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0262 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 262 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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858   364. TOMAN

and Toloman and also many other provinces named above» (Vol. I, 366); or, in other words, that Toloman is only part of an incomplete enumeration of the provinces of Yün-nan, and his statement would appear more correct if he had named Caragian instead of or, at least, as well as Toloman.

36 1. TOMAN

chumano (-i) V comanus G comman (-s) FB tamain F teman VB

thoman Z

toma (-i), tottamanni TM

tomain F, L

tomam (-i) VA

tomamus P

toman F, FA, L; R tomano (-i) TAI to may LT

toumau (-x) FA tumani VB, VL

This is the Persian pronunciation of J1.y which is Turk. and Mong. tümän, « ten thousand »; Rubrouck has turnen (Wy, 271); Odoric writes tuman (YI, II, 198-199; Wy, 465); turnen is in the Codex Cumanicus, 146, 290 (where KUUN quotes also töméntelen, tömeny ezer, « myrias », « chilias », « multa millia »). The Jucen had the word as tuman or tümän, and it occurs even in the Tungusian languages. On account of Old Slaw t icma, « ten thousand », and Russian tëmnik, « commander of 10,000 », and of « Tokh. » tmäna, Kuchean tumane, tmane, « ten thousand », the question has been raised whether the word is originally Indo-European or Altaic, and even Chin. jt wan (*miwvn) may be brought eventually into line as a very old borrowing (but not as the etymology of tiimän, as RAMSTEDT supposed in JFSO, xxix, 22). I incline to think that the word is Indo-European, and has been borrowed by the Altaic languages ; but Persian toman seems to have been in turn borrowed from Turkish or Mongolian in the Middle Ages, although the word is said to have existed in Khwârézmian. Cf. LAUFER, in TP, 1915, 276-281, and my remarks in TP, 1931, 448-449. LAUFER has also maintained (TP, 1915, 277) that Pers. toman, as the name of a coin, had nothing to do with tümän, contrary to YULE, Hobson-Jobson 2, 928-929; but YULE was right (cf. VULLERS, I, 482-483).

Rasidu-'d-Din says that the commanders of ten thousand were called « wanshi », and YULE (YI, III, 120) has given Chin. wan, « 10,000 », as the first element of the term; this is a mistake;

Rasid's form must be read wansai (also written wangsai) and represents --if;   yuan-shuai,
«commander of an army». Cf. Bl, II, 471, and App. 46, where BLOCHET, like YULE, thinks of wan, and is absolutely wrong in saying that wan was anciently pronounced wang; cf. also my remarks in TP, 1930, 43.

Tümän has really been employed as a technical term for a corps of 10,000 men (cf. the edict of 1347 quoted by YULE ( Y, I, 264) and VULLERS, I, 482-483), but not as the title of its commander; in the Mongol edicts, such a commander is simply called a noyan.

In his excellent notice « Tuman » of the EI, BARTHOLD has expressed the opinion that tümän originally meant «many», and did not occur with the meaning of «10,000» before the Mongol period. His main argument is that, in Kâsyari (I, 337; not in BROCKELMANN), we had only tümän türlük, « de manière très variée », and tümän ming meaning not « 10,000,000 » as might be expected, but only « 1 000 x 1 000 » = 1 million. But, even if we leave aside the « Tokharian » forms, it