JATROPHA.

A story by Lydia Polgreen in today’s NY Times [archived] discusses a plant used in Mali as a form of fencing that turns out to be “a potentially ideal source of biofuel, a plant that can grow in marginal soil or beside food crops, that does not require a lot of fertilizer and yields many times as much biofuel per acre planted as corn and many other potential biofuels.” It will be great if it turns out to save the world, but as you will understand, my main concern is with its peculiar name, of whose pronunciation and origin the story gives no clue, except to say that it “originated in Central America and is believed to have been spread around the world by Portuguese explorers.” Some sort of Indian language, then? It wasn’t in the OED (tsk), but I found it in Webster’s Third New International: it’s pronounced JAT-ruh-fuh. And the etymology? That’s so surprising (and yet obvious, once you know) I’m placing it below the cut, so you can speculate unhindered before checking.

Meanwhile, I’ll entertain you with an odd entry I found in the OED while looking fruitlessly for this word:

jau dewin

[Origin obscure.]

A term of reproach.

1340-70 Alex. & Dind. 659 Þe iaudewin iubiter ioiful ȝe holde, For he was wraþful i-wrouht & wried in angur.
c1362 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 565 Cuidam Istrioni Jestour Jawdewyne in festo Natalis D’ni, 3s. 4d.
1401 Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 86 Thou jawdewine, thow jangeler, how stande this togider.

“Thou jawdewin” has a ring to it, doesn’t it? I may have to adopt it. (But why do they show it as two words when all the citations have it as one?)

OK, give up? Here’s the etymology:

Greek iatros ‘physician’ + trophē ‘nourishment.’ It’s originally a New Latin genus name, so Webster’s wants you to capitalize it: Jatropha. But I think we’re past that, now that it’s a world-saving wonder weed.

Comments

  1. Interesting article. The only -Jatropha- species I am familiar with is -Jatropha podagrica- a widely grown ornamental succulent.
    The “iatro” connection should have been apparent to me, but it wasn’t. Thanks.
    J. Del Col

  2. SnowLeopard says

    Odd name. The only Jatropha species listed in van Wyk’s “Medicinal Plants of the World” is Jatropha curcas. It’s a member of the Euphorbiaceae family (uniformly toxic) and its seeds reportedly found use in traditional Central & South American medicine, and later in traditional European medicine. The only clue as to its application is the evocative “purgative, toxic!” Physician’s nourishment, indeed.

  3. jau dewin [Origin obscure] — surely it is simply from Welsh iau “Jupiter” and dewin “magician, wizard” (noun) or “divine” (adj.), i.e. “Jupiter the Divine”. The reference to “Þe iaudewin iubiter” would support this etymology.

  4. komfo,amonan says

    Um, is it just me or is “Jatropha” just a godawful coinage? What’s the rationale/precedent for combining the two “tr”‘s into one? And didn’t initial iota start becoming “i” rather than “j” at some point (e.g., Ιωνία -> Ionia)?
    Besides ἰατρός, there’s a perfectly good word ἰατήρ,-ῆρος, which could get you *iaterotrophe — assuming *iatrotrophe is too cacophonous.

  5. It’s called haplology (or “haplogy,” as we ling-department wits used to say), and an excellent classical precedent is Latin nutrix = *nutritrix. As for the j-, they were presumably going on the analogy of words like January; unfortunately for them, that only applies to the semivowel, whereas the i- in iatros is a separate syllable. On the other hand, I’m not sure “iatropha” would be much better. Should have borrowed a local word.

  6. Andrew: Now that you mention it, that would seem to be blindingly evident. No Welshmen on the original OED staff, I guess. They probably know by now, but you might send it in to them just in case.

  7. komfo,amonan says

    Ah.
    Maybe they were inspired by the related word Ιάσων -> Jason (I think it’s related — aorist participle of ιάομαι?).

  8. The Middle English Dictionary gives:

    jaudewin (n.)
    [?Cp. OF (from Gmc.) geude, gelde, jaude, jeudon `foot soldier, band of foot soldiers, group or brotherhood’, & OIt. (from OF) geldra `ragamuffin’.]

    But I think my etymology is much more plausible (and perhaps the OED editors were thinking of the Welsh when they gave the headword form as two words instead of one). The connection between Jupiter, “the bringer of jollity”, and jesters and janglers is also quite easy to see.

  9. In Myanmar we are growing lots of these Jatrophas to defeat the foreign colonial oil powers.
    Than Shwe
    http://www.myanmar.com/myanmartimes/MyanmarTimes16-305/n012.htm
    http://www.myanmar.com/myanmartimes/MyanmarTimes17-330/n021.htm

  10. Why use the Latin when we have “physic nut!”

  11. And didn’t initial iota start becoming “i” rather than “j” at some point (e.g., Ιωνία -> Ionia)?

  12. Read my earlier comment: the i in Ionia is a separate vowel, not a semivowel.

  13. The OED has now added jatropha:

    Any of various shrubs, trees, and succulent plants now or formerly included in the genus Jatropha (family Euphorbiaceae); esp. (in early use) the cassava, Manihot esculenta, and (in later use) the physic nut, J. curcas. Also (in form Jatropha): the genus itself.

    1754 Manihot, or manioc, in botany, a plant otherwise called jatropha.
    New & Complete Dictionary of Arts & Sciences vol. III. 1982/2

    1792 I had an opportunity this day of collecting a variety of specimens and seeds of vegetables, some of which appeared new to me, particularly Sophora, Cistus, Tradescantia, Hypoxis, Iatropa, Gerardia, [etc.].
    W. Bartram, Travels North & South Carolina (new edition) ii. vii. 246

    1811 Their intoxicating liquors are rum, a fermentation of maize and the root of the jatropha, and especially the wine..called pulque.
    J. Black, translation of A. von Humboldt, Political Essay New Spain vol. I. 149
    […]

    2007 Although there is reason to be enthusiastic about jatropha’s potential as a biodiesel feedstock in India and beyond,..it has never really been domesticated.
    Nature 11 October 653/1

    Etymology:

    < scientific Latin Jatropha, genus name (Linnaeus Species plantarum (1753) vol. I. 1006), < ancient Greek ἰατρός (see iatro- comb. form) + τροϕή food, nourishment + scientific Latin ‑a ‑a suffix¹.

    They still haven’t updated jau dewin.

  14. That reminded me of a question I had a while back. Where did Phillip Miller get the generic name Manihot for manioc? Were the two forms from different Tupi–Guarani languages? Here’s what the OED has to say:

    Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Spanish. Partly a borrowing from Latin.

    Etymons: French manioc; Spanish mandioca; Latin maniot.

    Partly < Middle French, French manioc (1556; earlier in form †maniel (1555)), †manihot (1558; > scientific Latin manihot), †manioch (1614), partly < Spanish mandioca (1526), and partly < post-classical Latin maniot (1604…), all ultimately < Tupi manioka manioc root, or forms in closely related languages (compare Tupinamba manió, Guarani mandi’o).

    Notes: With the α forms, compare the 17th-cent. French forms mandioc, mandioque, magnioc. With the β forms, compare French manyot, attributed to ‘les Tupinambous’ in… 1658 source…. With the γ forms, compare the 17th-cent. French forms mandihoca, mandioca, Portuguese mandioca (c1566), and post-classical Latin mandioca.

    All those variant forms:

    α.
    1500s– mandioc
    1600s mandioque, manyoc
    1600s– manioc
    1700s maniock
    1800s magnoc

    β.
    1500s– manihot
    1600s magniot, manyot

    γ.
    1600s mandihoca
    1600s– mandioca
    1700s miniaoca
    1800s mandiocca
    1900s– maniotta

  15. Here is a recent paper on lexical-based phylogenetics of the Tupian languages. The raw data are here (‘manioc’ words starting about 85% of the way down). Indeed, many languages have a final velar, some (like Guaraní and Mbya) do not (with forms like /maniʔo/), and some use unrelated words. The loss of the final velar appears in some separate sub-branches, so either it occurred independently multiple times, or the form could have been spread by contact.

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