T (continued 4)

Little importance is to be attached to Pinto's linguistic remarks such as that quoted, or even to the like dropt by Couto. We apprehend that Pinto made exactly the same mistake that Sir John Barrow did; and we need not wonder at it, when so many of our countrymen in India have supposed hackery to be a Hindustani word, and when we find even the learned H. H. Wilson assuming tope (in the sense of 'grove') to be in native Hindustani use. Many instances of such mistakes might be quoted. It is just possible, though not we think very probable, that some contact with the Formosan term may have influenced the modification of the old English form tuffon into typhoon. It is much more likely to have been influenced by the analogies of monsoon, simoom; and it is quite possible that the Formosan mariners took up their (unexplained) t'ai-fung from the Dutch or Portuguese.

On the origin of the Ar. word the late Prof. Robertson-Smith forwarded the following note:

"The question of the origin of Ṭūfān appears to be somewhat tangled.

"Τυφῶν, 'whirlwind, waterspout,' connected with τῦφος seems pure Greek; the combination in Baal-Zephon, Exod. xiv. 2, and Sephóni, the northern one, in Joel, ii. 20, suggested by Hitzig, appears to break down, for there is no proof of any Egyptian name for Set corresponding to Typhon.

"On the other hand Ṭūfān, the deluge, is plainly borrowed from the Aramaic. Tūfān, for Noah's flood, is both Jewish, Aramaic and Syriac, and this form is not borrowed from the Greek, but comes from a true Semitic root ṭūf 'to overflow.'

"But again, the sense of whirlwind is not recognised in classical Arabic. Even Dozy in his dictionary of later Arabic only cites a modern French-Arabic dictionary (Bocthor's) for the sense, Tourbillon, trombe. Bistání in the Moḥít el Moḥít does not give this sense, though he is pretty full in giving modern as well as old words and senses. In Arabic the root ṭūf means: 'to go round,' and a combination of this idea with the sense of sudden disaster might conceivably have given the new meaning to the word. On the other hand it seems simpler to regard this sense as a late loan from some modern form of τυφών, typho, or tifone. But in order finally to settle the matter one wants examples of this sense of ṭūfān."

[Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict. s.v.) gives: "Sometimes claimed as a Chinese word meaning 'a great wind' ... but this seems to be a late mystification. In old authors the forms are tuffon, tuffoon, tiphon, &c.—Arab. ṭūfān, a hurricane, storm. Gk. τυφών, better τυφώς, a whirlwind. The close accidental coincidence of these words in sense and form is very remarkable, as Whitney notes."]

c. A.D. 160.—"... dies quidem tandem illuxit: sed nichil de periculo, de saevitiâve remissum, quia turbines etiam crebriores, et coelum atrum et fumigantes globi, et figurae quaedam nubium metuendae, quas τυφῶνας vocabant, impendere, imminere, et depressurae navem videbantur."—Aul. Gellius, xix. 2.

1540.—"Now having ... continued our Navigation within this Bay of Cauchin-china ... upon the day of the nativity of our Lady, being the eight of September, for the fear that we were in of the new Moon, during the which there oftentimes happens in this Climate such a terrible storm of wind and rain, as it is not possible for ships to withstand it, which by the Chineses is named Tufan" (o qual tormento os Chins chamão tufão).—Pinto (orig. cap. I.) in Cogan, p. 60.

" "... in the height of forty and one degrees, there arose so terrible a South-wind, called by the Chineses Tufaon (un tempo do Sul, a q̃ Chins chamão tufão)."—Ibid. (cap. lxxix.), in Cogan, p. 97.

1554.—"Não se ouve por pequena maravilha cessarem os tufões na paragem da ilha de Sãchião."—Letter in Sousa, Oriente Conquist. i. 680.

[c. 1554.—"... suddenly from the west arose a great storm known as fil Tofani [literally 'Elephant's flood,' comp. ELEPHANTA, b.]."—Travels of Sidi Ali, Reïs, ed. Vambéry, p. 17.]

1567.—"I went aboorde a shippe of Bengala, at which time it was the yeere of Touffon, concerning which Touffon ye are to vnderstand that in the East Indies often times, there are not stormes as in other countreys; but every 10 or 12 yeeres there are such tempests and stormes that it is a thing incredible ... neither do they know certainly what yeere they will come."—Master Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 370 [369].

1575.—"But when we approach'd unto it (Cyprus), a Hurricane arose suddenly, and blew so fiercely upon us, that it wound our great Sail round about our main Mast.... These Winds arise from a Wind that is called by the Greeks Typhon; and Pliny calleth it Vertex and Vortex; but as dangerous as they are, as they arise suddenly, so quickly are they laid again also."—Rauwolff's Travels, in Ray's Collection, ed. 1705, p. 320. Here the traveller seems to intimate (though we are not certain) that Typhon was then applied in the Levant to such winds; in any case it was exactly the ṭūfān of India.

1602.—"This Junk seeking to make the port of Chincheo met with a tremendous storm such as the natives call Tufão, a thing so overpowering and terrible, and bringing such violence, such earthquake as it were, that it appears as if all the spirits of the infernal world had got into the waves and seas, driving them in a whirl till their fury seems to raise a scud of flame, whilst in the space of one turning of the sand-glass the wind shall veer round to every point of the compass, seeming to blow more furiously from each in succession.

"Such is this phenomenon that the very birds of heaven, by some natural instinct, know of its coming 8 days beforehand, and are seen to take their nests down from the tree-tops and hide them in crevices of rock. Eight days before, the clouds also are seen to float so low as almost to graze men's heads, whilst in these days the seas seem beaten down as it were, and of a deep blue colour. And before the storm breaks forth, the sky exhibits a token well-known to all, a great object which seamen call the Ox-Eye (Olho de Boi) all of different colours, but so gloomy and appalling that it strikes fear in all who see it. And as the Bow of Heaven, when it appears, is the token of fair weather, and calm, so this seems to portend the Wrath of God, as we may well call such a storm...." &c.—Couto, V. viii. 12.

1610.—"But at the breaking vp, commeth alway a cruell Storme, which they call the Tuffon, fearfull even to men on land; which is not alike extreame euery yeare."—Finch, in Purchas, i. 423.

1613.—"E porque a terra he salitrosa e ventosa, he muy sogeita a tempestades, ora menor aquella chamada Ecnephia (Εκνεφιας), ora maior chamada Tiphon (Τυφων), aquelle de ordinario chamamos Tuphão ou Tormenta desfeita ... e corre com tanta furia e impeto que desfas os tectos das casas e aranca arvores, e as vezes do mar lança as embarcações em terra nos campos do sertão."—Godinho de Eredia, f. 36v.

1615.—"And about midnight Capt. Adams went out in a bark abord the Hozeander with many other barks to tow her in, we fearing a tuffon."—Cocks's Diary, i. 50.

1624.—"3. Typhones majores, qui per latitudinem aliquam corripiunt, et correpta sorbent in sursum, raro fiunt; at vortices, sive turbines exigui et quasi ludicri, frequenter.

"4. Omnes procellae et typhones, et turbines majores, habent manifestum motum praecipitii, aut vibrationis deorsum magis quam alii venti."—Bacon, Hist. Ventorum, in B. Montagu's ed. of Works, x. 49. In the translation by R. G. (1671) the words are rendered "the greater typhones."—Ibid. xiv. 268.

1626.—"Francis Fernandez writeth, that in the way from Malacca to Iapan they are encountred with great stormes which they call Tuffons, that blow foure and twentie houres, beginning from the North to the East, and so about the Compasse."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 600.

1688.—"Tuffoons are a particular kind of violent Storms blowing on the Coast of Tonquin ... it comes on fierce and blows very violent, at N.E. twelve hours more or less.... When the Wind begins to abate it dies away suddenly, and falling flat calm it continues so an Hour, more or less; then the Wind comes round about to the S.W. and it blows and rains as fierce from thence, as it did before at N.E. and as long."—Dampier, ii. 36.

1712.—"Non v'è spavento paragonabile a quello de' naviganti, quali in mezzo all' oceano assaltati d'ogni intorno da turbini e da tifoni."—P. Paolo Segnero, Mann. dell' Anima, Ottobre 14. (Borrowed from Della Crusca Voc.).

1721.—"I told them they were all strangers to the nature of the Moussoons and Tuffoons on the coast of India and China."—Shelvocke's Voyage, 383.

1727.—"... by the Beginning of September, they reacht the Coast of China, where meeting with a Tuffoon, or a North East Storm, that often blows violently about that Season, they were forced to bear away for Johore."—A. Hamilton, ii. 89; [ed. 1744, ii. 88].

1727.—

1780.—Appended to Dunn's New Directory, 5th ed. is:—

"Prognostic of a Tuffoon on the Coast of China. By Antonio Pascal de Rosa, a Portuguese Pilot of Macao."

c. 1810.—(Mr. Martyn) "was with us during a most tremendous touffan, and no one who has not been in a tropical region can, I think, imagine what these storms are."—Mrs. Sherwood's Autobiog. 382.

1826.—"A most terrific toofaun ... came on that seemed likely to tear the very trees up by the roots."—John Shipp, ii. 285.

" "I thanked him, and enquired how this toofan or storm had arisen."—Pandurang Hari, [ed. 1873, i. 50].

1836.—"A hurricane has blown ever since gunfire; clouds of dust are borne along upon the rushing wind; not a drop of rain; nothing is to be seen but the whirling clouds of the tūfān. The old peepul-tree moans, and the wind roars in it as if the storm would tear it up by the roots."—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, ii. 53.

1840.—"Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying. Typhoon coming on.

Mr. Ruskin appears to have had no doubt as to the etymology of Typhoon, for the rain-cloud from this picture is engraved in Modern Painters, vol. iv. as "The Locks of Typhon." See Mr. Hamerton's Life of Turner, pp. 288, 291, 345.

Punch parodied Turner in the following imaginary entry from the R.A. Catalogue:

"34.—A Typhoon bursting in a Simoon over the Whirlpool of Maelstrom, Norway, with a ship on fire, an eclipse and the effect of a lunar rainbow."

1853.—"... pointing as he spoke to a dark dirty line which was becoming more and more visible in the horizon:

"'By Jove, yes!' cried Stanton, 'that's a typhaon coming up, sure enough.'"—Oakfield, i. 122.

1859.—"The weather was sultry and unsettled, and my Jemadar, Ramdeen Tewarry ... opined that we ought to make ready for the coming tuphan or tempest.... A darkness that might be felt, and that no lamp could illumine, shrouded our camp. The wind roared and yelled. It was a hurricane."—Lt.-Col. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, p. 62.

Compare the next quotation, from the same writer, with that given above from Couto respecting the Olho de Boi:

1885.—"The district was subject to cyclonic storms of incredible violence, fortunately lasting for a very short time, but which often caused much destruction. These storms were heralded by the appearance above the horizon of clouds known to the natives by the name of 'lady's eyebrows,' so called from their being curved in a narrow black-arched wisp, and these most surely foretold the approach of the tornado."—Ibid. 176.

TYRE, s. Tamil and Malayāl. tayir. The common term in S. India for curdled milk. It is the Skt. dadhi, Hind. dahi of Upper India, and probably the name is a corruption of that word.

1626.—"Many reasoned with the Iesuits, and some held vaine Discourses of the Creation, as that there were seuen seas; one of Salt water, the second of Fresh, the third of Honey, the fourth of Milke, the fift of Tair (which is Cream beginning to sowre)...."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 561.

1651.—"Tayer, dat is dicke Melch, die wie Saen nommen."—Rogerius, 138.

1672.—"Curdled milk, Tayer, or what we call Saane, is a thing very grateful to them, for it is very cooling, and used by them as a remedy, especially in hot fevers and smallpox, which is very prevalent in the country."—Baldaeus, Zeylon, 403.

1776.—"If a Bramin applies himself to commerce, he shall not sell ... Camphire and other aromaticks, or Honey, or Water, or Poison, or Flesh, or Milk, or Tyer (Sour Cream) or Ghee, or bitter Oil...."—Halhed, Code, 41.

1782.—"Les uns en furent affligés pour avoir passé les nuits et dormi en plein air; d'autres pour avoir mangé du riz froid avec du Tair."—Sonnerat, i. 201.

c. 1784.—"The Saniassi (Sunyasee), who lived near the chauderie (see CHOULTRY), took charge of preparing my meals, which consisted of rice, vegetables, tayar (lait caillé), and a little mologonier" (eau poivrée—see MULLIGATAWNY).—Haafner, i. 147.

[1800.—"The boiled milk, that the family has not used, is allowed to cool in the same vessel; and a little of the former day's tyre, or curdled milk, is added to promote its coagulation...."—Buchanan, Mysore, ii. 14.]

1822.—"He was indeed poor, but he was charitable; so he spread before them a repast, in which there was no lack of ghee, or milk, or tyer."—The Gooroo Paramartan, E.T. by Babington, p. 80.