Kneading a meaning
Etymology of Caviar
June 10, 2005
iranian.com
A season or two ago Sabatico and I were
engaged in a series of e-mail transactions about etymology
of the word “rustic.” I had entertained the idea
that the word and its bucolic connotation probably derived
from the Persian “rousta” or “roustak,” referring
to an equally pastoral and rural setting of a Middle Persian
village. To end the correspondence and in his characteristic
impatience borne of fatigue, Sabatico declared that enough
time had been spent engaging in “charand-o-parand.”
Not
wishing to end it all -- I replied with a foray into the meaning
of the phrase “charand-o-parand.” It roughly translates
in the vernacular as “cock and bull,” nonsense,
fiddle-faddle, silly or trifling talk, or “bullshit,” to
be perfectly vulgar about it. In its sublime rendering, the
origin of the phrase, I believe, is “az charandeh va
parandeh goftan,” which literally means “talking
about grazers and fliers,” of cows and birds, as it were -- of
here and there, or this and that. The contraction of the phrase
in the form of “charand” however has come to signify
a derisive connotation, meaning absurd, nonsensical or baseless
utterance.
A few weeks ago I turned to Encyclopaedia Iranica in order
to learn about the etymology of the word “caviar” or “khaviar,” as
we say it in Farsi. I was immensely disappointed in what I
found. The word “khaviar,” according to the entry,
is the alteration or the variant of the Persian “khaya-dar,” which
literally means “having eggs,” as in “mahi
khaya-dar,” or egg-bearing fish! I thought, well, here
is an explanation as charand as it can graze -- a fish story,
with some basis in reality and a lot more imagination than
even the mightiest parandeh could wing. It takes a lot of khayeh
(balls) for a fish to inhabit the perilous Caspian Sea: It
takes equal if not larger balls to offer in an end-all scholarly
tome an explanation such as that.
In my mind, as well as the poetry of Ferdowsi in which the
word also appeared, “khayeh” has heft and a configuration
of an appendage, the size of a walnut, plum or grapefruit -- depending
on one’s brush with greatness. Because “khayeh” is
generally and primarily understood as a male organ, the term
mahi khayeh-dar, which connotes in the ordinary sense of the
term a male fish, cannot be rationalized as a name for an egg-bearing
fish (a female).
To suggest that the roe (fish egg), which
resides in the thousands in a female sturgeon or other large
fish, is khayeh (testes) is biologically as confused as it
gets -- unless of course the male sturgeon too has ova.
The explanation in Encyclopaedia Iranica made little sense
to me and, therefore, to get to the bottom of it all I consulted
the Oxford English Dictionary and Dehkhoda’s lexicon.
The first one informed me that the word “caviar” was
of uncertain origin. Aha!, I said to myself, here is a void
that any partisan of a particular national language can exploit,
even if it means to engage in charand-o-parand.
The OED noted that the word “khaviyar” or “haviyar” is
found in Turkish and in the 16th century Italian it was “caviale.” According
to OED -- because khaviyar has no Turkish root, the word “caviar” in
English and other European languages must have derived from
the Italian. Dehkhoda, too, noted that the origin of the word “khaviar” seemingly
is Turkish or Tatar and all the European languages, with the
exception of Russian, say “caviar” from the Italian.
The Russians say “ikra.”
I turned to my friend Fereydoun, an Iranian who speaks Azari,
to explain to me the influence of the Azeri and Turkish languages
on the etymology of caviar. He knew that khaviar was not an
Azeri word and did not think that it was Turkish either. Moreover,
neither the word “fish” nor “egg” in
Azeri sounded anything remotely like khaviar or any part of
it. He referred me to his friend, Nazim, a scholar originally
from Baku and with a better grasp of such matters. Nazim noted
that in Azari and Osmanli (Turkish) tongues the word for fish
roe is “kuru” and fish roe (like khaviar) is also
called “kurusu.”
With neither Fereydoun nor Nazim laying claim to the roots
of khaviar and the Russians sticking to ikra, I was left to
my own devices to offer an explanation.
In my research, I bore in mind that not all etymologies can
find an explanation in the hoity-toity reference books of closeted
pedantic scholars. According to Fereydoun’s point about
anthropology of words, some measure of appreciation for the
artisanal level of language is most useful. Artisanal literacy
or vocabulary is most crude but represents the most sensory
form of contact that there is between a local person and the
subject. So if I wanted to find the meaning of khaviar I had
better seek it in places other than in works of linguists who
peddle in “national” languages.
There is no specie of fish known scientifically as khaviar
per se, so this excluded for me the possibility that the word
may have come from the name of the fish itself. Nor I know
of any language in which the word khaviar is not a synonym
for “fish egg” or roe.
I turned to Dehkhoda and discovered that the word khayeh
(like its synonyms of gand, jand, tokhm, bayzeh, donbalan,
tomalan) could mean seed, testes or egg. This seemed to provide
an adequate basis for the explanation in Encyclopaedia
Iranica.
A fish could well be called “mahi khayeh-dar” (literally
meaning a fish that has eggs). According to Mahmud Kamalzadeh’s “Survey
of the Caspian Sea,” there is, for example, mahi
sefid (white fish) for Rutilus frisii
kutum, tas mahi (bald fish)
for Acipenser guldenstatii, fil mahi (elephant fish) for Huso-huso
or Beluga, gav mahi (cow fish) for Gobius caspius, sag
mahi (dog fish) for Phoca caspia (because its cry sounds like a
puppy’s yelp), ordak mahi (duck fish) for Esox
sucius (because its snout reminds of an duck) and the familiar sturgeon
uzun burun or deraz kul (long nose, snout) for Acipenser
stellatus.
So why not call a fish as “roe fish” other than
there are other fish and far easier to catch than sturgeon
that could have been called as such.
The “scientific” problem with “khayeh-dar” as
the basis for caviar is, philologically speaking, how to explain
the sound “v” in khaviar. I went looking for a
word formation in which “khav” itself was the root.
Looking up “kha” in Dehkhoda I did come across
the word “khayeh-daneh” as the reference for a
testicular or ovarian “bead,” which per Abu Rayhan
Biruni (10th/11th century) meant a kind of large pearl the
size of a hen’s egg. While it might be possible for a
larger roe to be likened poetically to a pearl as to size and
translucence, especially in lighter colors of yellow and whitish
gray, I cannot think of any sturgeonette agreeing by laws of
nature or man to produce a roe the size of a hen’s egg!
In the Gilaki tongue of Gilan, a caviar-- producing province
of northern Iran, the word for fish egg is “ashbol” or “ashpol.” According
to an explanatory note in Massoud Golzari’s edition of
Gregorii Melgunof’s “Travels on the Southern Littoral
of the Caspian Sea,” ashbol is massaged and mixed with
hen’s egg and fried into a cake or patty. In another
preparation, the ashbol-bearing fish is marinated in brine
until the fish and roe become salty; the roe is then consumed
with kateh (boiled rice) without further ado.
 The word “ashbol” is related, I believe, to the
fish of the same name -- ashbaleh (asbaleh) or Silurus
glanis. According to Kamalzadeh, the fish ashbaleh (also asbaleh)
is known in the Mazandaran region as mahi sibili (whiskered
fish) because of the whisker-like extension from its mouth
area. After the Beluga, it is the second largest fish in the
Caspian region and its status as a voracious predator of smaller
fish is rendered all the more efficient by its very large mouth.
It has a relatively tasty flesh and a long ago the abounding
specie especially in winter-time was caught with relative ease
near or in the coastal rivers such as at Fereydounkenar, which
is located on the coast between Babol and Amol. The size of
the fish and ease of catch allowed the fish to enter the diet
of the local population and in the process it became known
as ashboleh mahi (meaning the “roe fish”) for its
bountiful egg output.
There is a huge gap between ashbol and khaviar though, as
is between the charandeh and parandeh.
I begin to focus on the process of preparing fish roe for
human consumption. To help me do this, I divide the word khaviar
into khav and yar and begin to assume that the people who handled
the roe and prepared it for consumption also gave this product
its name. Therefore, the suffix “yar” in khaviar
as in “dar” referred to one associated with (like
ist, eer, or er) the product (noun) or process (verb).
The preparation of caviar -- like ashbol -- involves
massaging and kneading of the roe with salt. As described by
Robert Cullen in his May 1999 article on the Caspian Sea in
National Geographic, when the roe is scooped out of
the fish’s
belly it is placed on top of a nylon screen-sieve. A handler
gently massages the mass of roe and supporting tissue as the
eggs fall through the sieve onto a finer screen. Another handler
takes the strained roe and gently kneads a prescribed amount
of salt into the roe until the appropriate texture is obtained.
I turn to Dehkhoda and identify two possible process-based
roots for “khav,” as in massaging or preparing
ashbol and khaviar. The word “khay” from “kayydan” stands
out; it starts with “kha” and it means “to
soften by means of chewing under one’s teeth.” The
process of massaging and kneading of fish roe being a hand
job, I let this word go. I then come upon the word “khav.” It
means the nap, fold or grain of cloth, which in Farsi we sound
as in the familiar “khab-e parcheh” or a carpet,
meaning the direction in which the fiber sleeps/rests. While
identified mostly with velvet, most fabrics have this quality
and the general term for that in Persian [Tabari, Gilaki] is “khavjiz” and
khavjiz itself is mentioned as a kind of cloth that was produced
and exported from Sari in northern Iran. Eureka!
I believe the “khav” in khaviar would have been
a reference to a cloth of a particular weave that allowed it
to be used as a mesh or screen. The khavjiz was used like “safi” before
metal sieve or screen was invented or made fashionable for
processing roe. Those who handled the fish roe in the sifting
and kneading phase with “khav” or “khavjiz” would
have been called “khav-yar” or “khav-dar.” This,
I submit, is the origin of the word khaviar in Persian and
Turkish and “caviar” in the European languages.
 If memory serves -- and that is big if these days -- somewhere
I have the vague recollection of opening a can of Iranian caviar
in the 1960s and having to unfold four folds of a cloth-like
material (like tanzif: meshed fabric used for sifting) before
exposing the pearly offering. In contrast to this memory, the
image that is stamped vividly in my mind belongs to one summer
day lounging about the swimming pool at Afshin’s summer
place between Shahsavar and Nashtaroud on the Caspian. We sipped
cold drinks and engaged in customary tales of charand and parand.
A few feet away, the oil from the sturgeon flesh dripped onto
the hot coals and the stench of it was rather overbearing.
Inside the pool two rather large sturgeons swam impatiently
wondering perhaps what shall come of them. No doubt, today,
the over-fished sturgeon of the polluted waters of the Caspian
Sea is pondering a similar existential question.
About
Guive Mirfendereski is VP and GC at Virtual Telemetry Corporation
since 2004 and is the artisan doing business as Guy
vanDeresk (trapworks.com).
Born in Tehran in 1952, he is a graduate of Georgetown University's
College of Arts and Sciences (BA),
Tufts University's Fletcher School (PhD, MALD, MA) and Boston
College Law School (JD). He is the author of A
Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea (2001) >>> Features
in iranian.com
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