Banana (1325-1354)

[A. Maberry]

Well, if it occurs in Ibn Batuta's original work (in Arabic) is definitely
not "colocana" (which I cannot find in the online OED). At any rate,
the form "colocana" wouldn't be attested in Arabic in any century, so the
mid-1300 would be entirely misleading, from my non-lexicographer
perspective.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu

On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> On Fri, 8 Feb 2002 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
> >    What does OED do with books like this?  Cite them as 1300s?  1829?
> > 1958?  Not at all??
> >    Ibn Battuta's _Travels_ is cited ("Lee's tr.") in OED's "colocana"
> > entry.  The date--the first citation--is given as 1829.  No other date
> > is given for the reader.
>
> Again we get back to the issue of whether the OED is a dictionary of the
> English language or a dictionary of all languages.  If it is a dictionary
> of the English language, which it is, then of course the date given is the
> date of the translation into English.  The date of the original
> publication in another language is not especially relevant.
>
> It is not even clear that the usages you mention are early usages of
> Arabic words.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
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