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Published 2014
It is quite an ancient product. The Arabs adopted it with the pronunciation shushbarak or (through a folk etymology connecting it with shish, ‘skewer’, and börek) shishbarak, which indicates that it was borrowed before the 10th century when it was pronounced joshparag. The first part of the name, josh, means ‘to boil’, but the second element is obscure, possibly meaning ‘bit’. Iranians have felt the absence of a clearly analysable meaning, and the word is now pronounced gosh-e-barreh in Iran, literally ‘lamb’s ear’. The Turkish nations who have borrowed joshpara have done even more violence to the word: Azerbaijani düshbara, Uzbeki chuchwara, Uighur chöchürä.