into European languages through the Span. azarcon, a word of which there is a curious history in
Dozy and Engelmann. Two Spanish words and their distinct Arabic originals have been confounded in
the Span. Dict. of Cobarruvias (1611) and others following him. Sp. zarca is ‘a woman with blue
eyes,’ and this comes from Ar. zarka, fem. of azrak, ‘blue.’ This has led the lexicographers above
referred to astray, and azarcon has been by them defined as a ‘blue earth, made of burnt lead.’ But
azarcon really applies to ‘red-lead,’ or vermilion, as does the Port. zarcão, azarcão, and its proper sense
is as the Dict. of the Sp. Academy says (after repeating the inconsistent explanation and etymology
of Cobarruvias), “an intense orange-colour, Lat. color aureus.” This is from the Ar. zarkun, which in
Ibn Baithar is explained as synonymous with salikun, and asranj, “which the Greeks call sandix,” i.e.
cinnabar or vermilion (see Sontheimer’s Ebn Beithar, i. 44, 530). And the word, as Dozy shows, occurs
in Pliny under the form syricum (see quotations below). The eventual etymology is almost certainly
Persian, either zargun, ‘gold colour,’ as Marcel Devic suggests, or azargun (perhaps more properly
azargun, from azar, ‘fire’), ‘flame-colour,’ as Dozy thinks.
A.D. c. 70.—“Hoc ergo adulteratur minium in officinis sociorum, et ubivis Syrico. Quonam modo Syricum
fiat suo loco docebimus, sublini autem Syrico minium conpendi ratio demonstrat.”—Plin. N. H. XXXIII.
vii.
„ “Inter facticios est et Syricum, quo minium sublini diximus. Fit autem Sinopide et sandyce mixtis.”—Ibid.
XXXV. vi.
1796.—“The artists of Ceylon prepare rings and heads of canes, which contain a complete
assortment of all the precious stones found in that island. These assemblages are called Jargons de
Ceilan, and are so called because they consist of a collection of gems which reflect various colours.”—Fra
Paolino, Eng. ed. 1800, 393. (This is a very loose translation. Fra Paolino evidently thought Jargon
was a figurative name applied to this mixture of stones, as it is to a mixture of languages).
1813.—“The
colour of Jargons is grey, with tinges of green, blue, red, and yellow.”—I. Mawe, A Treatise on Diamonds,
&c. 119.
1860.—“The ‘Matura Diamonds,’ which are largely used by the native jewellers, consist of zircon,
found in the syenite, not only uncoloured, but also of pink and yellow tints, the former passing for rubies.”—Tennent’s
Ceylon, i. 38.
