Origin of Cultivated Plants. Alphonse de Candolle

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СКАЧАТЬ signs have often been rebuses, based on chance resemblances in the words, or on superstitious and fanciful ideas.

      The identity of a common name for a given species in several languages may have two very different explanations. It may be because a plant has been spread by a people which has been dispersed and scattered. It may also result from the transmission of a plant from one people to another with the name it bore in its original home. The first case is that of the hemp, of which the name is similar, at least as to the root, in all the tongues derived from the primitive Aryan stock. The second is seen in the American name of tobacco, the Chinese of tea, which have spread into a number of countries, without any philological or ethnographic filiation. This case has occurred oftener in modern than in ancient times, because the rapidity of communications allows of the simultaneous introduction of a plant and of its name, even where the distance is great.

      The diversity of names for the same species may also spring from various causes. As a rule, it indicates an early existence in different countries, but it may also arise from the mixture of races, or from names of varieties which take the place of the original name. Thus in England we find, according to the county, a Keltic, Saxon, Danish, or Latin name; and flax bears in Germany the names of flachs and lein, words which are evidently of different origin.

      When we desire to make use of the common names to gather from them certain probabilities regarding the origin of species, it is necessary to consult dictionaries and the dissertations of philologists; but we must take into account the chances of error in these learned men, who, since they are neither cultivators nor botanists, may have made mistakes in the application of a name to a species.

      The most considerable collection of common names is that of Nemnich, published in 1793.18 I have another in manuscript which is yet more complete, drawn up in our library by an old pupil of mine, Moritzi, by means of floras and of several books of travel written by botanists. There are, besides, dictionaries of the names of the species in given countries or in some special language. This kind of glossary does not often contain explanations of etymology; but in spite of what Hehn19 may say, a naturalist possessed of an ordinary general education can recognize the connection or the fundamental differences between certain names in different languages, and need not confound modern with ancient languages. It is not necessary to be initiated into the mysteries of suffixes or affixes, of dentals and labials. No doubt the researches of a philologist into etymologies are more profound and valuable, but this is rarely necessary when our researches have to do with cultivated plants. Other sciences are more useful, especially that of botany; and philologists are more often deficient in these than naturalists are deficient in philology, for the very evident reason that more place is given to languages than to natural history in general education. It appears to me, moreover, that philologists, notably those who are occupied with Sanskrit, are always too eager to find the etymology of every name. They do not allow sufficiently for human stupidity, which has in all time given rise to absurd words, without any real basis, and derived only from error or superstition.

      The filiation of modern European tongues is known to every one. That of ancient languages has, for more than half a century, been the object of important labours. Of these I cannot here give even a brief notice. It is sufficient to recall that all modern European languages are derived from the speech of the Western Aryans, who came from Asia, with the exception of Basque (derived from the Iberian language), Finnish, Turkish, and Hungarian, into which, moreover, words of Aryan origin have been introduced. On the other hand, several modern languages of India, Ceylon, and Java, are derived from the Sanskrit of the Eastern Aryans, who left Central Asia after the Western Aryans. It is supposed, with sufficient probability, that the first Western Aryans came into Europe 2500 B.C., and the Eastern Aryans into India a thousand years later.

      Basque (or Iberian), the speech of the Guanchos of the Canary Isles, of which a few plant names are known, and Berber, are probably connected with the ancient tongues of the north of Africa.

      Botanists are in many cases forced to doubt the common names attributed to plants by travellers, historians, and philologists. This is a consequence of their own doubts respecting the distinction of species and of the well-known difficulty of ascertaining the common name of a plant. The uncertainty becomes yet greater in the case of species which are more easily confounded or less generally known, or in the case of the languages of little-civilized nations. There are, so to speak, degrees of languages in this respect, and the names should be accepted more or less readily according to these degrees.

      In the first rank, for certainty, are placed those languages which possess botanical works. For instance, it is possible to recognize a species by means of a Greek description by Dioscorides or Theophrastus, and by the less complete Latin texts of Cato, Columella, or Pliny. Chinese books also give descriptions. Dr. Bretschneider, of the Russian legation at Pekin, has written some excellent papers upon these books, from which I shall often quote.20

      The second degree is that of languages possessing a literature composed only of theological and poetical works, or of chronicles of kings and battles. Such works make mention here and there of plants, with epithets or reflections on their mode of flowering, their ripening, their use, etc., which allow their names to be divined, and to be referred to modern botanical nomenclature. With the added help of a knowledge of the flora of the country, and of the common names in the languages derived from the dead language, it is possible to discover approximately the sense of some words. This is the case with Sanskrit,21 Hebrew,22 and Armenian.23

      Lastly, a third category of dead languages offers no certainty, but merely presumptions or hypothetical and rare indications. It comprehends those tongues in which there is no written work, such as Keltic, with its dialects, the ancient Sclavonic, Pelasgic, Iberian, the speech of the primitive Aryans, Turanians, etc. It is possible to guess certain names or their approximate form in these dead languages by two methods, both of which should be employed with caution.

      The first and best is to consult the languages derived, or which we believe to be derived, directly from the ancient tongues, as Basque for the Iberian language, Albanian for the Pelasgic, Breton, Erse, and Gaelic for Keltic. The danger lies in the possibility of mistake in the filiation of the languages, and especially in a mistaken belief in the antiquity of a plant-name which may have been introduced by another people. Thus the Basque language contains many words which seem to have been taken from the Latin at the time of the Roman rule. Berber is full of Arab words, and Persian of words of every origin, which probably did not exist in Zend.

      The other method consists in reconstructing a dead language which had no literature, by means of those which are derived from it; for instance, the speech of the Western Aryans, by means of the words common to several European languages which have sprung from it. Fick’s dictionary will hardly serve for the words of ancient Aryan languages, for he gives but few plant-names, and his arrangement renders it unintelligible to those who have no knowledge of Sanskrit. Adolphe Pictet’s work24 is far more important to naturalists, and a second edition, augmented and improved, has been published since the author’s death. Plant-names and agricultural terms are explained and discussed in this work, in a manner all the more satisfactory that an accurate knowledge of botany is combined with philology. If the author attributes perhaps too much importance to doubtful etymologies, he makes up for it by other knowledge, and by his excellent method and lucidity.

      The plant-names of the Euskarian or Basque language have been considered from the point of view of their probable etymology by the Comte de Charencey, in Les Actes de la Société Philologique (vol. i. No. 1, 1869). I shall have occasion to quote this work, of which the difficulties were great, in the absence of all literature and of all derived languages.

      6. The necessity СКАЧАТЬ