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Revision as of 03:05, 2 May 2005

If there's any debate about the nature of the British Ahwazi group, perhaps we should create a page for the organization and lay out the arguments for both sides, instead of trying to delete links or add editorial comments.

I Agree.--Zereshk 23:21, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Zora,

We agreed to have a separate page for the Ahwazi separatist debate. We will then paste all your favorite pro-Ahwazi links there.

I dont know why you insist on pasting those links here. You dont have any clue to our history, just as I dont know anything (or care) about the 25 Hindi and Bengali separatist groups of India.

If you feel you sympathize so much with the cause of "Al-Ahwazi" separatists, please go ahead and contribute to the page The Al-Ahwazi separatism debate like we agreed to, instead of reporting me to your buddy administrators.--Zereshk 21:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I care when people are being oppressed, no matter who they are. I don't agree with separatists of any kind -- or nationalists of any kind. IMHO, nationalism is a nasty primate attitude that we should learn to transcend. Thus I'm unlikely to "sympathize" with people trying get their way through violence. However, I think we ought to tell it like it is, rather than pretend that unpleasant things don't exist. Zora 22:52, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

1. We can "tell it as it is", by making a special page for it, instead of dragging the debate to the Ahvaz page itself. Im OK with the Ethnic conflict in Khuzestan link you posted.
2. Im not OK with the section on the "origin of the name Ahvaz" that you have almost blanked out to 3 to 4 sentences. That information is very pertinent.
3. Arabs arent the only people in Iran who are having it rough. Iran's prisons of political dissidents are almost entirely filled up with Persians. Scenes like this are quite ubiquitous in the heartland of Persia. Some people are however trying to fish out of muddy waters, and that's not cool.--Zereshk 00:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I've written an Ethnic conflict in Khuzestan page.

As for the etymological analyses -- the writing in the section was extremely confusing, randomly jumping round the centuries. Citations from medieval etymologists are suspect, given that etymology (East, West, anywhere) used to be a matter of "Well, they sound similar to ME, I see a link". You can get from anywhere to anywhere by that method. Modern etymologists are much stricter in their methods. In fact, I'm thinking that the section should be cut down even further, eliminating the Elamite etymology, which is unsourced, and many of the alleged city names. I found citations only for Tarieana, Hormuzd-Ardashir, Suq-al-Ahwazi, Nazeiri, and Ahvaz (which I presume is the Persianized form of Ahwaz). Attempts to argue that Ahwaz/Ahvaz is actually a Persian name strike me as nationalist fantasies. The origin of the name, if it is Arab, doesn't alter the fact that the city seems to have been founded by people who were arguably "Persian" and that the city has been part of Persia for much -- but not all -- of its history.

I'd defer, of course, to any properly sourced citations from modern etymologists. Lacking those, cutting out the debatable material seems like the only honest course. Zora 01:27, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Reply to Zora. Ahvaz IS Iranian.

I will now debate you, not as a westerner, but as an Iranian who speaks the southern dialects prevalent in territories claimed by al-Ahwaz, where I was born, and as a native tongue.

• You said: Citations from medieval etymologists are suspect, given that etymology (East, West, anywhere) used to be a matter of "Well, they sound similar to ME, I see a link". You can get from anywhere to anywhere by that method. Modern etymologists are much stricter in their methods.

1. Modern etymologists being more strict doesnt make the medieval ones wrong.
2. Modern etymologists in fact base their conclusions on the collection of medieval accounts and studies. Without them, there is nothing to study.

• You said: In fact, I'm thinking that the section should be cut down even further, eliminating the Elamite etymology, which is unsourced.

It is far from that in fact. I can give you as many sources as you like. That you dont find them acceptable is simply your POV.

If you studied Old Persian, you would realise that the cuneiform used was not an alphabet, but a cross between an abjad and a syllabary. U-W-J, also U-W-J-I-Y, U-J, U-J-I-Y is read /Hūjiya/; R. Kent (1953) writes that it appears incessantly in the cuneiform inscriptions, which explicitly equals "(h)altamti, (h)alamti". he also notes that the early middle persian form of the same word as /xuuź/, which appears in the arab traveler's writings when describing xuuzii - the language or dialect of xuuz. with the usual ethnonymic addition of the ezade and -staan, c.f. siistaan 'saka-land' etc., we get modern persian Khouzestan /xuz-e stan/. The index of Kent lists UVJ as Elam, but also lists in the *dictionary* section Hū(w)jiya "'Elamite, Susian'; derivation of preceding"; the preceding being Hū(w)ja "'Elam, Susiana', a province of the persian empire; also as ethnic, 'Elamite, Susian': Elam. hal-tam-tu, Akk. e-lam-mat, cf. MPers. Huź".

• You said: Ahvaz (which I presume is the Persianized form of Ahwaz).

Your presumption is simply and firmly incorrect. It's the other way around. Would you like me to give you another analysis for that?

• You said: Attempts to argue that Ahwaz/Ahvaz is actually a Persian name strike me as nationalist fantasies.

The facts remain however, in spite of your opinion. The text you deleted is in fact derived from the publication of The Khuzestan Office of The Governor, held by Arabs by the way. I can give you Arabic citations for that.

• You said: the city seems to have been founded by people who were arguably "Persian".

Not "arguably". But Factually. There are more archeological ruins in Khuzestan proving this than you can muster. The entire region was in fact Persian until the conquests. And the Persians never moved out. The Arabs came in.

• You said: and that the city has been part of Persia for much -- but not all -- of its history.

I'm curious, can you give me relaible sources for this claim? This is one example of a day-light fallacy.

• You said: I'd defer, of course, to any properly sourced citations from modern etymologists. Lacking those, cutting out the debatable material seems like the only honest course.

Granted.

Resources I have (grabbing randomly from the top of the pile): Khačikjan Margaret (1998): Elamite Language. Deshpande & Hook eds. (1979): Aryan & Non-Aryan in India (article: McAlpin, "Linguistic Prehistory: The Dravidian Situation"). Webber & Belcher (eds.) (2003): Indus Ethnobiology: New Perspectives from the Field. Hole Frank (1987): The Archaeology of Western Iran: Settlement & Society from Prehistory to the Islamic Conquest (Smithsonian Series in Archaeological Inquiry).

I hope those will allay any concern you have over my resources.

Also,

Whereas your arguments simply have no academic merit, I'm putting back the section. --Zereshk 02:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Your insistence on seeing "Persianness" millenia into the past is the usual nationalistic distortion of history. I imagine that if you were sent in a time machine back to ancient Elam that you'd find it completely alien. What are the salient features of "Persianness"? What makes the Elamites Persian? That's why I said that they were "arguably" Persian -- it's a debatable point.

As to the region ALWAYS being Persian -- well, centuries of Arab rule rather counts against that, unless you've managed to convince yourself that the Ummayads and Abbasids sere Persians.

Several of the books you've cited have nothing to do with Hormuzd-Ardashir/Ahvaz. India? Dravidians? The fact that you have a book about the Elamite language doesn't prove that the derivation of Ahvaz from Ooksin is plausible, unless you cite something to that effect from the book. Ditto the archaeology book. Does it discuss the etymology of Ahvaz? I'll give way happily to the experts.

The quotes you give above re UWJ - xuuzi - Khuzi seem like a plausible etymology for Khuzestan. (Not that I could really tell without knowing the historical sound shift patterns.) But I fail to see any connection between Ahvaz/Ahwaz and Khuzi. It's Ahvaz that's in question, not Khuzi.

As to accepting medieval etymologies -- one has to distinguish between a dated citation showing that a city name was in use at a particular time, and a pre-scientific etymology, which is always a guess to be proven by more scientific methods. Linguists will always accept citations, and may choose to investigate pre-scientific etymological theories. But they may not. I have a number of older sources re Polynesia. One hundred years ago, authors who knew very little about the subject felt quite free to speculate about the derivation of Polynesian words and place names. No one even BOTHERS with Fornander and Reiter's etymologies any longer; they're just too bogus. You haven't shown that your medieval writers are any more trustworthy.

You've restored the section in all its garbled English glory. I'll let it sit for a day or two while I figure out what to do. Right now, I'll just point out that you seem to have misused the word "anagram". Perhaps you meant "acronym"? Do you have any evidence that the ancients used anagrams or acronyms to name their cities? I'm wondering if you may be thinking of modern terms like SF and LA, and extrapolating into the past. But without some citation of intermediate forms, it's just speculation.

The earliest use of an acronym that I know (just off the top of my head) was the Christian uses of the fish (ichthys in Greek) as a Christian symbol, because it stood for something like (Iesu Christo ... I forget the rest). But that was in the context of persecution, and picking a 'secret sign'. Zora 03:04, 2 May 2005 (UTC)