Sharing Hayat/Χαγιάτι: An Open Dictionary of the Common Greek+ Turkish Words in Architecture and Construction
حَيَاة(hajat) (Arabic): From Arabic حَيَاة (ḥayāh). 1. Life 2. The courtyard surrounded by walls, but the main door exists out of these courtyard. It is rooted in Arabic hayt or hita ‘حيط/حيطة z’ meaning surrounding sides, to protect and hide.
hayat (Turkish): 1. Being alive. 2. Life. 3. The way of living, the lived conditions. 4. Occupation. 5. All of the conditions to live on. 6. The action which shows signs of being alive. 7. Destiny. 8. Someone’s biography. 9. Mostly in vernacular architecture, one or more sides enclosed space.
χαγιάτι το [xajáti] (Greek): in folk architecture, a covered balcony open or closed by glass windows, located on the front of the house and an extension of its interior. [turk. hayat `covered yard (from Arabic)]
The borders of countries have been shaped throughout history and they have been acting an important role in the lives of people in the circumstances of globalised capital economy. However, architecture is more than the issues of borders and nations. Architecture emerges within time and the architectures are traveling around geographies, transformed and translated in different contexts. In this research, we attempted to understand the interaction in architecture and construction, through tracing the common words in Greek and Turkish language. And the project is enhanced through sharing it on-line for interaction.
The ‘open dictionary’ project has two main aims. Firstly, the mutual words of two languages are not commonly used, they have been replaced with other words in Greek Modern Language. Thus, a knowledge about a shared life has been getting lost in time. And not only the dictionaries, but also the people would be an important source to develop the dictionary. Secondly, since the knowledge of common words carry a capacity of interpreting the history and the history of architecture, it becomes significant to document these words. Because it could be claimed that the journey of the words reflects also the transformation and translation of architectures, so to speak the spatial cultures of communities. Within these aims, dealing with the journeys of the words, the term of ‘hayat’ which means ‘life’ in many languages and means only ‘courtyard or living room’ in Greek language is detected. And it became the title and main motivation of the project.
A word is not just a term, but it is a logic (logos) of how people lived. The research of terms shows that architecture has a strong relation and similarity with linguistics. Indeed, it is complicated and multilayered to discover the roots of the words and why and how they were used. Because they could be adapted into life through transformation by the society in time and/or in different places. Similarly to linguistics, Quatremére De Quincy interpreted the issue of original roots of architecture in a different and speculative way. According to Quatremére architecture(s) had multiple roots and it was related with origin theory of society. His emphasise on the notion of society was on the transforming of types into a sophisticated architecture(s). This creative transformation resembled the development of language, because the act of expressing itself or the act of building were both human’s social, operative and reasonable processes and they both had multi origins.
Quatremére’s theory emerged during French Revolution and the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. These two important events led theoreticians question the society within the politics and the invention of Egyptian architecture led a critic raise about the chronology and hegemony between the Roman roots and the other possible roots such as Chinese and Egyptian. Therefore, his theory suggested a shared life which had been exceeding not only the borders of the nations, but also the separation between East and West. His archeological invention which is the similarity in the reason behind socially constituted language and socially constituted architecture, influenced the architectural theory at the end of 18th and in the beginning of 19th centuries. As Lavin (1992) quoted from Quatremére’s own expression:
It is extremely important and I will not stop repeating this point that if the language of architecture is to have value, if its signs are to be understood and are to have the effect of which they are capable, … if these signs are to say something, they must not be used to say nothing.
Relating linguistic with architecture, it is possible to define architecture as a nationless and borderless universal grammar. Esra Akcan (2012) concentrates on the relation between linguistic and architecture, specifically through the translation of spatial culture. According to Akcan, translation is a multicultural exchange which also creates a potential of dialogues between countries (p.7). ‘Hayat' is a lively example of this grasp of history as a history of translation. Up till the 20th century, it was a major type of the organisation of life in the local house. Throughout the Turko-Balkan-Arab-Greek-Ottoman worlds, it could be manifested that ‘hayat’ defined similarities in the way of living. Although it has many types in each countries, in a general grasp, it is a public area in the privacy of a home. It is surrounded by walls, therefore semi-open or closed, for the climatic and privacy relations. Due to its type, it is where the domestic work is done collectively by the family or where to entertain guests.
It is not possible to divide architecture and construction, ‘how’ is also as important as ‘what’ in a grasp of the art of building. Through listing the common words, it could be seen that not only the translation of spatial culture such as ‘Hayat’, but also ‘the labor’ and ‘technical tools’ in building culture is salient. It is evident that there was also a collective work of building which was shaped around mutual signs and sounds. Therefore this dictionary doesn’t include only the terms of architecture, but also the terms of construction. Besides, most of the words specific to construction are not commonly in use in Greek Modern Language and that gives the words of construction another unique character for this project in terms of documenting a shared life.
Methodology
The research has started to analyse three dictionaries word by word.
1- ΛΥΧΝΟΣ, Εκδότης. (1983). Λεξικο των λαικων τεχνικων ορων της οικοδομικης.
2- Αγγελική Ι. Τριανταφύλλου. (2014). H μαστορική ορολογία της οικοδομικής.
3- Hasol, Doğan. (2003/2016) Dictionary of Architecture and Building, Istanbul: YEM.
This project doesn’t intent to group the words due to their specific origins, but rather it intents to represent the mutuality of the words amongst both languages with a brief consideration of their possible etymologies. Listing the words, four different types of words could be seen in the dictionary:
1- Greek Words: The words which are invented in Greek and used both in Greek and Turkish Architecture and Construction.
2- Turkish Words: The words which are invented in Turkish and used both in Greek and Turkish Architecture and Construction.
3- Remembered Turkish Words: The words which are invented in Turkish and used both in Greek and Turkish architecture and construction. But do not exist in Greek e-dictionary and considered as low-status words. (These words are signed by x).
4- Other Common Words: The words that are invented in another language, such as Arabic, Persian, Italian or French and being used both in Greek and Turkish Architecture and Construction.
Bibliography
Akcan, E., (2012) Architecture in translation : Germany, Turkey, and the modern house, Durham: Duke University Press.
Αγγελική Ι. Τριανταφύλλου. (2014). H μαστορική ορολογία της οικοδομικής.
ΛΥΧΝΟΣ, Εκδότης. (1983). Λεξικο των λαικων τεχνικων ορων της οικοδομικης.
Hasol, Doğan. (2003/2016) Dictionary of Architecture and Building, Istanbul: YEM.
Jayyusi, S. K. (2008). The city in the Islamic World. Boston, MA: Brill.
Sylvia Lavin, (1992) Quatremére De Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: The MIT Press, p.18.
Online Sources, e-dictionaries:
http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/modern_greek/tools/lexica/triantafyllides/search.html?lq=
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_and_Latin_roots_in_English
Informal Turkish&Greek Common Words’ Lists:
https://forum.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?t=19981
http://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/%7Esadi/bilgi/turkce-yunanca.html
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/25/common-words-in-the-greek-and-turkish-language/