Re: one Polish loanword from Chinese

From: John Swindle (jcswindle_at_msndotcom)
Date: 09/07/04 

Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 22:36:14 -1000

"Jacques Guy" <jguy@alphalink.com.au> wrote in message
news:413D59F1.219D@alphalink.com.au...
> Paulinette wrote:
>
>> Hi everybody,
>>
>> Our Polish teacher told us that the Polish word for 'book' -- ksiega
>> -- was borrowed from Chinese. How could this happen??
>
> Wow! As far as I know, the Chinese word for 'book'
> is 'szu' in Polish spelling. How you can derive
> ksiega from szu... well... Metalleus might have something
> to teach you about that:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8389/moses.htm

Well, please note that the present discussion has so far proposed four
different Chinese words as the possible origin of the Slavic word. The
four Chinese words come into modern Mandarin as

    juan ("scroll")
    jing ("classic")
    bi ("writing brush")
    shu (originally "write", later "book")

Most of the discussion here has been about the first.