Talk:Bey

Deletion
"Bey is a common Turkish surname." This apparently harmless statement has been deleted, whether knowledgeably or as another of those opaque Turkic "issues" I can't tell. (Is it Albanian or something?) I don't have an Istanbul phonebook. The Turkish Wikipedia returns 24 hits for "bey" out of 2012 articles. I'm at a loss. Can someone help out? --Wetman 12:05, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

bey is the most common used title like MR. in English, I have never heard of it as a surname becouse it is used after the name like Mehmet Bey, Osman Bey, so if is was used as a surname it would be really odd.

Bahamian pronunciation of "boy"
I moved this here, without editing: "*Bey used in The Bahamas a common slang used to replace the word boy. Often ended at the end of sentences similarly to the way "dude" is used 24.244.133.152 17:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC) Oscar Moore" --Wetman 02:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica
BEY (a modern Turk. word, the older form being beg, cf. Pers. baig), the administrator of a district, now generally an honorific title throughout the Turkish empire; the granting of this in Egypt is made by the sultan of Turkey through the khedive. In Tunis "bey" has become the hereditary title of the reigning sovereigns (see Tunisia).--3210 16:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe that in modern "Soveriegn Movements" and the "Moorish" movement that many men add the name "Bey" to their name to declare themselves as belonging to that movement, and as a personal expression (as they consider themselves under the power of no other Principality but themselves).

(You can look it up... I've met "Moorish" representative in Court, but they do not have licenses to practice law and Judges tell them to sit down, but they insist that the U.S. Constitution allows them certain things that "Constitutional Law", however, does NOT grant them (i.e. ability to represent an individual or give legal advise).

The 1911 Edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica about Yuruks, Kailars Turks beys and Konariotes
see link

The first Turkish immigration from Asia Minor took place under the Byzantine emperors before the conquest of the country. The first purely Turkish town, Yenije-Vardar, was founded on the ruins of Vardar in 1362. After the capture of Salonica (1430), a strong Turkish population was settled in the city, and similar colonies were founded in Monastir, Ochrida, Serres, Drama and other important places. In many of these towns half or more of the population is still Turkish. A series of military colonies were subsequently established at various points of strategic importance along the principal lines of communication. Before 1360 large numbers of nomad shepherds, or Yuruks, from the district of Konya, in Asia Minor, had settled in the country; their descendants are still known as Konariotes. Further immigration from this region took place from time to time up to the middle of the 18th century. After the establishment of the feudal system in 1397 many of the Seljuk noble families came over from Asia Minor; their descendants may be recognized among the beys or Moslem landowners in southern Macedonia . At the beginning of the 18th century the Turkish population was very considerable, but since that time it has continuously decreased. A low birth rate, the exhaustion of the male population by military service, and great mortality from epidemics, against which Moslem fatalism takes no pre-cautions, have brought about a decline which has latterly been hastened by emigration

The Turkish rural population is found in three principal groups:
 * the most easterly extends from the Mesta to Drama, Pravishta and Orfano, reaching the sea-coast on either side of Kavala, which is partly Turkish, partly Greek.
 * The second, or central group begins on the sea-coast, a little west of the mouth of the Strymon, where a Greek population intervenes, and extends to the north-west along the Kara-Dagh and Belasitza ranges in the direction of Strumnitza, Veles, Shtip and Radovisht.
 * The third, or southern, group is centred around Kailar, an entirely Turkish town, and extends from Lake Ostrovo to Selfije (Servia). The second and third groups are mainly composed of Konariot shepherds. Besides these fairly compact settlements there are numerous isolated Turkish colonies in various parts of the country. The Turkish rural population is quiet, sober and orderly, presenting some of the best characteristics of the race. Apostolos Margaritis 10:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)--3210 22:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Spelling of Efendi
Though Effendi is a common spelling, for different reasons of which none is relevant to the Turkish /Turkic spelling, the only correct orthography since Turkish have been romanized is efendi. Korenyuk 18:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Bey
Hi Korenyuk, I think you misconceived something. Bayan is not the feminine equivalent of Bey. Bey's feminine counterpart is Hanım and Bay's feminine counterpart is Bayan. Bey or Hanım always comes after the name, and contrarily Bay or Bayan always comes before the name. Although Bey and Bay share the same origin, we make a clear distinction between them. In this case your comparison in the article becomes wrong. Any comments welcome! Chapultepec 22:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved from article for discussion
I am dubious about these items, which I have moved here from the body of the article. Would anyone care to justify them? In any case I'd suggest they need a reliable source. Man vyi (talk) 13:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Bey Robbins, leader of Team Bey in New York City, established c. 2006. Other members are Busty Johnson, Hi David Feygin and Dantee Hyman
 * In some Cajun cultures, "Bey" is just a common household name that parents will call their child, a nickname. Example, Sean "Bey" Elliot (the BMW driver).
 * The title is still used in the southwest of England as a term of endearment.

plzz.. Beyzada removed
plz.. removed beyzada redirect... 18:43, 31 Aug 2012 User:Beypeople

POV
I have removed a POV section claiming that there are scholars claiming a derivation of "beg" from "baj". Three sources were attached to this claim:
 * “*bēǯu.” in Sergei Starostin, Vladimir Dybo, Oleg Mudrak (2003), Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers
 * Ranko Matasović, Ljiljana Jojić, Vladimir Anić et al., eds. (2004), Hrvatski enciklopedijski rječnik (in Croatian) 2 (2nd ed.), Zagreb: Jutarnji list, ISBN 953-6045-28-1
 * Petar Skok (1988), Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (in Croatian) 1, Zagreb: JAZU, pp. 104–105

Three sources in Croatian (!) and not a single one of them actually hinting to a connection of "beg" and "baj" ([sic!]; the word is pronunced "bai"), but simply explaining the meaning of "baj". If this is a serious claim, there should be no difficulty in finding a scholarly English publication. As for the word "bai" itself, it is generally agreed that it's also a loan-word from Iranian, in fact from the same Indo-European source: *bhag-. See Iranica: "Turkish took the title bäg, beg, and later bey; in early Turkish in Brāhmī script it was bhek, and in Byzantine Greek the Khazar title was written mékh. The form bägräk occurs in a Turfan Manichean source. In Arabic script the Turkish title was bag, baḵ, and bāk. ... Through connection with “possessions” the Iranian bāy gave Turkish bai “rich,” whence Mongol bayan “rich.”" (Harold Walter Bailey in Baga, Encyclopaedia Iranica). --Lysozym (talk) 11:52, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks like you were not able to decode even the ToB source properly. The introduced source in Croation still exists in the text, so what exactly was your point here? That sources in non-English languages are of lower quality, but not if they support Iranic Point Of Views? And where exactly did you see a difference between "to posses" and "to be rich"? And if you go by this extraordinary strange logic why didn't you reverted the entire edit? And last but not least, Iranica is mentioned in the text (as every other academic source has the right to be). So if you intend to downplay any Turkic connotations here, you are out of place. There are left too many questions in your doubtful allegations, hence there was no serious reason to revert. Edit should be maintained. --Etymologias (talk) 08:22, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * A long answer, but not a single proof for your claim. It is absolutely clear that you are not only pushing for POV, but that you are also falsifying sources. The sources in Croatian simply explain the meaning of "bai" (which you also misspelled as "baj", using the Croatian transliteration), but make no claims about "beg" being derived from "bai".
 * If your claims were not POV and were a serious claim, you would have absolutely no difficulty in finding a proper scholarly publication in English.
 * As for Iranica: it is an authoritative scholarly reference work. To disprove Iranica or to add to it, you need to come up with excellent scholarly publications. So, what can you tell about the authors in Croatian?!
 * Wikipedia is about the quality of sources. Either you come up with an excellent scholarly work (ideally published in English), or you leave this site alone and stop pushing your unscholastic and unencyclopedic POV. Read WP:SOURCE before further destroying this article. It is clearly stated: When quoting a non-English source (whether in the main text, in a footnote, or on the talk page), a translation into English should always accompany the quote . Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians, but translations by Wikipedians are preferred over machine translations. When using a machine translation of source material, editors should be reasonably certain that the translation is accurate and the source is appropriate . Editors should not use machine translations of non-English sources in contentious articles or biographies of living people. If needed, ask an editor who can to translate it for you. And most important of all:  The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material. Therefore, your nonsense will be removed until you can come up with a RELIABLE ACADEMIC SOURCE supporting your claim. But we all know that you won't find any ... --Lysozym (talk) 08:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * For the beginning, of course bai/baj/bay shares exactly the same root with bej/bek/beg. In both variations the vowel a/e varies with ~ä/ë/ā. Sometimes it is spoken as BI or BE, as it is in Kyrgyz (if you are interested in it you can read it up in Gerard Clauson: An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish). The case is that we have 2 word stems in Turkic: BAY ("rich (person), noble; many, numerous; speech, lord") and BEY ("lord, chief"). I hope that you are able to understand at least this point. Secondly, the claim "beg" being derived from "bai" is not needed here, because there are currently existing two different etymological alternatives. So, the etymological starting point for Turkic is defined as "bay" and for Iranic as "beg". This is also the reason why Nişanyan Dictionary separates the two word stems clearly:
 * the Iranic version: bey in Nişanyan Dictionary (rooted in Proto-Indo-European)
 * the Turkic version: bay in Nişanyan Dictionary (rooted in prehistoric Turkic; the etymological explanations are seconded and completed by The Tower of Babel, an authoritative International Etymological Database Project)
 * All in all: reliable sources --> directly supporting the material, so it's highly inappropriate to accuse me of "source-falsification". In addition, the two online papers of Iranica (BAGA & BEG) are clearly confirming the coherency between those word stems. Maybe even the Turco-Mongol title bagatur shares the same root, but yet not for sure etymologized. --Etymologias (talk) 18:24, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

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Bailiff?
Turkic isn't Indo-European, so I wouldn't ask but for the possibility of borrowing from nearby Persians or other Indo-Europeans. Is there any chance that "beylik" is, by some very long route, the same word as "bailiwick", which would make a "bey" the same thing as a "bailiff"?2604:2000:1383:8B0B:103:D4DB:AD9A:6C92 (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson

Merge proposal
Bey is clearly the same title as Baig. These should be merged. On another note, it might be moved depending on which one is more common because I'm confident "baig" is not a common spelling, and "bey" is largely used in Turkish. Aintabli (talk) 21:07, 18 November 2023 (UTC)


 * yes correct it should be merged Ahmadbinbilal02 (talk) 07:46, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it has been more than a month. So, no one disagrees? Aintabli (talk) 21:30, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Unmerge Baig from Beg
Baig is a surname a very common surname in South Asia belonging to lineage of Mughal-Timurids who are Mongol in origin. It is unlinked in lineage and descent to the the Turkic use of the word 'Bey' which is not at all common in South Asia. The Timurid-Mughals with their descent of Baig come with their own history, naming conventions and different ranking in the Imperial structure of the Mughal Empire. In Turkic cultures 'Bey' just means 'Mr.'. In Mongolic culture of Timurid-Mughals in South Asia, it is the surname of a Prince of the ruling family and 'Begum/Baigum' for the Princesses.

Given widely different connotations, these two pages should be unmerged 2001:1A10:1590:4901:C851:D7D5:DFB3:53BE (talk) 16:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Unless you can provide reliable sources for your claims, I oppose. Please also stop repeatedly restoring your favored version until you get consensus. Aintabli (talk) 18:15, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no documentation as such of this since this family was targeted by the invading British empire in India as it was the royal family. Furthermore the concept of surname didn't exist at the times of Mughal rule, but rather of tribal affiliations.
 * However, a simple google search on 'Baig' or linkedin search can show the popularity of the surname in South Asia that's descended from Mughal royal family as per their family history passed down to the generations. Hence demonstrating that it does not merely mean 'Mr.' like in Turkish.
 * I'm merely restoring the well written article that's been on wikipedia since ages that should not just be reduced to mean nothing by merging with 'Bey' with deletion of a huge amount of content from 'Baig' and being void of any information about the Mughal-Timurid use of 'Baig'. 37.210.49.142 (talk) 11:43, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * https://www.geni.com/surnames/baig 2001:1A10:1590:4901:5B16:E9DA:C3EA:3D14 (talk) 11:47, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no documentation as such No sources == no content Neither Geni nor LinkedIn are reliable sources, and the article from Geni reads The name "Baig" is derived from the Turkic word Beg, or Bey, anyways.
 * I'm merely restoring the well written article that's been on wikipedia since ages No, that it stayed as a standalone page does not mean that was appropriate. A quick glance at the article would tell one that it was a poorly-sourced WP:REDUNDANTFORK. Your job here is to prove that Baig and Bey are completely unrelated, and at this point, you have not shown any reliable sources, and even the non-RS you've shared tells the opposite. Please stop edit-warring until consensus supports your view.
 * Aintabli (talk) 18:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)