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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
BASIS OF PRESENT TRANSLATION
113
t
So with Creman, Crerinan, Crerinazn, QUERMAN, Anglic
KERMAN ; Cormos, HORMOS, and many more.*
In two or three cases I have adopted a reading which I can-
not show literati,n in any authority, but because such a form
appears to be the just resultant from the variety of readings
which are presented ; as in surveying one takes the mean of a
number of observations when no one can claim an absolute
preference.
Polo's proper names, even in the French Texts, are in the
main formed on an Italian fashion of spelling.- I see no object
in preserving such spelling in an English book, so after selecting
the best reading of the name I express it in English spelling,
printing Badashan, Pashai, Kerman, instead of Badascian, Pasciai,
Quer;van, and so on.
And when a little trouble has been taken to ascertain the
true form and force of Polo's spelling of Oriental names and
technical expressions, it will be found that they are in the main
as accurate as Italian lips and orthography will admit, and not
justly liable either to those disparaging epithets + or to those
exegetical distortions which have been too often applied to them.
Thus, for example, Cocacin, Ghel or Ghelan, Tonocain, Cobinan,
Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol,
Bularguci, Zardandan, A nin, Caugg u, Colonzan, Gauenispola,
lt✓lutfili, Avarian, Choiaclz, are not, it will be seen, the ignorant
blunderings which the interpretations affixed by some commen-
tators would imply them to be, but are, on the contrary, all but
perfectly accurate utterances of the names and words intended.
* In Polo's diction C frequently represents II., e.g., Cormos = Hormuz ; Camadi
probably = Hamadi ; Caagiu probably = Hochau ; Cacianfu = Hochangfu, and so on.
This is perhaps attributable to Rusticiano's Tuscan ear. A true Pisan will absolutely
contort his features in the intensity of his efforts to aspirate sufficiently the letter C.
Filippo Villani, speaking of the famous Aguto (Sir J. Hawkwood), says his name in
English was Kauchouvole. (Murat. Script. xiv. 746.)
,h In the Venetian dialect ch and j are often sounded as in English, not as in
Italian. Some traces of such pronunciation I think there are, as in Coja, Carajan,
and in the Chinese name Vanchu (occurring only in Ramusio, supra, p. 99). But the
scribe of the original work being a Tuscan, the spelling is in the main Tuscan. The
sound of the Qu is, however, French, as in Quescican, Quinsai, except perhaps in the
case of Quenianfu, for a reason given in vol. ii. p. 29.
T. For example, that enthusiastic student of medieval Geography, Joachim
Lelewel, speaks of Polo's " gibberish " (le baragouinage du Venitien) with special
reference to such names as Zayton and Kinsay, whilst we now know that these names
were in universal use by all foreigners in China, and no more deserve to be called
gibberish than Bocca-Tigris, Leghorn, Ratisbon, or Buda.
If
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