ETYMOLOGY OF ？IN？AVAT

“？in？avat” is a word used especially in the areas of Kars, I？d？r, Ardahan and Artvin in Turkey, which means several negative denotations such as “ill-tempered, stingy, selfish, quarrelsome, spoilsport, incompatible, impudent, filthy, gossiper”. Not only in Turkey and in Turkish, this word is used with similar meanings especially in Armenian but also in Azerbaijani and Georgian languages. It can be traced since the 17th century that within the ？？ld？r-I？d？r territory, the nomad population uses this pejorative term for the people who have a settled village life basically engaged in growing fruits and vegetables. We find this word being used as village names in I？d？r-？？ld？r region in Turkey and also in the Vedi valley of Armenia. M. Fahrettin K？rz？o？lu, who’s known for his pretentious works about this region and its history, claims that the ？in？avats are Kipchak Turks who settled in the area even before 1071. He also divides the word into two part as “？in+？avat” by associating the first part “？in” to China. Furthermore, by relating the second part to Cavak (Cavax) K？rz？o？lu claims that the t and k endings are suffixes that make the word plural. Finally, K？rz？o？lu explained this word as “？in-？av-s”, which means the people coming from China. He connected “？av” to “？avuldur”, or “？avdar-Tatars”, a tribe of Tatar Turks. This suggestion by K？rz？o？lu has been accepted by most historians and researchers and has been taken as a proof of the Turkish presence in the region before 1071. Yet, this suggestion of his is clearly a folk etymology. The word ？in？avat is borrowed from Armenian. In Armenian this word - ？？n？？ahavat ？？？？？？？？？- means “non-believer, faithless” and besides having various forms of local pronunciation, there exists a direct -？？in？？avat ？？？？？？？？- form. This Armenian word is composed of ？？n？？- and havat parts. ？？n？？- is a form of privative prefix, while havat ？？？？？ means “faith, belief, creed; trust, confidence; fidelity, faithfulness, good faith, sincerity; proof, testimony, evidence”. This word, which originally meant “faithless” adopted different meanings such as “stingy, selfish, impudent, filthy etc.”, as commonly found in Turkish local dialect studies, because it is also used as an ethnonym