The Study of Words Related to Nature and Natural Phenomena in Iranian Oykonyms: Their Use and Background

One of the most important tools for studying the history and culture of any nation or tribe is to recognize the language and linguistic materials of that nation. Linguistic data can be divided into written and unwritten or oral. The amount of written data has constantly fluctuated in different historical periods for various reasons, and it is sometimes much and sometimes very little. Unwritten linguistic data, although much more than written data, do not receive much especial attention because they are not written down. For the unwritten linguistic data, we can mention songs, poems, proverbs, stories and in general what is related to oral literature. Place names or geographical names are other linguistic data that are often unwritten and usually older than others. Apartfrom being historically and culturally valuable, these place names can also be considered in linguistic studies, and by examining them, various information from different linguistic and non-linguistic aspects can be obtained.The science that examines place names from a historical, geographical, and especially linguistic point of view is called toponymy. The study of toponyms is important since it can provide valuable information in recognizing the anthropological and cultural characteristics of ethnic groups and it can also explain the role of social, geographical, ethnic, political, religious, etc. observations in naming places. In general, there are three main characteristics in any toponym or geographical name: 1) geographical location, 2) historical background, 3) linguistic structure and concept. Thus, toponymy interacts with other sciences such as geography, history, archeology, linguistics and anthropology. In general, based on the type and species, the place names are divided into the following categories: 1) oykonyms or place names that refer to residential areas. 2) hydronyms or place names that are used to name geographical features related to water, such as rud ‘river’, čašme ‘spring’, daryâ ‘sea’, etc.  3) uronyms or place names that are used to name the elevation of the earth, such as kuh ‘mountain’, tappe ‘hill’, dašt ‘plain’, etc. (Refahi Alamdari, 2015, p. 98; Ahdian and Bakhtiari, 2009, p. 185).

In the study of languages and dialects, place names are of special importance, because these names are usually taken from the local languages of the same region and are part of the spiritual and cultural heritage of the people living in those areas. Undoubtedly, their scientific study, in addition to their linguistic value, is very effective in recognizing the historical identity of the ethnic groups living in those areas and in understanding the way of thinking and view of the people who coined and used these names. Most of the toponyms are oykonyms or the names of residential areas. Some researches have been published about oykonyms so far, but most of these studies are dedicated to the etymology and derivation of these words and the basic words seen in the complex oykonyms structure have been less studied.In this article, it is tried to study and analyze similar basic words in oykonyms which are related to nature and natural phenomena. Certainly, the analysis of common words in oykonyms is as valuable as the study of affixes and topoformants used in these words, but so far they have not been properly studied. So far, no independent work on the subject of this article, i.e., words related to nature and natural phenomena in Iranian oykonyms, has been published.

From the very beginning of creation, man has been in close contact with nature and its phenomena and components, and this deep connection and the impact that nature has on human life, and sometimes it is beyond his understanding, has led him to sanctify some components of nature. This sacredness is mainly focused on the sky and what is happening in it on the one hand, and on the other hand it is concentrated on the earth and its related issues.The earth and its natural features were also sacred in the human mind, and sometimes the inaccessible or lesser-known parts of the earth were known as the place of the gods. From the beginning, these attributes led to the use of the words related to heaven and earth in naming new places where human beings lived. Although the earth and the sky did not have that initial sanctity in the human mind, because human life was completely dependent on them, the use of the words of these two areas in new names continued and is still common today.In Zoroastrianism, the sky is the first tangible creature of Ohrmazd. In most Zoroastrian texts it is stated that the sky is made of stone, but due to the brightness of the sky, it is also said it was made of metal. The sky was mostly considered to have four bases or divisions, as follows: the star, the moon, the sun, and the infinite light bases. Of course, under the influence of Babylonian astronomy, Zoroastrians have sometimes considered seven levels for the sky (Tafazzoli, 2004, p. 365).In the Islamic era, the sky has been considered as a kind of sanctity and in some verses of the Quran, the sky has been used to mean the spiritual world and the kingdom of heaven (Mojtahed Shabestari, 1995,p. 363). The most important feature of the earth attracted human attention is its fertility, which is why it is sanctified in human thought. In Zoroastrianism, the earth was divided into seven parts or countries and apparently had three floors. Also, in various parts of Bundahiš, various topics have been mentioned about the creation of the earth, mountains and rivers and their duties (Afifi, 2004, p. 545-547).In naming modern Iranian oykonyms, both the name of the sky and the names of the objects and phenomena seen in the sky have been used, as well as the name of the earth and the natural features on it. Of course, the use of words related to earth is much more common in oykonyms. This kind of naming has a long history, and it should not be considered as a new topic. In ancient Iran, naming places with the names of words related to nature was common, but because we do not have many texts, we have little evidence in this regard. In the Zoroastrian beliefs of ancient Iran, nature and its components were sacred and were under the protection of God. Naturally, such beliefs could influence the naming of their places of residence. Unfortunately, due to the shortage of written materials from ancient Iran, this can not be sufficiently and thoroughly studied, but the few oykonyms left in the written sources, both primary and secondary, show that such names were common in ancient Iran.Unfortunately, in the surviving texts from ancient Iran, there are very few oykonyms in which the words related to the sky are used. Meanwhile, the name of the sky has no evidence in the oykonyms, but there is evidence of the name of celestial bodies. One of the oykonyms in which the name of one of the celestial bodies is mentioned is the word pātišuvari- ‘the people of Pātišuvar’. The oykonym Pātišuvar is composed of the two components pātiš ‘towards, in front of’ and uvar- ‘sun’ and on the whole it means ‘lying towards the sun’ (Tavernier, 2007, p. 29). Apparently, the place name Padišxwārgar in the Sassanid era is a remnant of this form of Old Persian (Schmitt, 2014: 233).In modern Iranian oykonyms, the use of words related to the field of nature is quite common, but even today, words related to land and natural features on it have a higher frequency in making toponyms. These words are used both in derivation and in combination with topoformants in Iranian oykonyms. This research examined the oykonyms made with words related to nature in two parts: words related to the sky, celestial bodies and phenomena, and words related to the earth and natural features on it.

In Iranian oykonyms, both complex and derivative, there are common basic words that can be divided into different categories. Among the common basic words in Iranian oykonyms, we can mention the words of the field of nature. The use of the natural words in toponyms have a long history, and it can generally be classified into two areas: sky and earth. The frequency and use of these words in oykonyms are different and in addition to Persian words, they also include words from local languages. These words are used in different ways in oykonyms and different features are seen in their construction. One of the interesting features in these oykonyms is the accompanying of two words from the field of nature next to each other, which sometimes may even belong to two different languages in Iran. For example, in the oykonym Âsmân-Bulâghi, the word Âsmân ‘sky’, which is a Persian word related to the field of the sky, is accompanied by the word Bulâghi ‘spring’, which is a Turkish word from the field of words related to the earth. In general, words related to the two fields of sky and earth are morphologically associated with a lot of names, adjectives, and numbers, and semantically with different categories, and can form a single oykonym.