THE FIG 411 



scription of Hindustani anjir," as affirmed by Hirth, but of New Persian 

 anjlr or enjlr, the Hindustani (as well as Sanskrit anjira) being simply 

 borrowed from the Persian; Bukhara injir, Afghan intsir; Russian 

 indzarn. 



(3) Fu-lin Jt IB ti-ni or ti-cen 3^ or *B (*ti-tsen, *ti-ten) ; the latter 

 variant is not necessarily to be rejected, as is done by Hirth. Cf. 

 Assyrian tittu (from *tintu); Phoenician tin; Hebrew ti'nu, te'enah; 1 

 Arabic tin, tine, tima; Aramaic ts'mta, tenta, tena; Pahlavi tin (Semitic 

 loan-word). The Semitic name is said to have taken its starting-point 

 from south-eastern Arabia, where also, in the view of the botanists, the 

 origin of fig-culture should be sought; but in view of the Assyrian 

 word and the antiquity of the fig in Assyria, 2 this theory is not probable. 

 There is no doubt that the Chinese transcription answers to a Semitic 

 name; but that this is the Aramaic name, as insisted on by Hirth in 

 favor of his theory that the language of Fu-lin should have been Aramaic, 

 is not cogent. The transcription ti-ni, on the contrary, is much nearer 

 to the Arabic, Phoenician, and Hebrew forms. 3 



(4) ft 5 $ (or better &) yu-Van-po, *u-dan-pat(par), *u-dan- 

 bar = Sanskrit udambara (Ficus glomerata)* According to Li Si-6en, 

 this name is current in Kwan-tun. 



(5) M 36 ^ wu hwa kwo ("flowerless fruit"), 5 Japanese icijiku. 

 The erroneous notion that the fig-tree does not bloom is not peculiar 

 to Albertus Magnus, as Hirth is inclined to think, but goes back to 

 times of antiquity, and occurs in Aristotle and Pliny. 6 This wrong 

 observation arose from the fact that the flowers, unlike those of most 

 fruit-trees, make no outward appearance, but are concealed within the 



1 In the so-called histories of the fig concocted by botanists for popular consump- 

 tion, one can still read the absurdity that Latin ficus is to be derived from Hebrew 

 feg. Such a Hebrew word does not exist. What does exist in Hebrew, is the word pag, 

 occurring only in Canticle (n, 13), which, however, is not a general term for the fig, 

 but denotes only a green fig that did not mature and that remained on the tree during 

 the winter. Phonetically it is impossible to connect this Hebrew word with the Latin 

 one. In regard to the fig among the Semites, see, above all, the excellent article of 

 E. LEVESQUE in the Dictionnaire de la Bible (Vol. II, col. 2237). 



2 E. BONAVIA, Flora of the Assyrian Monuments, p. 14. 



3 It is surprising to read Hirth's conclusion that "ti-ni is certainly much nearer 

 the Aramean word than the Greek <rvicfj [better amov] for fig, or tptveds for capri- 

 ficus." No one has ever asserted, or could assert, that these Greek words are derived 

 from Semitic; their origin is still doubtful (see SCHRADER in Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, 

 p. 100). 



4 Fan yi min yi tsi, Ch. 8, p. 5. 



5 Also other fruits are described under this name (see Ci wu min Si t'u k'ao, 

 Ch. 1 6, pp. 58-60). The terms under 4 and 5 are identified by Kao Si-ki ^ T -^ 

 in his Tien lu Siyii^J^^ f| (Ch. A, p. 60, published in 1690, ed. of Swo lin). 



6 xvi, 39. 



