Bedros Keresteciyan ( hy, Պետրոս Քերեսթեճեան, 1840 – 27 February 1909) was an

Ottoman Armenian Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (or Ottoman Armenians) mostly belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. They were part of the Armenian millet until the Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century equa ...

linguist, journalist, translator, and writer of the first etymology dictionary of the

Turkish language Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant sma ...

.Silvart Malhasyan, "İstanbul'da 1922 Yılında Kurulan Türk-Ermeni Teali Cemiyeti ve Faaliyetleri", İ.Ü. Atatürk İlkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü, İstanbul 2005.

Life

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

descent, Bedros Keresteciyan was born in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

to a family from

Kayseri Kayseri (; el, Καισάρεια) is a large Industrialisation, industrialised List of cities in Turkey, city in Central Anatolia, Turkey, and the capital of Kayseri Province, Kayseri province. The Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality area is comp ...

. His father Krikor was a lumberjack thus giving the last name "Keresteciyan" meaning lumberjack. Bedros attended the Besiktas Armenian Sibyan school. He then moved to Izmir where he attended the local Mesrobian Armenian School and later attended the local English school. After his studies in Turkey, Bedros continued his studies abroad in Paris. He moved to England where he studied and learned Italian. When returning to Turkey, Bedros became the manager of the External Communications office until 1880. A

hyperpolyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

in 10 languages and a specialist in financial and economic affairs, Bedros Keresteciyan taught his nephew Berç Keresteciyan in these fields. He became the head journalist of the Tercuman-i Ahval newspaper. He then became manager of the Translations Office of the Finance Ministry until his death in 1907.

Work

In London in 1891, Bedros Keresteciyan's ''Glanures étymologiques des mots francais: d'origine inconnue ou douteuse'', a book on French word origins was published. In 1900, Keresteciyan published a Turkish-French dictionary. With the help of his nephew Haig, his ''Quelques matériaux pour un dictionnaire etymologique de la langue Turque'' was published posthumously in 1912 in London and is considered the first etymology dictionary of the Turkish language. Also published posthumously in 1945 was his ''Philological and lexicographical study of 6000 words and names Armenian comparisons with 100,000 words, 900 languages, and historical and geographical data'' which examined the word origins of the

Armenian language Armenian ( classical: , reformed: , , ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is the official language of Armenia. Historically spoken in the Armenian Highlands, today Armenian is widely spoken t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keresteciyan, Bedros Ethnic Armenian translators Armenian lexicographers Armenians from the Ottoman Empire Linguists from the Ottoman Empire 19th-century journalists from the Ottoman Empire 1840 births 1907 deaths 19th-century translators 19th-century lexicographers