թակն

The Armenian translator of Aristotle's De Interpretatione chose to render ἐν τῷ μῦς τὸ υς (en tōî mûs tò us) with ներ թակն ակն (ner tʻakn akn)^[4][5] (see the quotations section). In that passage, Aristotle shows the example of the word μῦς (mûs, “mouse”) in which the portion υς (us) is not significant even though it formally coincides with the significant word ὗς (hûs, “pig”). Understanding Aristotle's point, the Armenian translator adapted the passage to Armenian by substituting the example of ὗς (hûs) in μῦς (mûs) by the Armenian pair ակն (akn, “eye”) in թակն (tʻakn, “mallet”). This is similar to how other translators, ancient and modern, handled the problem: Boethius used rex in sorex for Latin, Probus used ܒܪܐ (brā) in ܥܘܩܒܪܐ (ʿuqbrā) for Syriac, and Ackrill used ice in mice for English.

In an anonymous Armenian commentary on the above passage of De Interpretatione (traditionally but likely incorrectly attributed to Dawitʻ Anyałtʻ), the commentator describes թակն (tʻakn) as a certain kind of animal (see the quotations section). This has led some to posit a homonymous թակն (tʻakn, “some kind of animal”) variously identified as a "mouse", "squirrel" or "shrew".^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Marr even suggested an etymology for it: Old Georgian თაგჳ (tagwi, “mouse”).^[11] However, this "animal" meaning is almost certainly a phantom as explained below.

The commentary was not originally composed in Armenian but rather translated from Greek, adhering to the extremely literal style of the Hellenizing School.^[12] Given that there is no trace of the animal meaning of թակն (tʻakn) outside of this locus and in another, later commentary likely dependent on it, the following is the most probable explanation. The lost Greek original of the Armenian commentary must have discussed Aristotle's μῦς (mûs, “mouse”), naturally referring to it as an animal. Its Armenian translator substituted μῦς (mûs, “mouse”) with the թակն (tʻakn, “mallet”) employed in the Armenian translation of Aristotle itself, leaving the references to the animal even though they did not make sense anymore. Hellenizing translations were not concerned with making sense anyway, being "little more than the Greek written with Armenian words,"^[13] as put be Conybeare.

An even more bizarre ghost word is ներթակն (nertʻakn, “rat”) found first in Kʻaǰuni's dictionary,^[14][15] whence it spread to a few other dictionaries^{[16][17][18][19]} and even received a serious etymology attempt.^[20] It arose from misunderstanding ներթակն ակն (nertʻakn akn), a variant reading of ներ թակն ակն (ner tʻakn akn, “in mallet eye”) discussed above, where the preposition ներ (ner, “in”) calquing Ancient Greek ἐν (en) is written attached to the next word, as is common in the Armenian translation of De Interpretatione which has formations like ներձայնոջքն (nerjaynoǰkʻn), ներանձինցն (neranjincʻn).