NOTES AND QUERIES
163
under the name mani. Its cultivation in West Africa began early and it is not surprising that it spread quickly to the Arab countries of the Middle East. Some plant-geographers believe that it was introduced to India and Ceylon from China but there is as great a likelihood that it reached these three areas in Portuguese ships at more or less the same time.
The Arabic al-luimûn, adapted from Persian limu(n), is the source of such modern European forms of English as lemon, Spanish limón and Portuguese limão. The Cantonese ningmung may be derived from a Portuguese metropolitan or dialectal form. The modern Macanese form, used at the present in Hong Kong, is limang which appears in the Ao Men Chỉ Lüeh as lei-máng, according to Mr. Gomes's romanisation,
That the Cantonese form ends in mung and the Macanese in mang is not an unsurmountable obstacle, since, if the sixteenth century Cantonese borrowed the word from European Portuguese speaking the standard dialect of those times, they would have had some difficulty in pronouncing the syllable mão which probably sounded like mao uttered with the nostrils pinched. Such a sound could be represented equally well (or inaccurately) by the Cantonese sounds Mung and mang in all possible tones and reduced to writing by any convenient character chosen ad lib.
The authors of the Ao Mun Chi Lüeh had obviously some difficulty in representing this Portuguese suffix in their glossary of Cantonese terms. For example, cumarão (prawn) appears as kám-pá-long (cf. Hong Kong Macanese cambrang), tufão (typhoon) is recorded as tou-fóng (cf. Hong Kong Macanese tufang), jambolão (a kind of fruit) is iâm-po-long (cf. Hong Kong Macanese jambolang). In other places -ão appears as -eng as in si-tát-teng for cidadão (citizen) and a-ueng for afião (opium). More like the modern Macanese dialectal resolution are fu-káng (store) which is the Portuguese fogão, pronounced fogang in Hong Kong Macanese; ka-lá-sâng (trousers) from Portuguese calcão, carsang in Macanese.
In short, if the Cantonese name had been derived from the dialectal form we should have expected something like ningmang but if the borrowing was early and from a "standard" Portuguese pronunciation of limão the final syllable could have been heard
NOTES AND QUERIES
163
under the name mani. Its cultivation in West Africa began early and it is not surprising that it spread quickly to the Arab countries of the Middle East. Some plant-geographers believe that it was introduced to India and Ceylon from China but there is as great a likelihood that it reached these three areas in Portuguese ships at more or less the same time.
The Arabic al-luimûn, adapted from Persian limu(n), is the source of such modern European forms of English as lemon, Spanish limón and Portuguese limão. The Cantonese ningmung may be derived from a Portuguese metropolitan or dialectal form. The modern Macanese form, used at the present in Hong Kong, is limang which appears in the Ao Men Chỉ Lüeh as lei-máng, according to Mr. Gomes's romanisation,
That the Cantonese form ends in mung and the Macanese in mang is not an unsurmountable obstacle, since, if the sixteenth century Cantonese borrowed the word from European Portuguese speaking the standard dialect of those times, they would have had some difficulty in pronouncing the syllable mão which probably sounded like mao uttered with the nostrils pinched. Such a sound could be represented equally well (or inaccurately) by the Cantonese sounds Mung and mang in all possible tones and reduced to writing by any convenient character chosen ad lib.
The authors of the Ao Mun Chi Lüeh had obviously some difficulty in representing this Portuguese suffix in their glossary of Cantonese terms. For example, cumarão (prawn) appears as kám-pá-long (cf. Hong Kong Macanese cambrang), tufão (typhoon) is recorded as tou-fóng (cf. Hong Kong Macanese tufang), jambolão (a kind of fruit) is iâm-po-long (cf. Hong Kong Macanese jambolang). In other places -ão appears as -eng as in si-tát-teng for cidadão (citizen) and a-ueng for afião (opium). More like the modern Macanese dialectal resolution are fu-káng (store) which is the Portuguese fogão, pronounced fogang in Hong Kong Macanese; ka-lá-sâng (trousers) from Portuguese calcão, carsang in Macanese.
In short, if the Cantonese name had been derived from the dialectal form we should have expected something like ningmang but if the borrowing was early and from a "standard" Portuguese pronunciation of limão the final syllable could have been heard
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