of the North of Europe is manifest from the use of words for silk in several northern languages. These words appear, according to the inquiries of the learned orientalists, Klaproth and Abel Remusat[1], to have been derived from those Asiatic countries, in which silk was originally produced. In the language of Corea silk is called Sir; in Chinese Se, which may have been produced by the usual omission of the final r. In the Mongol language silk is called Sirkek, in the Mandchou Sirghè. In the Armenian the silk-worm is called Chèram. In Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, silk was called Seric[2]. From the same source we have in Greek and Latin [Greek: Sêrikon], 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 l for r, the second of an uncertain origin. To the first set belong,
Chelk, silk, in Slavonian.
Silke, in Suio-Gothic and Icelandic[3].
Silcke, in Danish.
Siolc or Seolc, silk, in Anglo-Saxon. Also Siolcen or
Seolcen, silken; al reolcen,
Holosericus; Seolcpynm, silk-worm[4].
- ↑ Journal Asiatique, 1823, tom. ii. p. 246. Julius Klaproth (Tableau Historique de l'Asie, Paris, 1826, p. 57, 58.) says, that in the year 165 B. C. the inhabitants 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 communication with Persia and India, especially in regard to the silk trade. Klaproth considers that the Seres of the ancients were the Chinese; but he appears to include under that term all the 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.
- ↑ See Schindler's Pentaglott, p. 1951, D.
- ↑ Silki trojo ermalausa, a silk tunic without sleeves. Knitlynga Saga, p. 114,
as quoted by Ihre, Glossar. Suio-Goth. v. Armalausa. - ↑ Ælfric's Glossary (made in the tenth century), p. 68. Appendix to Sumner's
Dictionary.
