Talk:تفنك
Latest comment: 4 years ago by Calak
@Fay Freak, Persian has Persian تفک (tufak, “a tube for shooting clay balls through by the force of the breath; a musket”), which could be onomatopoeic or from تف کردن (tuf kardan, “to spit”). See also Doerfer. @Calak, what does Hassandoust, say under tofang | tufang? --Vahag (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- I have no access to Hassandoust. I think that Kurdish tifang can be from earlier tifang; -k > -ng is common in Kurdish (see Garnik Asatrian — The Origin of the -ng Suffix in Kurmandji). Ultimately it is from tif "saliva, spittle, sputum", tif kirin "to spit, expectorate" (Persian '"tuf"', Arabic taffa "to spit"). For -k > -ng in Persian compare zirak beside zerang.--Calak (talk) 18:20, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- I find more information in Iqtidar Alam Khan (2004) Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India, pages 129–130 (a text discernibly from 1992): “It is not certain as to whether the tufangs' mentioned by Nizam al-Din Ahmad, Sikandar bin Manjhu; and Muhammad Qasim Firishta as present in the Deccan, Malwa; Gujarat, and Kashmir during the fifteenth century, were proper handguns or mere crossbows. This uncertainty seems to arise from the overlapping nomenclatures in vogue during; the fifteenth century for firearms and different types of crossbows and mangonels. The explanation of the tem tufak/tufang given in a·Persian dictionary compiled at Jaunpur in 1419–20 suggests that till the time of its writing this term simply denoted a crossbow.” The identification as crossbow is presumably to be refused. Elsewhere it is explicitly warned that it has been identified wrongly as crossbow, and that it was just a blowpipe. Iqtidar Alam Khan continues by proposing that matchlocks were developed in Europe and the Ottoman Empire simultaneously during the second half of the fifteenth century. Which confirms that the Persian term is semantically at least from Turkish. However though تفک (tufak, “blowpipe”) from تف (tuf, “spit”) + ـک (-ak, diminutive) is tempting it is perhaps too weird to form such a word as diminutive of “spit” and it still does not explain the Karakhanid and the Nogai form; in Ayalon’s book p. 118 fn. 88 the Karakhanid occurrence was considered enough to say that tüfek is a pure Turkish word. The Turkic peoples were of course everywhere in Asia since the 13th century, so it can well be a Chagatai term, and Hindi might have borrowed from Chagatai or Khorezmian Turkic. Fay Freak (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- Note the other word for a blowpipe: Persian تزتک (tuztak, taztak): Steingass, Francis Joseph (1892) “تزتك”, in A Comprehensive Persian–English dictionary, London: Routledge & K. Paul, Vullers, Johann August (1855) “تزتک”, in Lexicon Persico-Latinum etymologicum cum linguis maxime cognatis Sanscrita et Zendica et Pehlevica comparatum, e lexicis persice scriptis Borhâni Qâtiu, Haft Qulzum et Bahâri agam et persico-turcico Farhangi-Shuûrî confectum, adhibitis etiam Castelli, Meninski, Richardson et aliorum operibus et auctoritate scriptorum Persicorum adauctum[1] (in Latin), volume I, Gießen: J. Ricker, page 444a, equalled in Vullers, Johann August (1855) “تفک”, in Lexicon Persico-Latinum etymologicum cum linguis maxime cognatis Sanscrita et Zendica et Pehlevica comparatum, e lexicis persice scriptis Borhâni Qâtiu, Haft Qulzum et Bahâri agam et persico-turcico Farhangi-Shuûrî confectum, adhibitis etiam Castelli, Meninski, Richardson et aliorum operibus et auctoritate scriptorum Persicorum adauctum[2] (in Latin), volume I, Gießen: J. Ricker, page 450b. Thwarts the Persian derivation related to spit? Also aren’t the attestations in India too early for a Persian loanword? (Assuming here Persian loanwords appear after the adoption of Persian by the Mughal Empire but Turkic loanwords can appear much earlier.) Fay Freak (talk) 19:07, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- I find more information in Iqtidar Alam Khan (2004) Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India, pages 129–130 (a text discernibly from 1992): “It is not certain as to whether the tufangs' mentioned by Nizam al-Din Ahmad, Sikandar bin Manjhu; and Muhammad Qasim Firishta as present in the Deccan, Malwa; Gujarat, and Kashmir during the fifteenth century, were proper handguns or mere crossbows. This uncertainty seems to arise from the overlapping nomenclatures in vogue during; the fifteenth century for firearms and different types of crossbows and mangonels. The explanation of the tem tufak/tufang given in a·Persian dictionary compiled at Jaunpur in 1419–20 suggests that till the time of its writing this term simply denoted a crossbow.” The identification as crossbow is presumably to be refused. Elsewhere it is explicitly warned that it has been identified wrongly as crossbow, and that it was just a blowpipe. Iqtidar Alam Khan continues by proposing that matchlocks were developed in Europe and the Ottoman Empire simultaneously during the second half of the fifteenth century. Which confirms that the Persian term is semantically at least from Turkish. However though تفک (tufak, “blowpipe”) from تف (tuf, “spit”) + ـک (-ak, diminutive) is tempting it is perhaps too weird to form such a word as diminutive of “spit” and it still does not explain the Karakhanid and the Nogai form; in Ayalon’s book p. 118 fn. 88 the Karakhanid occurrence was considered enough to say that tüfek is a pure Turkish word. The Turkic peoples were of course everywhere in Asia since the 13th century, so it can well be a Chagatai term, and Hindi might have borrowed from Chagatai or Khorezmian Turkic. Fay Freak (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
@Vahag: Hassandoust derives tufang from Ottoman Turkish tufak, ultimately from Ottoman Turkish top "cannon, ball".--Calak (talk) 07:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Then we have four theories: Persian from "spit", Persian onomatopoeia, Turkic from top "cannon, ball" and Turkic onomatopoeia. A more thorough philological and historical research could give us the final answer. --Vahag (talk) 15:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
- @Fay Freak, Vahagn Petrosyan: Compare also Persian پفک (pufak, “blowpipe”) and Lua error in Module:parameters at line 95: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "ku" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. from puf/pif "puff".--Calak (talk) 21:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)