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0400 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 400 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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574   SINO-IRANICA

possible to prove this interdependence; yet it is probable to a high degree and seems altogether plausible.

  1. Textiles made from cotton are designated in Mongol büs (Kalmuk bös), in Jul-6i (Jucen or Niü6i) busu, in Manchu boso. This series, first of all, is traceable to Uigur böz.' The entire group is manifestly connected, as already recognized by SCHOTT? with Greek I3 rc-os (byssos), which itself goes back to Semitic (Hebrew bûs, Assyrian bûsu) . But how the Semitic word advanced to Central Asia is still obscure; its presence in Uigur might point to Iranian mediation, but it has not yet been traced in any Iranian language. Perhaps it was transmitted to the Uigur directly by Nestorian missionaries. The case would then be analogous to Mongol nom (Manchu nomun), from Uigur nom, num ("a sacred book, law"), which ABEL-REMUSAT3 traced through Semitic to Greek v6tios.

Cotton itself is styled in Mongol küben or kübün, in Manchu kubun. SCHOTT (l.c.) was inclined to derive this word from Chinese ku-pei, but this is impossible in view of the labial surd. Nevertheless it may be that the Mongol term is connected with a vernacular form based on Sanskrit karpdsa, to which also Chinese ku-pei is indirectly traceable (above, p. 491). This form must be sought for in Iranian; true it is, in Persian we have kirpds (correspondingly in Armenian kerpas) and in Arabic kirbeis. In Vaxi, a Pamir dialect, however, we find kubas,4 which, save the final s, agrees with the Mongol form. The final nasals in the Mongol and Manchu words remain to be explained.

  1. Mongol anar, pomegranate, is doubtless derived from Persian andr (above, p. 285). In the Chinese-Uigur Dictionary we meet the form nara.5 In this case, accordingly, Uigur cannot be held responsible as the mediator between Persian and Mongol. In all probability, the fruit was directly transmitted by Iranians to the Mongols, who thus adopted also the name for it.

  2. Mongol turma, radish, is derived from Persian turma (also turub, turb, turf) . 6

 

1 F. W. K. MÜLLER, Uigurica, II, p. 7o.

2 Altaisches Sprachengeschlecht, p. 5; and Abh. Berl

3 Recherches sur les langues tartares, p. 137.

4 HJULER, The Pamir Languages, p. 38.

5 KLAPROTH, Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren, p. Wört., Vol. III, col. 648.

6 Cf. T`oung Pao, 1916, p. 84. The derivation from and GOMBOCZ (Mém. Soc. finno-ougrienne, Vol. XXX, seek the foundation of the word in Turkish.

. Akad., 1867, p. 138.

14; and RADLOFF, Tûrk.

Persian escaped MUNKACSI p. 131), who erroneously