# 綿, わた, めん



## Aoyama

I wonder where the word (or rather the _reading_) わた for *cotton* come from ? Is it a native japanese word ? The 広辞苑 does not seem to give an explanation.
Some food for thought : in french, the word *ouate* comes from the arabic* wada* (both meaning cotton). Is there a link ?
This question may be directed to Flaminius who seems to be a real _maven _(物知り）。


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## Flaminius

Having checked various etymology dictionaries, I think _wata _has two likely etymologies.

1. It could be derived from Sanskrit vadara or badara (cotton). There is a legend that the first cotton was brought to Japan by a shipwrecked Indian. The first one to advance this point was 新村出.

2. It could be the product of generalisation from indigenous Japanese _wata_, or gut (as in harawata). Some sources reason that the cotton flower looks like the colon while others argue that the two are similar as the former is staffed inside the clothes and the latter inside the belly.

I have seen other etymologies but they seemed to me to be very far-fetched attempts to derive the word from ad-hocmorphemes.


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## Aoyama

First of all, welcome back and thank you for not forgeting my thread Flaminius. 
Wata linked to _wata_ (guts or entrails), hum ...
Linked to sanscrit ...
Regarding the legend about cotton being brought to Japan by a shipwrecked Indian, another legend (?) has it that *Jewish *and *Arabic* merchands, coming from *Cochin* in India, brought the stapple and the cloth to Japan, around the 10-11th century. That is why I was wondering about a link between arabic and japanese ... It should be interesting to trace the date of appearance of the word in japanese.
Different thing, *sarasa* comes from hindi or tamil ... (Sorry, japanese not available on my PC here).


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## Flaminius

See this Wiki article for the legend of the shipwrecked Indian who arrived in Aichi Prefecture in 799 CE.  延喜式 (905) records many places as rendering 綿 crop for annual produce tax.  Those early mentions are to be understood _cum grano salis_, since the Indian-brought cotton cultivation is said to have died out quickly (Wiki says within a year here) and 綿 may have meant textile made from mulberry (木綿 read ゆう) in the early 10th century.

I am interested in hearing more about the Cochin merchants.

Anent _wata_ as an Arabic word, I wonder if it is of Sanskrit origin.  Arabic has a triliteral word for cotton, _qutn_, which has become English cotton.  Aoyama先生, could I prevail upon you to request information as to which is the older Arabic word between _qutn_ and _wata_?  It seems all too possible to me that the latter is a borrowing from an Indic language and what Arabs reserved for "Indian cotton."  It would then follow that, as far-reaching merchants, they spread the merchandise as well as the Indic name thereof to French, Polish and Japanese.


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## Aoyama

Thank you for all the informations.
I will check Wiki. I had seen the date 799 in the Kojien. The story about the Cochin merchands should be found in the Encyclopedia Judaica, at either Cochin, India, Cotton.
To go back to *wata*, here are a few thoughts :
*wata* and *men* can be considered as _on_ and_ kun_ reading of the same word. *Men* obviously comes from *mian* in chinese, with other words as *momen* (where *mo* - mon- is probably short for _moku_). *Men* is also used used in compound, like in *menmitsu*, for different meanings.
So *wata* is a completely different word/reading. Is it of japanese origin (that is :* men* would be chinese, *wata* japanese) or _both _words would be "gailai go" ?
As for *cotton* , _qutn_ in arabic, _qutna_ in hebrew, with the triliteral root QTN, it may be slightly different from *wata/wada* (ouate in french = surgical cotton, etymology from arabic clearly stated). Cotton being the raw material, wata/ouate being a kind of coarse finished product.
Spanish and portuguese use *algodon* or *alcoton*, clearly showing the arabic origin .


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## Flaminius

In all the old material I quoted from or referred to, I cannot find any case where 綿 is explicitly meant to be pronouned _wata_.  Having learnt recently that cotton was an imported luxary until Mēji aera, I shall not be surprised if _wata _reading turns out to be a borrowed word as well as _men_.


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## Aoyama

Right, the question being  to know whether it is borrowed from arabic (or not). I had thought about the Silk Road (where Moslem and Jewish merchants, coming from Irak traded textiles, circa 800-1100, especially in Kaifeng), but then chinese would have had a trace of that pronunciation (*wata/wada*). Obviously this word (pronunciation) must have come _by sea_ .


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## Hiro Sasaki

My spanish friend showed me a conversation book - Japanese- Spanish
published in Spain. It has many mistakes.


De que materia es esta camiseta ? (What is the material of this T shirt ? ) 

La respuesta debe ser " Men desu ". Nadie dice "Es de wata".
The answer should : " Men desu".


Wata is a cotton but no hilado ni tejido. （　not textile ) 木綿（　もめん　）　is
acceptable but it's better  not to use it. I will give you an example.


明治時代（　めいじ　じだいに　）　エジプト、　アメリカなどから　安い綿製品（　めんせいひん）　が　輸入（ゆにゅう）　されるようになり　河内平野（　かわち　へいや　）　の
木綿の栽培（　さいばいＩ）　は　廃（すたれ）　れました。　During the Meiji era, 
cheap cotton products from Egypt and America began being imported 
into Japan, and the cultivation of cotton in the Kawachi Field disappeared. 

Hiro Sasaki


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## Hiro Sasaki

Aoyama said:
			
		

> I wonder where the word (or rather the _reading_) わた for *cotton* come from ? Is it a native japanese word ? The 広辞苑 does not seem to give an explanation.
> Some food for thought : in french, the word *ouate* comes from the arabic* wada* (both meaning cotton). Is there a link ?
> This question may be directed to Flaminius who seems to be a real _maven _(物知り）。


 
Aoyama san,

"Wata " is Kun-yomi ( pure old Japanese word ). Men is a sound of chinese 
origin. ( On -yomi ). 

Hiro Sasaki


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## Hiro Sasaki

Kawachi is a name for an ancient province ( now part of Osaka
Prefecture).  It is devided into South Kawachi and North Kawachi.


Some people are trying to revive cotton cultivation in Minami Kawachi
(soutj Kawachi) and cotton products. But, I can not be competitive 
to sell it in a large national wide market. They want to revive some 
local traditional cotton products. They can be sold as souveniers for tourists. 

Hiro Sasaki


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## Hiro Sasaki

In yao city, in Osaka Prefecture, there is a museum where you can 
see instruments used to weave cotton. During the Edo Period, cotton 
was being cultivated in Japan. It was not a luxury good. Poor peaseants 
wore cotton cloting. Even Frugal samurai wore it in stead of silk-made 
kimono.

Hiro sasaki


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## Aoyama

quote"Wata " is Kun-yomi ( pure old Japanese word ). Men is a sound of chinese 
origin. ( On -yomi ).quote
Late follow-up to that remark : the problem is to know if this reading (yomikata) _wata_ is really _*kun-yomi*_ ("pure old japanese", if there ever was) or if it is_ also_ an _*on-yomi*_ reading ( as well as men/mian in chinese), the origin of which is not clearly established yet.


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## Anatoli

By the way, we have a word вата [vata] in Russian, pronounced like わた only the first consonant is "v", which means cotton (usually used in medicine). I don't know it's origin, maybe it was borrowed from Japanese?


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## Aoyama

Anatoli said:


> By the way, we have a word вата [vata] in Russian, pronounced like わた only the first consonant is "v", which means cotton (usually used in medicine). I don't know it's origin, maybe it was borrowed from Japanese?


Good comment.
Apparently, same word in _polish_ . The question here is to know the origin of this word. Most probably NOT from japanese (into russian).
My guess is, granted the fact that *wada* is originally from arabic and that this word has given *ouate *in french , chances are that *ouate* turned to* ouata/wata/vata(?)* in other european languages. We should try turkish , greek etc. I still believe that _wata_ in japanese is a foreign word (as much as _men_), very likely coming from arabic.


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## Hiro Sasaki

For many centuturies, 唐　天竺（　から　てんじく　）　China and India meant 
"foreign countries", and the countries beyond India were even unknown 
for Japanese people. 

Greek, Roman, persian, arabian cultureds reached Japan only filtered 
by the Chinese culture. Therefore, it is impossible that the word
"Wata" can be of a foreign origin. 

The word Men came to Japan from China, and not Wata. Even in the 
Basque language of Europa and Quechua, there are some words 
very silimar to the corresponding Japanese words. That happended
only by coincidence. 

Hiroaki Sasaki


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## Aoyama

The whole point is to know whether it is a coincidence (*wata* in japanese) or not. I have a feeling it is not.


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## Aoyama

This is a copy of a post posted on the spanish forum and the OL forum.
Quote:
*Wadd´a en arabe veut dire pièce de coton. Donc je m´aventure à dire que l´origine des deux mots est arabe. 

*

I have received a very interesting post by Terepere, from the spanish forum, see above. It goes exactly in the direction I am looking for.
Translation in english (if need be) : 
Wadd'a _means a piece [of cloth] of cotton in arabic. I therefore venture to say that both words are coming from arabic._ 
Here, I will add that probably only _one_ word is coming from arabic, that is _guata_ or _ouate_ . Coton, algodon etc come from QUTN.
http://forum.wordreference.com/images/misc/progress.gif​


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## Hiro Sasaki

"Wata" meant "Sea" in the ancient Japanese. "Watatsumi" meant the gods 
at sea, at least in the 8th century. It might mean "sea" 2000 years ago, or 2600 years ago. The poems and stories had been handed down to
new generations orally. 


Some words of arabic origin, such as alcohol were introduced into Japan 
when Japan had contacts with Dutch people from the 16th century.

Cotton and sea implies "bubble". For example, 綿雲（　わたぐも　）。
Spaniards influenced by the Arab civilization came to Japan in the 16th 
century after expelling the islamic people from the Iberian Peninsula.
Before the 16th century, Japan had not any contacts with the Westerners
nor Aarab peoples.

Hiro Sasaki


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## Flaminius

Watatsumi is a great piece of evidence. Thank you for your contribution, Hiro.

Kojiki, the oldest extant Japanese history compilation (completed in 712 CE), several times refers to 綿津見 or sea gods. From other sources which I have no competence to discuss, we are told the word is to be read "watatsumi" or "wadatsumi." As early as the 8th century 綿, therefore, clearly requires the pronunciation _wata_ or _wada,_ though the latter might be the result of voicing that Japanese morphemes often undergo due to deriviational process (wata + tsu> wadatsu).

To my mind this seems to greatly reduce the possibilty of _wata_ being an Arabic loan, since we have no records of contact with Arabs during the 7th or 8th century.

Flam


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## Aoyama

Yes, food for thought, really. One could also link the sea with sheep (ocean being sheep + water), so you could link sheep and cotton ... Hum ...
No proven contacts between Arabs and Japanese before the 11-13 th century, true, though is the datation of *wata* in japanese so accurate ?
It may well be, after all, just a coincidence ...


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## Hiro Sasaki

Aoyama san,

As I have mentioned already, it is only clear that cotton was 
pronounced  wata o wada during the 8th century. The Japanese
mythology had been handed down orally. It might been pronounced wata or wada about 2600 years ago, the year of the legendary foundation of Japan.Nobody can know about it.

Hiro Sasaki


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## Flaminius

Watatsumi (綿津見) is relevant to our discussion insofar as it substantiates the wata reading for 綿 in the 8th century.  Kanjis here should be construed as only providing the sound but not the meaning of the word (which would be roughly "seeing cotton port," hardly makes sense).

I checked etymology dictionaries again and found out two things;
1. None of them considers _wata_ (OJ sea) and _wata_ (cotton) share any history.
2. In 日本語源大辞典 (小学館), I have found that _wata_ in the original sense meant "floss" (of silk).  When 木綿 (きわた, or cotton) was introduced in Japan, floss began to be called 真綿 (まわた, or real _wata_).  Here I stand corrected for what I wrote in a previous post, "綿 may have meant textile made from mulberry ".

Flaminius


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## Hiro Sasaki

In the 8th century, it's possible that the material called wata is 
different from the cotton. That's the detail I don't know.

The chronicle Nihon Shoki was written in chinese. But, the poems in the
anthology Manyoshu was written in Japanese. The chinese characters 
were used only as phonetic signs. 

The chronicle Kojiki was written also in Japanese. The chief editor Oono Yasumaro wrote in its preface that he took pains in expressing the 
Japanese pronunciations using the chinese characters. For some Japanese 
words, they used chinese characters only as phonetic signs. For other 
words, they used chinese character as ideographic signs with the
Japanese pronunciations. For some Japanese words written in chinese 
characters,the Japanese pronunciations were recognizable already.

Ooono Yasumaro thought that the beautiful Japanese sounds must be
expressed. Shinto priests even now way the words of blessing in the
pure Japanese language Yamato Kotoba. They use the words of foreign 
origin almost only for the proper nouns.

Hiro Sasaki


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## Aoyama

Some more informations have turned out on our search :
first at *http://etimologias.dechile.net/?guata* where it states that *guata* comes from the arabic *wadd'a* through the french *ouate* (stated a few times already). Strangely enough, other etymologies are also indicated, as *cuatle* coming from *Nahuatl* (Mexican indian dialect ?). 
One of my esteemed correspondants, TEREPERE, indicated to me that *guata* in South American spanish means also *tripes* (as in the japanese *hara wata*). Furthermore, it seems that some south american scholar tried to establish some link(s) between precolumbian civilization and ... Asia. 
This is, for the moment, beyond my practice. But always ready to hear more about it .


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