Old Armenian Term of Official ձեռնաւոր/dzernɑvoɹ~ɾ/, its Origin and Georgian Equivalent"
Keywords:
Georgian-Armenian relationships, official termsAbstract
"The translation difficulties encountered when rendering Old Armenian sources into Georgian often involve determining the correct administrative terminology. To ad-dress this issue, a comprehensive approach is needed: identifying such terms, studying their meaning and origin, and only then selecting an appropriate Georgian equivalent in order to avoid irrelevant translations that may lead to more serious errors during research. In this paper, we study the Armenian term of official - ձեռնաւոր /dzer¬nɑ-voɹ~ɾ. This is a derivative word: the root ձեռն /dzern/ „hand“ combined with the suffix -աւոր /ɑvoɹ~ɾ/, which denotes possession, carrier, profession, occupation, or affiliation, equivalent to the Georgian derivational suffixes -იან/ian, -ოვან/ovan, -ოსან/osan. Its meaning is attested only in the Middle Armenian dictionary, where it is defined as an official who possesses authority, one who governs rural districts and oversees tax collection. Study of Armenian sources shows that this term has been in use since the 12th century. Both structurally and semantically, this Armenian administrative term resembles the Georgian ჴელოსანი/khelosani raising the question of its Georgian origin. The Georgian term ჴელოსან-ი/khelosan-i is formed in an identical manner to the Armenian: the root ჴელ/khel (“hand,” but historically also “authority, power, office, command, royal confirmation, feudal title-deed, legal document carved in stone, material sign of land-right”) combined with the suffix -ოსან/osan, denoting possession, role, profession, or institutional affiliation. In the broad sense, it denoted any official of the royal court. The institutional meaning and competences of the ձեռնաւոր /dzernɑvoɹ~ɾ official may be characterized as follows: a member of the high social stratum; possesses his own type of taxes; he may violate privileges granted by the sovereigh; taxes that are under his responsibilities may be revoked only by the supreme authority or by the ձեռնաւոր /dzernɑvoɹ~ɾ himself on orders from the supreme authority; he may himself be the donator; references to such officials appear beginning in the 12th century. We propose that this type of official entered the Armenian world from Georgia along with its title. In our view term of official ձեռնաւոր /dzernɑvoɹ~ɾ is a direct translation of the Georgian ჴელოსანი/khelosani.
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