NOTE ON THE LANGUAGE OF FU-LIN 437
the spiritus asper of the initial Greek r. In some Iranian dialects the spiritus asper is marked by an initial vowel: thus in Pahlavi Aram, in Kurd Urum. The ancient Armenian words with initial hr, as explained by A. Meillet, were borrowed from Parthian dialects which transformed initial Iranian f into h: for instance, Old Iranian framana (now ferman, "order") resulted in Armenian hraman, hence from Parthian *hraman. Thus *From, probably conveyed by the Sogdians, was the prototype from which Chinese Fu-lin, *Fu-lim, was fashioned. In my opinion, the Chinese form is not based on *From, but on *Frim or *Frim. Rim must have been an ancient variant of Ram; Rim is still the Russian designation of Rome.' What is of still greater importance is that, as has been shown by J. J. MoDI,2 there is a Pahlavi name Sairima, which occurs in the Farvardin Yak, and is identified with Rum in the Bandahisn; again, in the Sahnâ,meh the corresponding name is Rum. This country is said to have derived its name from Prince Selam, to whom it was given; but this traditional opinion is not convincing. A form Rima or Rim has accordingly existed in Middle Persian; and, on the basis of the Chinese transcription *Fu-lim or *Fu-rim, it is justifiable to presuppose the Iranian (perhaps Parthian) prototype *Frim, from which the Chinese transcription was made.
1 What Pelliot remarks on the Tibetan names Ge-sar and Prom is purely hypothetical, and should rather be held in abeyance for the present. We know so little about the Ge-sar epic, that no historical conclusions can be derived from it. For the rest, the real Tibetan designation for Byzance or Turkey, in the same manner as in New Persian, is Rum (T`oung Pao, 1916, p. 491). In regard to the occurrence of this name in Chinese transcriptions of more recent date, see BRETSCHNEIDER, Medieval Researches, Vol. II, p. 306; and HIRTH, Chau Ju-kua, p. 141.
2 Asiatic Papers, p. 244 (Bombay, 1905).
IIIF Color HighRes
