Fistici

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Fistici dicuntur arabice fistac grece vero pistakia.


Apparatus:

Fistici ABC e | fistici f {not capitalised}.

fistac AC | fistat Be f {'c' misread as 't'}

pistakia ABC e | pistachia f


Translation:

Fistici {"pistachio-nuts"} are called fistac in Arabic, but in Greek it is pistakia.


Commentary:

In medieval Latin the forms fisticus, fusticus and occasionally confused with Latin festuca {the latter meaning "stalk, stem, straw"}, cf. Latham (1973: 193), s.v. fisticus, are used for "pistachio-nuts" or "fistic-nuts" in obsolete English. The word is also mentioned in Alphita, ed. Mowat (1887: 67): Fisticus ... fructus est testam habens et nucleum - "Fisticus is a fruit, it has a shell and an edible core".

The word is an adoption of Arabic ﻓﺳﺗﻖ /fustuq/, /fustaq/ "pistachio (bot.)" (Wehr, 1976); and Siggel (1950: 56): ﻓﺳﺗﺎﻕ /fustāq/, ﻓﺳﺘﺎﻙﺎ /fustāk/, ﻓﺳﺗﻖ /fustaq/ Fr. v. Pistacia vera (Anacardiac.), Pistazie; πιστάκια /pistákia/ {i.e "fruit of Pistacia vera, pistachio-nut"}.

Although the ultimate source of the word seems to be Persian, cf. ﭘﺳﺗﮤ /pistah/, the final consonant of the Arabic form /-q/ or /-k/ points to a loan from Greek πιστάκια /pistákia/.

Cf. Catalan: festuc, fistic, fustet for Pistacia vera L. and Portuguese fístico, alfóstico and alfóstigo for P. terebinthus L. and many altered Spanish forms like alfónsigo, alfócigo, alhóstigo, etc. (cf. Font Quer, 2002: 444, Corominas/Pascual s.v. ALFÓNSIGO, Meyer-Lübke (1924: 542, 6535) pistakion, 2) fostaq.).

For further information see Pistakia.

WilfGunther 17/11/13


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