Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/112

 of the North of Europe is manifest from the use of words for silk in several northern languages. These words appear, according to the inquiries of the learned orientalists, Klaproth and Abel Remusat, to have been derived from those Asiatic countries, in which silk was originally produced. In the language of Corea silk is called Sir; in Chinese Se, which may have been produced by the usual omission of the final r. In the Mongol language silk is called Sirkek, in the Mandchou Sirghè. In the Armenian the silk-worm is called Chèram. In Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, silk was called Seric. From the same source we have in Greek and Latin [Greek: Sêrikon], Sericum.

In the more modern European languages we find two sets of terms for silk, the first evidently derived from the oriental Seric, but with the common substitution of l for r, the second of an uncertain origin. To the first set belong,

Chelk,            silk, in Slavonian. Silke,              in Suio-Gothic and Icelandic. Silcke,             in Danish. Siolc or Seolc,     silk, in Anglo-Saxon. Also Siolcen or                             Seolcen, silken; al reolcen, Holosericus; Seolcpynm, silk-worm.