Talk:Koktebel
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The etymology previously given is a vague translation of various documents in Russian, which ru:Коктебель used as such and that uk:Коктебель slightly modified.
But two parts of this name are approximate (kök) or inaccurate (el). Sorry for being quite long in the explanation below, but I prefer to be bold to clarify the edit I made…
- The first word composing this name is something of a brain teaser, as there is no equivalent in most non-Turkic languages. It is often translated as gray, which is true in some cases. But it means cerulean or some in most other cases. Such “ambiguities” are not rare — the Celtic languages show the same with their glas, which means, too: “blue”, “azure”, “ashy”, “gray”, “green”, “pale” and more [1]. The few Crimean Tatar (paper) dictionaries available give кок / kök as “sky”, “azure”, “light blue”, “gray” and so on [2]. Here is what the Crimean Tatar-Russian-Ukrainian dictionary, Vol. I – A to L; pp. 342-343 mentioned below (note 2) gives — summarily translated from Russian and Ukrainian for this purpose, without all the words or locutions composed of kök, showing a rather impressive (for non-Tatar speakers) array of really different meanings:
кок¹ (‑кю) 1. sky; sky- 2. blue, pale blue, sky-blue, azure; arch. gray.
Air Force blue, Yale Blue, Carolina blue or steel blue may be the more precise translations, but not that poetic… I chose the approximate sky blue. But I would be glad to see someone find a more appropriate name for this color, with some poetry in it, reflecting verdant hills seen from far.
- No problem with part two of the name: töbe (тобе, тоьбе, төбе, тӧбе, təpə, تۆبه etc.) is a cliff, a rock, a hill or a mountain, and some „Коьк-тоьбе“ (Blue Hills, Blue Mountains) are not rare names around the world, not only in the US, Australia or Souh Africa.
- Things are different with el (ель), which means as such… wind (and windy as well) or gases [3]. There is a confusion between an ancient, no more productive word and the adfix we have here. Just like the English -wich (Norwich, Greenwich etc.). This is then -(e)l, a simple suffix indicating we speak of a “land” or region, not a modern word.
✓ Kanġi Oĥanko (talk) 15:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Notes
- ^ Look for “glas” in the Welsh-English / English-Welsh On-line Dictionary, Irish dictionary online, Rannsaich an Stòr-dàta Briathrachais Gàidhlig or for “glass” in the Manx dictionary etc.
- ^ This variety can be checked in the Крымскотатарско-русско-украинский словарь, том І, буквы А-Л; стр. 342-343.
- ^ Ref. same dictionary, p. 229
“Koktebel” moved to “Köktöbel”? edit
Shouldn't this page be moved to Köktöbel (with redirections), to reflect the native name? Please, do not take into account the number of occurences in Google searches, as Crimean Tatar is not exactly as much used as English or Russian. It seems to me that this could be only a conformist error, not a wish to deliver correct information. And did you notice how many times a search gives Wikipedia as a possible reference in the first nine articles. ✓ Kanġi Oĥanko (talk) 16:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- And then Bakhchisaray to Bağçasaray, Alushta to Aluşta, Dzhankoi to Canköy, etc? Here we use names in the official language of the nation i.e. Ukrainian, and transliterate them according to established rules of Romanization. Don Alessandro (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)