Dr. Helen Giunashvili & Dr. Ramaz Gorgadze
Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies, Georgia
Iranian-Georgian cultural-linguistic contacts have the most ancient tradition. All over centuries Kartvelian (“South Caucasian”) tribes (including Georgians, Svans, Megrelians and Lazs) have had close aerial links with Iranian-speaking peoples‒Medians, Persians, Parthians, Scythians, Alans, Ossetians and probably with some others. Due to these contacts, a large number of Iranian loanwords came into the Georgian language. They belonged to various spheres of vocabulary and were borrowed at different periods and from different dialects. In this respect, Middle Persian loans of the Sasanian period (3rd-7th cent.) present a special interest. Many Old Georgian literary sources (V-XII cc.) reveal a large number of Middle Persian lexis. The paper deals with the Georgian term dast’akar-i “surgeon” attested in the 12th century “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” by Shota Rustaveli. Georgian and foreign scholars (N. Marr, I. Abuladze, M. Andronikashvili, F. Delshad) considered this term as stemming from New Persian dastkār “artificer, skilled worker, artisan”. The Georgian word dast’akar-i can be recognized as Middle Persian dastkar(kār) “worker with the hands”. But the meaning here is peculiar, it corresponds to the Greek χειρουργός originally “hand-worker”, but then specialized to medical use “sergeon”.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.
