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0450 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 450 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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434   183. COTTON

edition of RADLOV'S Uigurische Sprachdenkmäler, 282). Now, käbäz is clearly derived from a Prakrit form of karpâsa (cf. Pali, kappâsa). In the Ming Sino-Uighur Vocabulary of the Board of Translators, the Uighur word for cotton (mien-hua) is given as kädäs, which KLAPROTH (Abhandlung über di:3 Sprache and Schrift der Uiguren, 14) read kedis and proposed to correct to kedin ; in the latter form he saw an equivalent of the Ar. qutun, « cotton » (cf. also BANG, Vom Köktürkischen zum Osmanischen, iv, 14). This is not acceptable, since the Uighur word belonged to the palatal class and so could hardly render qutun, and since moreover qutun did not pass into any Turkish dialect. I have no doubt that kädäs is one of the many corrupt forms which have crept into the Vocabulary, and that the original word was *käbäs = käbäz. The word has survived in modern Turfan Turki as ;l( käbäz, vulg. kiwäz (cf. VON LE COQ, in Tûrân, I [1918], 454); it is transcribed - ,AA err k'o p'o-ssic *käpäs, in Hsi-yü t'u-chih, 43, 4 a. But, though po-tich has been used as an equivalent of karpâsa> käbäz, käbäz itself was rather the name of the cotton plant, not of the cotton goods, which latter sense, on the other hand, was given to po-tieh. The real Uighur word for cotton goods was böz. This word, certainly connected with Greek ,3vaoos (> Arab. and Pers. bäzz, Osm. bäz, Russ. byaz'), which itself rests on an old Semitic original (cf. LEwY, Die semit. Fremdwörter im Griechischen, 125-126; MÜLLER, Uigurica, II, 70; LAUFER, Sino-Iranica, 574; BANG, Vom Köktürkischen zum Osmanischen, IV, 14), is already given with the meaning « cotton goods » in Kâs) ari (BROCKELMANN, 48, where the vocalization büz should be discarded), occurs frequently in RADLOV'S Uigurische Sprachdenk-

mäler (cf. the index, p. 279), and is perhaps to be recognized in the   )) ;1i p'o-pu or «p'o
(*b'uat) cloth » which was offered by the T'u-chüeh in 593 (cf. TP, 1929, 216). Böz has passed, with the same meaning, into Mong. bös (> Dayur Hri; cf. POPPE, Dagurskoe nardie, 56, 141), JUEN *busu, Manchu boso (RAMSTEDT, Kalm. Wörterbuch, 56, adds Cuva"s pir, which is correct, and Ch. Ai pu [*puo], « cloth »; but pu, which moreover did not in ancient times refer to cotton, is too old a Chinese word not to be indigenous). Böz being the true Uighur word for « cotton goods », we are not surprised to find it used in the Uighur translation of the Sitâtapatradhârani in a passage where the Chinese translation gives po-tieh (cf. MÜLLER, Uigurica, II, 70), nor to find in the Uighur version of the Suvarnaprabhâsa, which was made from the Chinese, po-tieh, «white tieh », literally rendered yurüng böz- «white böz» (MALOV, Suvarnaprabhâsa, 44414.15). There is no foundation for RADLOV's statement (Uigurische Sprachdenkmäler, p. 120) that böz had been preceded in Uighur by another word, also meaning « cotton stuff», which he read «kokpu ». Perhaps he laboured under the idea that the -pu of his « kokpu » rendered Ch. f i pu, « cloth », later «cotton cloth», or he may have connected his «kokpu» with the late Mongolian köböng, «cotton ». But «kokpu » often occurs in the documents (cf. RADLOV'S index, p. 279), and is clearly the designation of some sort of money. It is the same word which F. W. K. MÜLLER,

reading it «quanbo », had restored as A   kuan-pao, without any translation (Ostasiat. Zeitschr.
VIII, 324). This was nearer the mark, but still unsatisfactory, since the reading is certainly gogbô (or gogpô). In such circumstances, I think there cannot be any doubt that the original

form was s   kuo pao (*kwak pdu), which means both « national treasure » and « national cur-

rency ».   The second -q- shows that the term was an ancient one in Uighur, having been bor-

rowed when final occlusive consonants were still heard in northern Chinese, i. e. before A. D. c. 1000.