Re: one Polish loanword from Chinese

From: Geoff (grw888_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 09/06/04 

Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 17:11:45 GMT

Brian M. Scott wrote:

> On Mon, 06 Sep 2004 10:30:36 -0400, Keith GOERINGER
> <verbivore@comcast.net> wrote in
> <news:verbivore-9CD0A1.10303606092004@comcast.dca.giganews.com>
> in sci.lang:
>
>
>>Interesting. At first, I was ready to say your teacher
>>was either joking, or just mistaken. But I checked in
>>Vasmer, and he claims that it is from Chinese <k'üen>
>>'scroll' (I'm guessing this would be <juan> in pinyin),
>
>
> If <k'üen> is Wade-Giles, the <k'> is [k^h], which is Pinyin
> <k>, so probably <küen>.
>

Depends when they supposedly borrowed it. In Middle Chinese
(ca. AD 600), å· was kjuan. The change to the pinyin "j"
initial is recent. The hard "g" initial probably
persisted until late in the last century - 18th and 19th
century dictionaries still show an initial "k".

I leave the issue of wheter it actually was borrowed to others.
 

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