IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
256 SING-IRANICA
The New-Persian name for the walnut is kôz and Oz.' According to HÜBSCHMANN, this word comes from Armenian.' The Armenian word is éngoiz; in the same category belongs Hebrew egôz,3 Ossetic ängozä, Yidghal oyuza, Kurd egviz, Gruzinian nigozi.4 The Persian word we meet as a loan in Turkish koz and xoz.5
The earliest designation in Chinese for the cultivated walnut is hu
t`ao (" peach of the Hu" : Hu being a general term for peoples of
Central Asia, particularly Iranians). As is set forth in the Introduction, the term hu i§ prefixed to a large number of names of cultivated plants introduced from abroad. The later substitution hu or ho t`ao I,c
signifies " peach containing a kernel," or " seed-peach," so called because, while resembling a peach when in the husk, only the kernel is eaten.' In view of the wide dissemination of the Persian word, the question might be raised whether it would not be justifiable to recognize it also in the Chinese term hu t`ao ► it, although, of course, in the first line it means "peach of the Hu (Iranians)." There are a number of cases on record where Chinese designations of foreign products may simultaneously convey a meaning and represent phonetic transcriptions. When we consider that the word hu Ni was formerly possessed of an initial guttural sonant, being sounded *gu (-yu) or *go,' the possibility that this word might have been chosen in imitation of, or with especial regard to, an Iranian form of the type gôz, cannot be denied: the twofold thought that this was the " peach styled go" and the " peach of the Go or Hu peoples " may have been present simultaneously in the minds of those who formed the novel term; but this is merely an hypothesis, which cannot actually be proved, and to which no great importance is to be attached.
1 Arabic jôz; Middle Persian joz, joj. Kurd gwiz (guwiz), from govz, gôz (SocIN, Grundr. iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 268). Sarigoli ghauz (SHAW, Journal As. Soc. Bengal, 1876, p. 267). Pustu ughz, waghz. Another Persian designation for "walnut" is girda or girdgan.
2 Grundr. iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 8; Armen. Gram., p. 393.
8 Canticle VI, 1o. Cf. Syriac gauzä.
4 W. MILLER, Sprache der Osseten, p. Io; HÜBSCHMANN, Arm. Gram., p. 393.
b RADLOFF, Wörterbuch der Tûrk-Dialecte, Vol. II, col. 628, 171o. In Osmanli jeviz.
6 The term ho t`ao is of recent date. It occurs neither under the Tang nor
under the Sung. It is employed in the Kwo su , a work on garden-fruits by
Wan si-mou E 1 lit, who died in 1591, and in the Pen ts'ao lean mu. The latter remarks that the word ho A is sounded in the north like hu NI, and that the sub-
stitution thus took place, citing a work Min wu ci 01 , as the first to apply
this term.
7 Compare Japanese go-ma M and go fun lifj t.
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