Tank

The tanks appeared in the battlefields of Europe during the WWI, the first being those constructed by the British, like Little Willie andMkI. Other countries (esp.

France) workedon similar projects at thesametime, too. All that happened between 1915 and 1916. The name was coined in 1916and it was totallyarbitrary [Chant 2004: 9, 49].

The internationalism танк /tank/is used in TJ [Ersov etal. 1942: 183;FTAF 1941: 53; Bertel’s et al. 1954: 380; Moukhtor etal. 2003: 236; Saymiddinov et al.

2006: 581; Nazarzoda etal. 2008: 2,308; Satskaya et al.,2007, 95].

The word iswell attested inthe online TJ corpusand the search for this form to­ gether withthe noun чанг /jang/ ‘war’ producesnearly 6000 results [Google search:

keywords=TaHK, чанг;date=2014-05-02].69

69 The orthographic form танк is used in many languages including RU, so another form has to be added as a keyword to ensure that only (or mostly) TJ results are produced.

There is agreat numberof derived forms based on this loanword,like танки tA«

/tank-i/- an adj. ‘of a tank’ [Nazarzoda et al.2008: 2,308]; танкшикан /tank-sikan/

‘anti-tank’ [Saymiddinov etal. 2006: 581; Nazarzodaet al. 2008: 2,308] - a

subor-2.50 Tank

dinate compound consistingof the noun танк (the modifier) and a PstPшикан- / sikan-/ (<— шикастан /sikastan/ ‘to break, to destroy, etc.’; the head). The com­

pound танкшикан has got aparticipial meaning of ‘tank-destroying, destroying tanks’. Another compound танкзан /tank-zan/ has a parallel structure, the only difference being the fact thatadifferent verbal stem is used as the head, i.e. latteris attested, namely an abstractn. танкронй /tankroni/ ‘tank-driving’

[Saymiddinov etal. 2006: 581;Nazarzodaet al.2008: 2,308].

Another subordinate compound with the noun танк as the modifier and with the structure similar to the ones previously discussedis танксоз /tank-soz/

‘tank-constructor’ [Saymiddinov etal. 2006: 581; Nazarzoda et al. 2008: 2,308] (an abstract derivative with the suffix -й /-i/ is known in this case, too —> танксозй

<5/(tank-soz)-i/ ‘tank-construction’ [Saymiddinovetal.2006: 581; Nazarzoda etal. 2008: 2,308]). танкодром /tankodrom/[Saymiddinov et al.2006: 581], where the joining element /-o-/ indicates the immediate source ofthe form7071. Some other forms of RU origin were used,too, like танкист /tankist/ ‘tankman’ [Ersovet al. 1942: 183; Bertel’s et al. 1954: 380], however, now theirrival hybrid forms likeтанкрон seem to be dom­ inating. Nevertheless, the very existance of theforms like танкодром or танкист hintsat RU as theimmediate source ofthe formтанк itself.

70 Generally speaking, the suffix -uh /-di/ seems to have been quite productive in the first half of the 20th century, as it is proven by numerous forms (not necessarily associated with scientific of technological development but also other fields of vocabulary), like: kojixo3hh /kolxoz-ii/

‘a person employed in a Soviet-style collective farm’, TpaicropHii /traktor-di/ ‘a tractor driver’, jieHHHHii /lenin-di/ ‘a political follower of Lenin’, CTanuHUH /stalin-di/ ‘a political follower of Stalin’.

71 NB the RU joining element /-o-/ is accidentally simillar to the one used in FA in stable coor- dinative phrases (TJ: /-u-/). However, as far as the RU one appears - as in the example above - in subordinate compounds, the use of the other is restricted to coordinate ones, e.g. o6yxaBo /ob-u-havo/.

As long as the word танк and its derivatives are dominating in lexicographi­

cal sources, a similarform - тонк /tonk/ (pl.: тонкхо /tonk-ho/) appears in many new sources, especially in electronic publications [Ruzgor2011-04-27; Muhammad

87

2VoKibuliirı/ Aıuılvsis

2011-03-16]. Of course, the original source of тонн is the same EN word tank.

However, whilein the case ofтанк wewereentitledto suspect RU playing the role of an intermediary, the form тонк clearly showsDA/FAinfluence. The form is used both inFA[Asadullaev & Peysikov 1965: 917; Omid 1373: 369] and in DA [Sadiqyar 1379 HS: 141; Ostrovskiy 1987: 352]72. It is worth noting that while танк violates the standard TJ : DA/FA vowel correspondence /о/ : /а/, the word тонк complieswithit.

By the way, the form cj-jSjU ‘tankman’ is used in both FA and DA, too [Asadullaev & Pe­

ysikov 1965: 917; Ostrovskiy 1987: 352].

Some hesitation in use of forms TaHKii and tohkH is visible in the cited source.

The form тонк is clearly less popular in online resources thank танк, as the search of this wordtogether with the noun чанг /jang/ ‘war’ produces only below 500 results [Google search: keywords=TOHK, чанг; date=2014-05-02] -c.f. above.

However, an interesting question is why Persian has /tank/ instead of */tank/, whichwould have been closer to the pronunciation ofthis internationalism in the languages that might have served as the immediate source of this form (English, French orevenRussian). Theanswer to this question is that in spite of using different writing systems, Persian loanwords from European languages are often influenced by the orthographical form in their language oforigin,e.g. the word ‘factory’

was taken from the FR fabrique (Omid 1373 HS: 897). The Persian loanword, in general, mimics the original pronunciation quite faithfully, with the exception of the vowel ofthe first syllable which is /aJeven if the FA /а/ would have been pho­ netically closer to theoriginal FR vowel (/a/). There arenumerous examples of this phenomenon, like /dirizâbl/insteadof the expected /dirizabl/, ¿Mj1“

/selofan/ instead of* JA4- /selofan/, etc. In the caseof another important factor might have been a tendency to avoid ambiguity as potentially homographic forms exist (e.g.‘-S-S /tonok/ ‘narrow’).

The TJ form тонк seems to be anewer one, as only one derivative has been found (with limitedattestation),i.e. the adj. тонкй /tonk-i/ [Farhodi 2ООЗ]73,created with the adjectival suffix /-i/.

As the word tank is an internationalism, related forms are to be found in lan­ guages like P§ [Aslanov 1966: 212] or ^15/tank/ [Lebedevet al. 1989: 675], TR tank [Alkım et al. 1996: 1094] and UZ/AZ/KYтанк [Koscanov et al. 1984:

553; Alizade et al. 1944: 304;Yudahin 1957: 849].

As we see, most languages use the internationalism ’tank’, however, there are exceptions - cf.PL czolg and AR LLj [Ba‘albaki 1999: 949].