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0414 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 414 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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398

170. COIGANGIU

170. COIGANGIU

cagangui, caygangui LT caigam, caygam, coygangui P chaygiagui TAI

chayngu TA3

choigangui, chorgangui, gangui VA

chonguagui, chuigangui, cui- gangui, zinguagui V choygangui VL

cingo, jngjngo (?), zigoj, zingo VB

coginganguy, cogniganguy, coguigangui FA

coigançu Z

coigangiu F, L

coigangui Fr, LT, VA coiganguy FAt, FBt

coiganzu R

conganguy FB cougangiu F

coygagin, coygangin S coygangiu F, Ft, L, VL coyganguy FB, P, P5, S curgagiu G

goyganguy Pr

We are here on safe ground. Nobody has ever doubted that « Coigangiu », where Polo

crossed the Yellow River (his «Black river »; see «Caramoran »), is ff   44i Huai-an-chou. The
name goes back to the end of the Sung (1234), but, when Polo used it, though it was still current among the people, it had ceased to be official. In 1277, a tsung-kuan-fu had been created at Huai-an, and the place had become the seat of a real fu in 1283 ( YS, 59, 10 a). Of course, the Commissioners of 1276 also crossed the Yellow River at Huai-an (TP, 1915, 396, 414).

Polo's transcription of Huai-an-chou is interesting in its first -g-. The initial sound which we note in French by ng-, and which is omitted in English transcription, is very weak, and I do not think that it has left any trace in Mongol or Persian transcriptions. It may be that Polo's first -g- is not so much a real transcription of that initial sound as a substitute for the hiatus stop between huai and an, something (quite independently) like one of the values of the intervocalic -g- in Mongolian writing. Other examples may be « Paughin », and perhaps « Ciangan » (q. v.) ; but Polo writes « Cauyu » without -g- (or -gh-), and I have decided against a similar use of -g- in « Ciugiu » (the place west of Huai-an).

Another point in Polo's transcription, «Coigangiu» is worth mentioning : it is the notation of Ch. -ua- (-wa-) through -o-. This is exactly what occurred in Uighur, Mongol and Persian transcriptions of Chinese, where wang became ong, and Kuan-shih-yin became Koniim (but not as a final -ua, which of course gives also a final -a in transcription).

171. COILOMIN

cholonbini V   coilomini LI

chome luuini VA   columi FA, FB (bresil and

coilomin F, Z, L   ginger)

combi VB

grandes and linuini P

[mirabolani enblici TA', TM]

An epithet derived from « Catlin » (? «*Coilom»), Quilon. Polo uses it for a kind of brazil-wood and also for a kind of ginger.