Talk:ginkgo

English etymology

this was the name that Engelbert Kaempfer [...] probably wrote as ginkjo in his Amoenitates Exoticae (1712) [ref]Wolfgang Michel, On Engelbert Kaempfer’s “Ginkgo”[/ref]

Questions and problems while reading this:

• The ref is gone.
• Why "probably"?
• Was it really ginkjo - or Ginkjo, ginkgo or Ginkgo?
  • It's possible that he capitalised the term for whatever reason (emphasis? taxonomic term?).
  • It's also possible that he miswrote it as ..go or that it was misprint as ..go even when his romanisation would properly give ..jo.
• On which page did wrote the term?
• As it might be useful to find the work: Where was it published? Is that the complete title or a shortening?

Doing some searching:

• A book entitled "Amoenitates Exoticae" or "Amoenitatum exoticae" is sometimes mentioned, but does it exist? Per google books it seems to be an incorrect title, with Kaempferus' work being entitled such (with capitals being normalised, ligatures being split, long s being replaced by round s): "Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V [= quinque], Quibus continentur Variae Relationes, Observationes et Descriptiones Rerum persicarum & [= et] ulterioris Asiae, multâ attentione, in peregrinationibus per universum Orientum, collectae, ab Auctore Engelberto Kaempfero, D. Lemgoviae, Typis & Impensis Henrici Wilhelmi Meyeri, Aulae Lippiacae Typographi, 1712." (e.g. Google). Well, on the picture before the title page one can read "Amoenitates exoticae" but the title page gives the more real title.
• In the book's "Index Rerum ac Verborum" it's "[...] Ginan, 811. Ginkgo, ib. [...]". On p. 811 it's "杏銀 Ginkgo, vel Gín an, vulgò Itsjò." Compared with wiktionary's etymology, the Asian characters have to be read from right to left.

Open questions:

• Knowing the English romanisation ginkyō and assuming Ginkgo is an error, what would Kaempferus' correct romanisation be? For English romanisation y, would Kaempferus' romanisation give j (as in Latin and Germanic with j for IPA [j]), i (similar to Old Latin with only i for both vowel i and consonant j), y (with y for IPA [j] as in Romance languages like English and French)? For English romanisation ō, would Kaempferus' give o, oo, o with a diacritic like ō, ô, ó or ò? In Kaempferus' romanisation j, oo and characters with diacritics do at least appear (e.g. á, é, í, ú, ó, in the ultima à, ì, ò, something like ĭ, ŭ). If his correct romanisation can be predicted, should it be mentioned?

-84.161.10.167 12:49, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your research. I think the etymology is good as-is now; adding his hypothetical romanisation is definitely not useful. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

You can access the paper here (PDF) or here (HTML). It seems like he usually transcribed what are now romanized as kyo and kyō as kjo or kio, but for some reason he transcribed the word as ginkgo. In his writing g and y were well distinguished, so to blame is most likely Kaempfer himself, not someone who interpreted his transcript. Nardog (talk) 14:37, 18 January 2018 (UTC)