Talk:Sayat-Nova

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by WikiProject Musicians, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed biographical guide to musicians and musical groups on Wikipedia.

	Armenia Portal Sayat-Nova is within the scope of WikiProject Armenia, an attempt to better improve and organize information in articles related or pertaining to Armenia and Armenians. If you would like to contribute or collaborate, you could edit the article attached to this page or visit the project page for further information.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.

[edit] Language

"The color of Pomegranates" is not a "biopic" - a fact that is expressly indicated by the narration at the beginning of the film.

Encyclopedia Britanica is clear that Sayat Nova has written most of his songs in Azerbaijani, where as the article convays otherwise.

Most of his extant songs are in Azeri Turkish; the rest are in Armenian and Georgian.[1]

--Mehrdad 16:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

In addition to that:

"Sayat-Nova composed verse in Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, and Persian (one of his most famous poems moves between all four). The majority of his surviving ballads are in Azeri, which was the lingua franca of the Caucasus at the time." Tom de Waal. Black Garden, page 80.

This is also going into the article. VartanM, please be kind to check the discussion pages before making controversial edits. Parishan (talk) 21:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion Parishan, and how does coping Persian and presenting it as Azerbaijani help you position? VartanM (talk) 23:20, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how removing as many references to Azeri as possible is an argument. At first, your rationale for removing Azeri was that "there is was no Azeri back then", but the sources presented here indicate otherwise. Now you are removing it claiming it is "copying Persian" when in fact Azeri just happened to use the same script as Persian and given that most of Sayat-Nova's surviving works are in Azeri, it must be mentioned above Persian.

And, Vartan, I just want you to know that your systematic removal of Azerbaijan-related information under POV premises is not a helpful contribution to Wikipedia. I would ask that you assume good faith. Parishan (talk) 01:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all you're the one who needs to AGF and stop the baseless accusations. Second of all saying "Azeri and Persian used the same script" means that there was no Azerbaijani language. I don't see the logic in coping and repeating the same thing twice, when Persian is already provided. VartanM (talk) 01:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

My accusations are not baseless. Your deliberate removal of references to Azeri is more obvious than you think. You didn't even remember why you removed the Azeri name the first time. You also removed the word Azeri from the article replacing it with Turkic despite the source's use of the word Azeri. You didn't even care enough to direct the word Turkic to a language article, let alone directing it to Azerbaijani language to at least implicitly indicate that Sayat-Nova's "Turkic" is identical to today's Azeri. "Second of all saying "Azeri and Persian used the same script" means that there was no Azerbaijani language" - this is illogical. Who said the existence of a language is defined by its use of a unique script? If Ivan Petrov is spelled in the same way in English and French, it doesn't mean the English language exists and French doesn't. It just means they both use the same script and happen to spell the same name in the same manner. Parishan (talk) 02:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You're awfully confrontive lately Parishan. Cool down a little. It's still a redundancy of having the same script repeat the same name twice. -- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 18:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Redundancy is not an apt argument to remove every trace of the word Azeri and Azerbaijan from the article. It looks to me like Vartan was pursuing that very goal: [2], despite the fact that the source did use the word Azeri. Parishan (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I have already asked you nicely to AGF, all I got in return was whole bunch of baseless accusations. Would you PLEASE!!! Assume good faith? Next time I’m reporting you. If you have to provide a source do so, but not De Waal, we’ve been through this many times, since on various occasions editors had only De Waal to provide as a single source, many of his positions were fringe and not worthy of inclusion. Since when did journalists opinions became a reliable source? A Language is the composition of dialects and written transmission. Even if you were to prove such a language existed to begin with, different than the Turkman, this still does not justify your persistent additions where Azeri term would not normally fit. What value does modern Azeri alphabet has here? Sayat Nova never written anything in modern Azeri. Have you ever addressed this? You answered me with a load of bad faith assumptions. He is an Armenian who was born in Tiflis, neither where he was born nor his ethnicity justify your addition. How was he writing his name in his Turkic writings? How his name was written in Turkic writings? On both account, it was Persian. If you have any proof of a distinct way it was written in Turkic please provide a source or else it is legitimate that we delete that. We don’t add foreign names for the sake of it. VartanM (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

As for Azeri, his writings were considered as Turkish from other sources. (eg. [3]) And even your sources calls it Azeri Turkish, they do not consider it as a distinct Azeri language, but Turkish of Azerbaijan. His father was from the Ottoman Empire. VartanM (talk) 20:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Vartan, why are you making threats? How exactly did I insult you? I am just sharing my opinion following my observations of your activity in this article. I believe I have reasons to doubt that the deletion of every mentionning of the Azeri language and Azerbaijan in one single edit, contrary to the presented sources, under the POV premise that "there was no Azeri back then" and later that "if Azeri and Persian used the same script, it means there was no Azeri" resulted from some kind of misunderstanding or was purely coincidental.

"In any case, early 1758 seems to have been a time of feverish activity on the part of Sayat-Nova in the Azeri field. Although one cannot be sure, since Azeri was the lingua franca of the Caucasus and well understood at the Georgian court, it is possible that Sayat-Nova performed his songs in this language in public, in and outside Tiflis and T'elavi <...> The 1758 Azeri poems are mainly didactic ogut'lama (öyüdlämä) but there are four fairly conventional songs."

Dowsett C. J. F. Sayat-Nova. Peeters Publishers. 1996. p.173. ISBN 9068317954

"Sayat'-Nova devoted another poem to Surb Karapet, written half in Azeri and half in Armenian. The poem is a mukhammaz, composed of stanzas of five verses. In the first stanza each first half-line is in Azeri, each second one is in Armenian, while in the following four stanzas only the fifth verse starts with a half-verse in Azeri, the four others starting in Armenian. It relates the facts about John the Baptist, well known from the gospel, in accordance with Sayat'-Nova's habit, it would seem of dealing with Christian topics in his Azeri poems."

Jan J. Ginkel, Hendrika Lena Murre-van den Berg, Theo Maarten van Lint. Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural interaction in the Middle East since the Rise of Islam. Peeters Publishers. 2005. p.356. ISBN 9042914181

"Among the classical representatives of this art (one of the world's greatest masters of 'sound-painting' according to the poet Valery Bryusov) was Sayat'-Nova (Arut'in Sayadyan, 1717–95) <...> He composed in Georgian and Azerbaijani as well as Armenian."

Stanley Sadie. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Macmillan ; Grove's Dictionaries of Music [etc.]. 1980. p.343. ISBN 0333231112

I am not going to prove to you that that was the exact way Sayat-Nova spelled his name in Azeri. It is like asking me to prove that Ivan Susanin spelled his name in Russian as Иван Сусанин. There is only one way to spell his name in Azeri using the Arabic script and it is in the article. The modern Azeri spelling was provided because literal Azeri does not use the Arabic script any more. In the article about Sultan Selim I we see both the Ottoman Turkish and modern Turkish spellings provided, even though I am pretty sure Selim I did not use Roman letters to write in Turkish. Finally, Azeri must be given more credit than Persian and Georgian, since Sayat-Nova's surviving songs are mostly in Azeri. Knowing this fact, how can one be saying 'We don’t add foreign names for the sake of it'? Parishan (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this entire alphabet talk at all. Do we spell pre-1917 Russian names in old Russian script? If not, why cannot we use modern Azerbaijani alphabet, after all that was the language Sayat-Nova wrote most of his poetry in? Grandmaster (talk) 18:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"that was the language Sayat-Nova wrote most of his poetry in": thats not true, Grandmaster. Only one source, pro-Azeri non-specialist journalist de Waal says most part of "survived poems", and then no any reliable research on Sayat-Nova proving your words. Lets to not misinterprete even the unreliable sources! Andranikpasha (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

From the surviving works 130 are in Turkish of Azerbaijan, about 120 in Georgian and 70 in Armenian, few in Persian or Arabic. Of these the Azerbaijani Turkish ones, are written in Georgian and Armenian with a lot of Armenian and Georgian words and phrases mixed in. If this can be sourced and implemented the dispute over how much of hsi works survoved in what language should simmer down. The current language in the article is ambiguous. CJ F Dowsett has an entire book dedicated to Sayat Nova btw.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 21:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Dowsett, among others, calls it Azeri. Being a neutral and well-educated scholar, he does not question the fact that "Azerbaijani Turkish" is an alternative name for the Azerbaijani language, and doesn't mean "the (Anatolian) Turkish spoken in Azerbaijan." The excerpts are presented above. Parishan (talk) 03:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)