Susen

From Simon Online
Jump to: navigation, search

Susen arabice lilium a greco susinum.


Apparatus:

susinum (-ũ jp) ABC jp | susiniũ f | sirsuniʒ e {‘u’ misred as ‘ir’}
{susinum} dicitur add. j


Translation:

Susen is Arabic for Latin lilium, from the Greek word susinum.


Commentary:

Susen:
Wehr (1976): ﺳﻮﺴﻦ /sausan/, /sūsan/ “lily of the valley; (bot.)” Siggel (1950: 44): ﺳﻮﺴﻦ /sūsan/ Lilium candidum, weiße Lilie u. Iris florentina, blaue Schwertlilie {i.e. “Madonna Lily” and “Orris root”}.

Cf also Lane (1984: 1466) ﺳﻮﺴﻦ /sūsan/: … [applied in the present day to the lily: and also the iris: and the pancratium: and applied to other similar flowers … etc.

susinum:
According to André (1985: 252), Greek σούσινον /soúsinon/ - here Latinised susinum - is derived from σοῦσον /soûson/ “lily”. The latter word, mentioned by Aristotle, came into Greek from Old Egyptian šššn (cf. Frisk, 1960-72: II.754 sššn > ššn) through Semitic intermediaries, cf. Hebrew ןשׁושׁ /šūšan/. The Arabic word is most likely a direct loan from another Semitic language or Egyptian itself rather than from Greek.

Greek σούσινον /soúsinon/ is just a neuter adjectival form, meaning “of the lily”, derived from σοῦσον /soûson/ to which it can also act as a synonym, cf. LSJ σούσινον /soúsinon/ = κρίνον /krínon/, and: σοῦσον /soûson/ = κρίνον /krínon/, see Simon’s entry Krimon.


Botanical identification:

The identification of Arabic ﺳﻮﺴﻦ /sausan/, /sūsan/ is complicated, just as that of lilium, because it seems that different ancient authors had very different plants in mind.
However, most modern authorities agree that in the majority of cases Lilium candidum L., the “Madonna lily” [[1]] is meant, e.g. André (1985: 252) s.v. sūsinum, but as becomes clear from the divergent identifications in the dictionaries quoted above it seems that a wide variety of mainly white plants were subsumed under the name ﺳﻮﺴﻦ /sausan/, /sūsan/, a situation that Lane describes very clearly.

Siggel - and possibly Lane – mention as a further candidate Iris florentina L., synonym Iris germanica var. florentina (L.) Dykes, “Orris lily” [[2]], which is however blue-flowered.

In addition Lane also mentions pancratium [[3]], a plant genus with a distribution along the coastlines of the Mediterranean.

Wehr’s “lily of the valley”, i.e. Convallaria majalis L., [[4]], is extremely rare in the Mediterranean habitat and has a largely central European distribution, whereas it is often only found near the lower regions of mountain ranges in the more Southern countries (Pyrenees, Alps). This is the most unlikely candidate to be covered by Arabic ﻦﺴﻮﺴ /sausan/, /sūsan/.

WilfGunther (talk) 15:46, 1 February 2016 (GMT)

See also Krimon, Crinon, Lilium, Susinum oleum


Next entry