Çêşt

Çêşt (çāšt)

It has often been explained that the science of etymology differs greatly from consulting dictionaries and merely tracing a word back to a language. Comparative linguistics likewise differs substantially from the use of dictionaries, many of which are unscientific, and from the etymological study of words.

ـ One such word is çêşt.
In Kurdish, çêşt denotes the food used for the principal meals, such as breakfast, lunch, and the evening meal. The form şêw arose from şām and şêw through phonemic change and assimilation of the phone /a/ in the Iranian languages and is used for the evening meal.
ـ Çêşt is food consumed by human beings; Persian uses ghazā, Arabic ta‘ām, and French nourriture. The word çêşt was not derived from the verb çêj; rather, çêj derives from this word. In other words, çêşt existed first, and çêj subsequently emerged.
ـ Çêşt is a Pahlavi word that appears widely across ancient and modern Proto-Iranian languages in the form çāšt and remains in use. In Talysh, Tati, Teni, Tabari, Mazandarani, Khwarazmian, Gilaki, Balochi, Persian, Dari, Pashto, and other languages, it occurs as çāšt. Among central Kurdish varieties, including Sulaymani, Mukri, Sorani, and Kurmanji, assimilation involving the vowel /ê/ produced çêşt. In Kalhori, the appearance of an epenthetic vowel leaves the form çişt. In some Kurmanji varieties, assimilation of /ç/ to /t/ produces têşt. Hawrami uses çêşt and çeşt, although /ş/ often assimilates to /j/ there, yielding çêjt and çejt. Luri and Laki retain çāšt. Etymologically, the word continues Avestan cāsh, kash, chash through Pahlavi and appears as çāšt and chashtan, not çājt or jajtan.
From this word Kurdish derived the infinitive çêştin, meaning “to taste.” At the pragmatic level and within its lexical and morphological structure, it appears in the verbal infinitive çêjan: a person “tastes” a flavour. Kurdish and Persian derived the verbs çêjtin and chashidan from this word. In an effort to distinguish themselves and escape the dominance and ordering of Arabic, an older current of Kurdish linguists resorted to reshaping phones. The assimilation of consonantal /ş/ to /j/ was one such practice, as in waşe, wişe – waje, wijə; meşgheł – mejgheł; çêştin – çêjtin; and keş – kej. This represents a historical process of /ş/ assimilating to /j/. Because the Arabic alphabet lacks the phone /j/, Kurdish assimilated it with /ş/. Persian, drawing on its older linguistic inheritance, did not construct an assimilated phone in the verb but retained its phonetic form on the basis of the word’s diachronic phonology, preserving the verb as chashidan. Kurdish, by contrast, formed the verb as çêjtin. Anyone familiar with etymology and phonology knows that assimilation, erosion, lenition, and incompatibility among phones generally do not create phonemes that change the meaning of a base. Yet phones have often been altered, deleted, or assimilated in unscientific and arbitrary ways. Changing /ş/ to /j/ is one such case. Etymologically the word was çêştin; to protect it from being identified as Arabic, Kurds used the forms çêjt, çêjtin, çêj.

Source: Versin Dictionary

Sabir Zhakaw