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140
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JULY, 1926
of the principal lands washed by the Indian Ocean and the China Seas. The Portuguese,
whose earliest charts are based upon Arab sailing instructions," had no alternative but to register purely and simply (and before they had themselves discovered the Gulf of Tonkin) the name which the Arabs gave to the Annamite country.
“We may here remark that of all the countries situated on this coast and described as "of Chin," Kawchi is the only one of which the name has continued, after Arab and Portuguese times, to bear the distinctive affix of Chin.' All the rest, Champa, Laghur, etc., have lasted without being linked for any great length of time with this distinguishing affix, which no doubt disappeared directly people realised that it embodied a radical geographical error. It is possible that the exception allowed in the case of the name we are discussing arose from the fact that there existed in India a practically identical and widely known place-name, that of the port of Kochi (Cochin). It was doubtless necessary to retain the affix of Chin', in order to distinguish Kawchi of Chîn from Kochi in India.
"Such must have been the origin and use of the name Cochin China. The Arab expression Kawchi of Chîn' in fact corresponds in a wholly conclusive manner with the earliest, normal Portuguese forms of the word Cochin China. The two first readings, those of January 8th, 1515, Quachymchyna and Quamchymchyna, are almost identical ; for I regard the m in Quam as a copyist's error for u, an error which appears again (n for u) in certain unusual forms at the beginning of the sixteenth century, e.g., Concamchina (1616), Canchimchyna (1524), and disappears entirely after 1529. The most ancient ordinary Portuguese form of the word is therefore either Quachymchyna or Quauchymchyna, the first half of which (Quachy or Quauchy) is an exact transliteration of the Arab Kawchi and, through the Arabic, of the Chinese Kiao-tche and Cantonese Kaw-chi.
"The examples chosen by M, G. Ferrand from the Arabic MS. No. 2559 in the Bibliothéque Nationale appear to indicate that, in order to translate the expression Kawchi in China' or 'Kawchỉ of China,' the Arab would have to say either Kawchi min al Chin, which exactly represents Kawchi of the China,'or, by suppressing the superfluous article, Kauchí min Chin or Kawchi of China.' I may be pardoned fot venturing here upon ground which is unfamiliar to me, but it seems to me quite likely that it was in the latter simplified form that the name was ordinarily spoken by the Arabs and was heard by the Portuguese. The Arab phrase Kawchi min Chín (or, in a single word, Kawchim(in)chin) is all the closer to the earliest Portuguese forms of the name Cochin China, in that the central syllable min, which means 'of' and is of secondary importance in the name, must have been pronounced quickly, so as to leave a clear mark of nasalisation. This Arab form therefore explains fully the earliest Portuguese renderings : it also explains the nasal sound in the middle of the word, which is universally present in every mention of the name in all languages, and which has survived to our own times in the central n of the word Cochin China.
“We thus have a group of sound historical, geographical and linguistic reasons for deriving the name Cochin China, through the Portuguese Quachymchyna, from the phrase by which the Arabs, at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, meant to designate the Annamite kingdom, and more particularly the Tonkin sea-board. This expression Kawchim (in) chin signified that the kingdom was that of Kawchi (Kigo-tche), the traditional Chinese name for Tonkin, known in Europe since the time of Marco Polo, and that it was situated on the eastern coast of Indo-China, that is to say, on the coast of Chin (China), according to the geographical nomenclature in vogue among Arab navigators and travellers.
"Thus the fair fortune and the meaning of this simple name, Cochin China, which bears to-day the impress of French renown, are accounted for by the brilliance of Moslem power and the still more radiant glory of the Portuguese navigatcas in the Indian Ocean, more than five centuries ago."
