Re: CHAT: "boocoo"

Roger Mills scripsit:

> Aha.  I'd seen "Cipango" on old maps and assumed it was Portuguese based;
> but if it was adapted by some Italian (maybe via Marco Polo??), [tSipaNgo]
> comes close indeed.
Various sources argue about whether the transmission path from Chinese
went through Italian or Portuguese.

> Now, how did we get Ceylon from "Serendip"? (the last part of which would be
> Indic -dvipa 'island' at least)
I've always assumed that "Ceylon" is just a modification of "Sri Lanka",
the current name of the place; googling shows that the path is Skt >
Port > Du > Eng.  "Serendib/dip" definitely got into English from Arabic.
As for "Taprobana", its name in Classical times, I can't even guess.
(Milton, characteristically, used "Taprobane" in _Paradise Regained_).
But these three names seem to be quite independent.

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
All "isms" should be "wasms".   --Abbie