'Agur!' in Spain means 'Hello' or 'How do you do?'. He mentions it in the context of the Southern region of Sierra Morena.

Anyone who has a slightest idea as to what Basque language is like, would assume right away the Basque origin of 'Agur', and will be right. It's indeed a Basque salutation, which, among other things, also has the meaning of 'se acabó', which is 'it's over'. From the other hand, 'agure' in Basque means 'oldman'.

Now, we may want to find out what 'agur' might mean in Kartvelian family. For example, in Megrelian, where, thanks to Kajaia's dictionary, we find the world აღურა [agura] also known as ღურა [gura] in the meaning of 'death'. Which is extremely close to both 'it's over' and 'oldman'.

One more tremendous tie between Euskadi and Georgia, never mentioned before.

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