What does гомули mean?

March 22, 2009 5:01 PM

On the 21st of March I had a large increase of page views on my blog. The keyword was гомули which Babelfish translates from the Russian as gomuli.

The majority of visitors were from Eastern Europe with most of them originating from Sofia in Bulgaria. The word gomuli seems actually to be a typo in the article I was quoting re: using gomuti palms to produce a liquor in the Moluccas. So what, who or where is the гомули or gomuli that the Bulgarians were so interested in on that day?

posted by tellurian to writing & language (10 comments total)

Well, the Bulgarians do not speak Russian, although they use a similar alphabet, so you probably want to find a Bulgarian dictionary.
posted by alexei at 6:57 PM on March 22

My efforts with some online dictionaries has proved fruitless.

You probably know that the 'translation' gomuli is just a direct transliteration of the letters.
posted by alexei at 7:03 PM on March 22

I'm Bulgarian, and I have no idea what гомули means. A Google.bg search pretty much confirms my suspicion that the word simply doesn't exist.
posted by halogen at 8:08 PM on March 22

I'm Bulgarian, and I have no idea what гомули means.
Oh, weird! 75% of the visitors found me using гомули as the keyword.
They came from Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Ruse, Stara Zagora, Burgas, Sliven, Dobrich, Vidin, Pernik, Gabrovo, Karlovo, Veliko Tarnovo, Pleven, Silistra and Turgovishte.
posted by tellurian at 8:32 PM on March 22

I know russian fairly well and I too have no idea what гомули means.
posted by Autarky at 8:34 PM on March 22

Гомул, the singular form of the plural "гомули" appears to be some sort of state park/forest/mountain peak as well as the name of a lodge in the Carpathians. I still don't see why Bulgarians would be conducting English language searches for an incorrect form of the term (I am assuming that your blog is in English).
posted by halogen at 8:34 PM on March 22

It might be some sort of inside joke or something that was mentioned on a television show? I'll ask my friends when I get a chance (I don't currently reside in Bulgaria, so I wouldn't know).
posted by halogen at 8:38 PM on March 22

Thanks halogen. The bulk of them visited at 6am (the last visit was at 11pm) on the 21st which would, I think, make it about 9pm on the Friday in Sofia. The keyword (гомули) only appears on that days listing, never before or since.
posted by tellurian at 9:28 PM on March 22

tellurian, the people I asked have no idea what you are talking about--sorry. Maybe you could try searching for гомули in a few days in case Google has indexed more recent pages mentioning the word.
posted by halogen at 12:20 PM on March 23

I'll just chalk it up as a blogging mystery then. Thank you for your input halogen.
posted by tellurian at 3:28 PM on March 23