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MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
kayak
An English borrowing recorded in 1757 from Inuit qayaq, the name of the Indigenous Arctic watercraft; the reviewed English source does not identify one specific Inuit language variety.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
kayık
The Turkish word for a small boat, continued from Old Turkic kayguk and analyzed within an internal Turkic history rather than the Inuit qayaq family.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗noundossier summary
qajaq
The Greenlandic word for a kayak, part of an Inuit and Proto-Eskimo word family whose history is independent of the nearly identical Turkish boat word kayık.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗024
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
●
Present-Day English / Indo-European
kayak
a narrow pointed boat propelled by a double-bladed paddle
- DATE
- 1757–today
- MATCH
- exact historical form
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Proto-Eskimo / Eskimo-Aleut
*qan-yaq
reconstructed kayak formation
- DATE
- Proto-Eskimo reconstruction
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 2
Greenlandic / Eskimo-Aleut
qajaq
kayak; traditional narrow hunting and travel craft
- DATE
- Greenlandic record–today
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
Inuit source (variety unspecified) / Eskimo-Aleut
qayaq
kayak; traditional narrow skin-covered watercraft
- DATE
- Inuit source form; variety unspecified
- MATCH
- gloss
- DOSSIERS
- 1
034
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 2
openprobableexact word
Can the English donor be narrowed to one Inuit language?
Not from the reviewed English etymology. It gives only Inuit qayaq. Official Greenlandic qajaq evidence proves a related living form, not that Greenlandic was uniquely the immediate donor.
openprobableposition text
Was Greenlandic qajaq the unique direct donor of English kayak?
The reviewed English etymology says only Inuit qayaq. Greenlandic qajaq proves a living related form, but not one uniquely identified borrowing event.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 2
RANK 200GRADE A-exact ranked word
The recreation word is a retained Indigenous Arctic boat name.
English kayak comes from Inuit qayaq. The broad source label is real evidence; assigning one exact Inuit donor variety would go beyond it.
RANK 77GRADE Aranked reveal
Same sound, same object, different ancestry.
Turkish kayık reaches Old Turkic kayguk; kayak reaches Inuit qayaq. Their uncanny agreement is chance resemblance, not evidence of contact or a common root.
042
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
053
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
English lexicographic first-use record for kayak
kayak / kayak / 1757
Kayak — Word Historyexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk record discussed by Alonso de la Fuente
kayguk / kayık / 11th-century kayguk report
Urban legends: Turkish kayık “boat” and “Eskimo” qayaq “kayak”reporting source / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexical corpus record
Qajaq. Inoqarfinni tamani
qajaq / qajaq / 1987 qajaq terminology record
Qajaq-termswitness excerpt / OPEN RECORD ↗06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.