CHAPTER II 



ORIGIN OF THE NAMES LYCHEE (^) AND LUXGAN 



AND 

 ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION 



Wu Ying K'uei (^ JJg, SH) 1 in the introduction of his special 

 treatise on the lychee gives a full explanation of the origin of the 

 name lychee and supports his claims by reference to previous works. 

 He writes that the lychee (]%, 3t) has secured its name from the fact 

 that the fru't clings so tenaciously to the twigs, thus necessitating the 

 use of knives in separating the fruit from the branches. In the time 

 of the Han Dynasty (?i $8), B.C. 140-86, the characters represent- 

 ing the fruit were written 3. The first character gg, pronounced 

 like the English word lay means "to separate" or "to leave." 

 The second character 3t, pronounced like dice in the English word 

 cheese, means "branch." The wood of the lychee is very 

 hard and the fruit, even when ripe, clings firmly to the twigs. These 

 early characters, J$ 3C, were thus an attempt to convey the idea that 

 in gathering the fruit the twigs must be separated from the branches 

 and the fruit then separated from the twigs. However, as knives 

 were used in the operation of gathering the fruit the first character 

 8! later came to be written ^ and to be pronounced " li " the "i" 

 long as in the English word ice. The second character 3c re- 

 mained the same though now it is often written $ with the additional 

 radical fa meaning "wood" or "tree", on the left which gives the 

 word, also pronounced chee", a more restricted meaning, "the 

 branch of a tree." But Wu Ying K'uei (^ |& $i) points out that 

 ^ must not be accepted as the standard form for writing the second 

 half of the word lychee (' 3t), as practically all Chinese authorities 

 on this fruit use the single-radical word ^t. 



A more thorough study of the Chinese character jj should 

 prove of interest. Examination reveals that it is made up of two of 

 the 214 idiographs or radicals of which the Chinese written language 



1 WU YING K'UR] (&p$) Ling Nan Li Chih P'u (|j$j$t$) in 

 Ling Nan I Shu ( iffsft& ) , book 59 (^JE'HLTlC), section 1 ($$%), page 



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