IRANO-SINICA CHINA ROOT, PAPER 557 



Canton lan-fan-t'un, at Amoy lin-hoan-toan. It must be borne in mind 

 that final Portuguese m is not intended for the labial nasal, but indicates 

 the nasalization of the preceding vowel, am and a being alternately 

 used. The frequent final guttural nasal n of Chinese has always been 

 reproduced by the Portuguese by a nasalized vowel or diphthong; for 

 instance, tufao (" typhoon "), given by Fernao Pinto as a Chinese 

 term, where fao corresponds to Chinese fun ("wind"); tutao, repro- 

 ducing Chinese tu-t'un 8$ $ (" Lieutenant-General"). Thus the tran- 

 scription lampatam moves along the same line. The Portuguese designa- 

 tion of the root is raiz da China ("root of China"). 



There is an overland trade in this root from China by way of Turkis- 

 tan to Ladakh, and probably also to Persia. 1 The plant has been known 

 to the Chinese from ancient times, being described by T'ao Hun-kin. 2 

 The employment of the root in the treatment of Morbus americanus 

 (yah mei tu cwah Hf Jf8 H 3f ) is described at length by Li Si-cen, who 

 quotes this text from Wan Ki feE ffi, a celebrated physician, who lived 

 during the Kia-tsin period (1522-66), and author of the Pen ts'ao hui 

 pien >fc 3$ 'fr 81. This is an excellent confirmation of the synchronous 

 account of Garcia. 3 Li Si-cen states expressly, "The yah-mei ulcers 

 are not mentioned in the ancient recipes, neither were there any people 

 afflicted with this disease. Only recently did it arise in Kwan-tun, 

 whence it spread to all parts of China." 



24. Of Chinese loan-words in Persian, HORN 4 enumerates only 

 cdi ("tea"), ladan ("teapot"), cdu ("paper money"), and perhaps also 

 kdgab or kdgid ("paper"). As will be seen, there are many more Chinese 

 loans in Persian; but the word for "paper" is not one of them, although the 

 Persians received the knowledge of paper from the Chinese. This theory 

 was first set forth by HiRTH, 5 who asserts, "The Arabic word 

 kdghid for paper, derived from the Persian, 6 can without great difficulty 

 be traced to a term ku-chih He &K (ancient pronunciation kok-dz'), 

 which means 'paper from the bark of the mulberry-tree,' and was 

 already used in times of antiquity." This view has been accepted by 



1 T'oung Pao, 1916, p. 477. 



2 Pen ts'ao kan mu, Ch. 8 B, p. 2; also Ch. 4 B, p. 6 b; BRETSCHNEIDER, Bot. 

 Sin., pt. Ill, p. 320. 



3 1 have sufficient material to enable me to publish at some later date a detailed 

 history of the disease from Chinese sources. 



4 Grundriss der iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 7. 



5 T'oung Pao, Vol. I, 1890, p. 12; or Chines. Studien, p. 269. 



6 In my opinion, the word is of Uigur origin (kagat, kagas), and was subsequently 

 adopted by the Persians, and from the Persians by the Arabs. In Persian we have 

 the forms kdyad, kdyid, kdyaz, and kdgiz (Baluci kdgad). Aside from this vacillating 

 mode of spelling, the word is decidedly non-Persian. See, further, below, p. 558. 



