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Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
158 114. CANOSALMI
canosalmi F, P (?), L chalosebini VA chanosalini TA3 chanosalmi TA' | chansolmin V conosalmy FA consalmi R ganasalin S | ganosalini VL salini VB tanosalmy FB tolofornis LT |
I have retained F's reading (there is no text in Z to help us here), but the name is uncertain, and so too is its identification (despite Ch, I, 62) ; cf. Y, I, 106. PAUTHIER'S « Khaneh-al-Salam », « House of Refuge », sounds too much like a name suggested by Polo's narrow escape, and ought not to have been mentioned in B', 440. To the various hypotheses already proposed may be added the following : the forms in R and LT make an original -o- possible in the first syllable, and the name may then have begun with n1i4skohnäh, « ancient ».
The « Kanât-ui-Shâm » quoted by YULE from Idrisi as a possible original of « Canosaimi » appears in fact, in older Arabic geographers, as Qanat-as-Sah, « Royal Canal » (cf. BARTHOLD, in MINAEV'S Marko Polo, 52; the place is not mentioned in the Hudad al-'jlam). This latter form seems to be the correct one, and YULE'S hypothesis must be abandoned.
CANTAR
cantar, canter F cantara LT, VB cantaro (-i) R | cantarre Z cantarum P chantari TA', TA3 | chantera V quintau FA quintaulz FB |
This is Arab. gintâr, which has given our « quintal » and is itself indirectly derived from Lat. centenarius (cf. LOKOTSCH, Etym. Wörterbuch, No. 1178). There are many mediaeval Latin forms, ranging from cantarum to quintale. In mediaeval Italian, the main form is cantaro, but cantaro, cantar, cantara, cantare all occur as forms of the singular in Pegolotti (EVANS, 64, 65, 100, 101; in the Index, 408, EVANS adopts cantare); cantaro survives in Southern Italy and Sicily (Y1, III, 157).
There were 100 rail (< Gr. ?Apex) or « pounds » to the gintàr. Ratl is Pegolotti's ruotolo (> rotolo), Med. Lat. rotulus, rota, and it occurs in Portuguese and Spanish as arratel and arrelde respectively; cf. Du CANGE, S.V. « rotulus », « rota »; YULE, Hobson-Jobson2, s.v. « rottle, rattle »; LOKOTSCH, Etym. Wörterbuch, No. 1708.
The value of the « cantar » varied in different places, and sometimes in the same place; for instance there were two kinds of « cantar » at Acre, one being five ruotoli heavier than the other (Pegoiotti, EVANS, 63). The Genoese « cantar », the one used in Constantinople and Pera, weighed 150 Genoese « pounds » (libbre).
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