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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
33. ARMÉNIE 51
from their names, for instance in the funerary inscription of Ha-chih-ha-hsin (Hâji Qasim) in Hsü Yu-jên's Chih-chêng chi, 53, 1 ss. If we remember that the Kerait Ha-san-na, who was at the head of the Aryun army, is the same who established 3000 Mussulman families from Russian Turkestan in Simali, we may conclude that the Aryun tribe is probably the same as the Ar) u tribe of Kâsyari, and that the « Argon » Polo saw in « Tenduc » were really the Mussulman Aryun tribe people settled around Simali (cf. JA, 1927, it, 265, 266). I do not know whether any etymological connection can be proposed between the name Aryun (< Ar) u ?) of the tribe and the word aryun meaning « half-breed »; it does not seem to me probable, and anyhow Polo could not have been aware of it. I suppose Polo heard in the region of Simali, and possibly more or less to the south-west of it, the name of the Mussulman At.) un settlers; but he knew also the Turkish word aryun used in the sense of half-breed, and applied it wrongly.
I cannot accept BooDBERG's views when, in his Sino-Altaica, itt, 2, and iv, 4, he tries to trace Ar) un, in the sense of « half-breed », to the old Wu-huan tribes of the Mongolo-Manchurian border.
| 33. ARMÉNIE armenia L, LT, P, P', VA, VB, VL, Z; G, R armenie F, Fr, t; G armin (adj.), arminie, armonie, erminie, harmenie, harmi- | nie F arminia L, VB ermene, errneyne, ermyne, ermynie 0 ermenia LT, TA', TA3, V | ermenie FB ermine F, 0 erminia, herminia TA' hermenia LT, TA3 hermenie FA |
This form occurs in F, but it also gives «Erminie », which was no less current in the Middle ;Ages, and I am in doubt as to the form actually used by Polo. In Hethum, the name is always written « Ermenie » (Hist. des Crois., Arm., tt, 127 sq.). In Arabic it is Arminiyah.
Polo's distinction between a Lesser and a Greater Armenia is in agreement with mediaeval usage. Lesser Armenia is fundamentally Cilicia, with Sis as its capital. Greater Armenia is our Armenia, beginning in the west at Arzinjan, and bordering to the south-east with Mosul territory (cf. Y, t, 42-43, 46-49; LS, 182-184; EI, «Arménie », by STRECK; Mi, 484). The kingdom of Lesser Armenia, which acknowledged the supremacy of the Pope, was consecrated in 1198 and lasted until 1375; its kings generally managed to keep on good terms with the Mongols.
The name of Armenia seems to have been unknown to the Chinese.
For RAMUSto's passage which mentions « Greater Turkey » instead of the « Greater Armenia» of other mss., see « Caraunas ».
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