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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
112 86. BULARGUCI
The word bochasino is not confined to Italian, but is also represented by Span. bocactn, Fr. boucassin, Germ. buxkin (« fustian for linings »), Engi. bocasin. I find no support in MURRAY for LOKOTSCH'S assumption that Engi. buckskin, in one of its uses, should be altered from the same word through popular etymology (LoxoTSCx, No. 324). The accepted etymology is Osm. Turk.
1.o~y boyasi (RADLOY, Iv, 1649), written in other dictionaries wl>~ boliasi or boyasi (cf.
MURRAY, S. v. « bocasin »), s Uy. boyasï (BARBIER DE MEYNARD, I, 336), « cloth for linings ». The origin of the Osmanli word is not clear, and its history is unknown. But, if bochasino is actually derived from it, it cannot be very ancient. MURRAY'S earliest example in English is bokesye in 1485, and I cannot trace any in French before 1388 (in the Supplement to GODEFROY). There is no likelihood that it occurred in any early Polian text. This is one of the cases where we find RAMUSIO indulging in an arbitrary « editing » of his text. The « bougarassin » used once c. 1400 in the sense of « boucassin » (GODEFROY, I, 6972) seems to be the result of an accidental and isolated contamination.
While giving « Bokhara » as the etymology of Fr. « bougran » and It. « bucherame » (No. 342), LOKOTSCH derives Engi. «buckram» from the Arab. barrakân (No. 250). This is plainly unacceptable; « bucherame » and « buckram » cannot be separated. A similar confusion is made when BRÂTIANU (Actes des notaires génois, 7) gives barachame as another form of « bocharame ». « Bocharame » is « buckram », but barachame is the same as Pegolotti's barachami, the barraccani of a Florentine tariff of 1384 (EvANS, 414), which is derived from the Arab. • e a barrakân, a word with a numerous progeny. Barrakccn ordinarily designates a coarse woollen stuff or a cloak made of it, and such is the meaning of the late mediaeval French bouracan, as well as of Span. barragan and barragan (cf. DOZY, Dict. des noms des vêtements, 68-71). DOZY adds that, in more recent times, the name of barrakân was also applied to cloaks made of finer and more valuable material, though in the fashion of the ancient barrakân. I feel considerable hesitation in dissenting, even to a limited extent, from DOZY. I must state, however, that as a rule the names of textiles have deteriorated rather than grown in value. Moreover, FRANCISQUE-MICHEL (II, 34-37) has shown that in the 13th and 14th cents. the barragan or barracan was a precious material, and EVANS came independently to the same conclusion (Pegolotti, 414). The word, borrowed as Barchent in German, there means « fustian », but passed from German to Russian as barhat (not « barliam » as in LOKOTSCH, No. 250), with the meaning of « velvet ».
86. BULARGUCI
barlarguci VA bularguci F bulargugi TA'
bubarguci TA3 bulargufi FA burgrami P
bulangazi R bulargufy FB burlaguzi V
bulangugi LT
YULE ( Y, I, 407-408) has already shown that this is the same as the bularyu& of the Mongol court of Persia, whose office was however not restricted to lost goods and animals, but who also took care of fugitive slaves and other people who had gone astray (cf. Hai, 244-245, 476-477, 649;
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