First encyclopedic dictionary of the Black Sea released

August 28, 2005

A new work has been just added to the list of the works on Turkey that have been made in recent years including the genres of folklore, travel, monography and encyclopedia. "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Black Sea" by Özhan Öztürk is also a first of its field. Etymological explanations are also given for the articles in the encyclopedic dictionary that is a product of work with both original resources and rather rich bibliographies.

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Blacksea, a source for many answers on the Black Sea region of Anatolia, looks like a work of a great labor. The dictionary is being published by Heyamola Publications and printed only in limited numbers. It can be a scientific resource for those who are interested in the history, culture and folklore of Black Sea.

The author of the encyclopedia evaluates his work of 1260 pages: "'I don’t know why no archeological excavations have been made in the Pontic coast of Anatolia. Querying why no excavations have been made in such a region that has a dense settlement as mentioned in Anabasis of Xenophon (B.C 401) is not the subject of this book. However, undoubtedly it will not be an optimistic experience to see that less excavations have been made here than in Crimea and Colchis. Another interesting and discuss-worthy issue is why a realistic analysis of the original names of villages and quarters, used by the people even after the changes of the names in Republic era, is not been made in works on the region’s culture and history, including studies in Turkish. Limiting myself to cities as Ordu, Giresun, Trabzon, Rize and Artvin, I worked on original words, idioms and toponyms used by Turkish dialect speakers, independent from their native language. I made comparisons with vernaculars from surrounding cities including Samsun, Erzurum and Gümüşhane, Anatolia, and from some surrounding countries. I hope that the comparison of the original toponyms with equivalents from Anatolia, Greece/Hellas, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and other Turkish states could be useful for those interested in regional history, and influential for researchers.'"

While some village names in regions do match with the villages names in Crete and Epirus, no equivalents are found in Anatolia and Northern Hellas. Some village names akin to those in Northern Abkhazia, the motherland of Laz, show remnants of Pelasgi and Thracians, the population of Anatolia and Hellas, prior to the Indo-Europeans. This requires a re-examination not only of Anatolian and regional history, but also of the history of a wider area, ranging from the Caucasus to the Balkans.