The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

80 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK.
of the North of Europe is manffest from the use of words for
sillc ill several northern languages. These words appear, ac-
cording to the inquiries of the learned orientaUsts, Klaproth
and Abel Remusat*, to have been derived from those Asiatic
countries, in which silk was originally produced. In the lan-
guage of Corea silk is called Sir ; in Chinese JSe, which may-
have been produced by the usual omission of the final r. In
the Mongol language silk is called Sirkek, in the Mandchou
Sirghe. In the Armenian the silk-worm is called Cheram.
In Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, silk was called Sericf. From
the same source we have in Greek and Latin Enpuov, Sericum.
In the more modern European languages we find two sets
of terms for silk, the first evidently derived from the oriental
Seric, but with the common substitution of I for r, the second
of an uncertain origin. To the first set belong,
Chelk, silk, in Slavonian.
Sllke, in Suio-Gothic and Icelandic!.
Silcke, in Danish.
Siolc or Seolc, silk, in Anglo-Saxon. Also Siolcen or
Seolcen, silken ; Gal reolcen,
Holosericus ; Seolcpynm, silkworm
§.
* Journal Asiatique, 1823, torn. ii. p. 246. Julius Klaproth (Tableau Historique
de I'Asie, Paris, 1826, p. 57, 58.) says, that in the year 165 B. C. the inhabi-
tants of the country called by us Tangut, who constituted a powerful kingdom,
were attacked by the Hioung Nou, and driven to the West, where they fixed
themselves in Transoxiana, and that these events led to an uninterrupted com-
munication with Persia and India, especially in regard to the silk trade. Klap-
roth considers that the Seres of the ancients were the Chinese ;
but he appears to
include under that term all tlie nations which were brought into subjection to the
Chinese.
Professor Karl Ritter (Erdkunde, Asien, Band iv. 2 te Auflage, Berlin, 1835,
p. 437.) observes, in allusion to the authority just quoted, that all the names of
the silk-worm and its products are to be accounted for on the supposition (which
he considers the true one) that they were first known and cultivated in China,
and from thence extended through central Asia into Europe^
t See Schindler's Pentaglott, p. 1951, D.
t Silki trojo crmalausa, a silk tunic without sleeves. Knitlynga Saga, p. 114,
as quoted by Ihre, Glossar. Suio-Goth. v. Armalausa.
§ jElfric's Glossary (made in the tenth century), p. 68. Appendix to Sumner's
Dictionary.