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| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
IRANO-SINICA—ZEDOARY, GINGER 545
Steingass as " zedoary, a Chinese root." Further, we read under mâhparwâr or parwîn, "zedoary, a Chinese root like ginger, but perfumed."
7. Abu Mansur distinguishes under the Arabic name zanjabil three kinds of ginger (product of Amomum zingiber, or Zingiber oficinale),Chinese, Zanzibar, and Melinawi or Zurunbaj, the best being the Chinese.' According to STEINGASS,2 Persian anqala denotes "a kind of China ginger."3 The Persian word (likewise in Arabic) demonstrates that the product was received from India: compare Prakrit singabéra, Sanskrit çrngavera (of recent origin),4 Old Arabic zangabil, Pahlavi gangavir, New Persian gankalil, Arabic-Persian zanjabil, Armenian snrvél or snkrvil (from *singivel), Greek -cyyißEpcs, Latin zingiberi; Madagasy . akaviru (Indian loan-word) .5
The word galangal, denoting the aromatic rhizome of Alpinia galanga, is not of Chinese origin, as first supposed by D. HANBURY,6 and after him by HIRTII7 and GILES.8 The error was mainly provoked by the fact that the Arabic word from which the European name is derived was wrongly written by Hanbury khalanjdn, while in fact it is khûlanjân (xûland dn), Persian xâwalinjân. The fact that Ibn Khordâdzbeh, who wrote about A.D. 844-848, mentions khûlanjân as one of the products of China,' does not prove that the Arabs received this word from China; for this rhizome is not a product peculiar to China, but is intensively grown in India, and there the Arabs made the first acquaintance of it. Ibn al-Baitâr1° states expressly that khûlanjân comes from India; and, as was recognized long ago, the Arabic word is derived from Sanskrit kulanja,11 which denotes Alpinia galanga. The European forms with ng (galangan, galgan, etc.) were suggested by the older Arabic pronunciation khûlangân.12 In Middle Greek we have
1 ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 76. Persian Dictionary, p. 113.
Concerning ginger among the Arabs, cf. LECLERC, Traité des simples, Vol. II, p. 217; and regarding its preparation, see G. FERRAND, Textes relatifs à l'Extrême-Orient, p. 609.
d Cf. the discussion of E. HULTZSCH and F. W. THOMAS in Journal Roy. As. Soc., 1912, PP. 475, 1093. See also YULE, Hobson-Jobson, p. 374-
6 The curious word for "ginger" in Kuéa or Tokharian B, tvânkaro (S. Ltv1, Journal asiatique, 1911, II, pp. 124, 137), is not yet explained.
Science Papers, p. 373.
Chinesische Studien, p. 219.
$ Glossary of Reference, p. 102.
9 G. FERRAND, Textes relatifs à l'Extrême-Orient, p. 31.
" Ibid., p. 259. Cf. also ACHUNDOW, Abu Mansur, p. 6o.
11 ROEDIGER and POTT, Z. K. d. Morgenl., Vol. VII, 185o, p. I28.
12 E. WIEDEMANN (Sitzber. Phys.-Med. Soz. Erl., Vol. XLV, 1913, p. 44) gives as Arabic forms also xaulangad and xalangan.
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