Banana (1325-1354)

[A. Maberry]

In looking through the Arabic text of Ibn Batuta, the only citation for
"banana" (the parallel text is French, so "banane") I have found so far
uses the common Arabic word for "banana" al-m[macron]uz. On the same page
is a reference to al-qulq[macron]a[inferior dot]s, glossed in the French
text as "colocasia (L. arum colocasia)." Wehr's Arabic-English dictionary
(4th ed.) defines qulqas as "a variety of taro or elephant's ear
(Colocasia antiquorum)." Qalqas seems to me to be a loan word
from the Greek, kolokasia.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu

On Fri, 8 Feb 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>    Sorry.  It's:
>
> _colocasia_
> 1829 Lee tr. _Ibn Batuta's Trav._ 170 ...
>
>    Yes, OED is a dictionary of the English language, but help people out a
little!  People understand what loanwords are all about.  They can read
brackets.  OED's "third world" first entry, for example, is in French.
>    Ibn Battuta's 1300s "banana" is especially significant for the etymology
of the fruit name.  See also Battuta in OED's etymology (click "etymology")
for "benzoin."
>    Battuta's definitely been under-cited.
>