Standard Arabic has a pretty complex system of verbal conjugation (see some of it here), but it arguably only has two irregular verbs: raʔa: 'to see' and laysa 'to not be (negative copula)'. And laysa is only irregular on account of its weird unique stem (verbs with /j/-medial roots like /l-j-s/ generally have /a:/ in this case: *laasa).
From a conversation started by Xwtek/Akangka:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=256&p=12273#p10939
There is a word for "banana" that apparently spread off Trans-New-Guinea into Austronesian, then Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and perhaps (some non-Chinese parts of) Sino-Tibetan, then Semitic and then onto Renaissance and early modern Romance and Germanic. I'm talking about "muse".
Here is a paper Nortaneus posted a while ago about it:
https://www.academia.edu/25619010/Thing ... into_Latin
(Note that the article is mistitled because this is not a classical word in Latin; it doesn't appear until the 14th century.)
In the rest of this post, I'll post some quotes that I found amusing while trying to learn more about this.
One of the earliest attestations of "musa" in Latin is in the early 14th-century Irish friar Symon Semeonis' Itinerarium Symonis Semeonis ab Hybernia ad Terram Sanctam ("Symon Semeonis' Journey from Ireland to the Holy Land"). The fruit was known to people at the time, often as the pomum paradisi "the fruit of Paradise". You can get a good sense of how strange and wonderful the fruit was for people at the time...
- Sciendum quod poma paradisi, judicio meo salvo meliori, inter omnia pomorum genera primatum optinent sua incomparabili bonitate. Sunt enim oblonga et glauci coloris quando sunt matura, in aspectu pulcherrima, in odore suavissima, in sapore melliflua, in tactu levissima, et crucifixi signaculo insignita, quoniam quando scinduntur ex transverso in eis apparet ymago crucifixi apertisscime veluti in cruce extensi. Non enim sunt arboris poma, sed cujusdam herbe in altum crescentis ad modum arboris, que musa appellatur; cujus folia in figura et colore foliis cujusdam herbe, que anglice dicitur radigche, multumque assimilantur, quamvis in longitudine et latitudine illa multum excedant...
- It is to be known that the fruit of Paradise, to my better and safer judgement, holds the first place of all types of fruit due to their virtue without par. They're longer than they're wide and are yellow when ripe, very beautiful in appearance, very soft in smell, sweet as honey in flavour, very gentle to touch, marked with the sign of the crucifix, since, when split apart from one end to the other, the image of the crucifix appears on them as if extended on a cross. They're not fruit from a tree, but from a plant that grows up in the manner of the trees, called the musa. In terms of shape and colour, its leaves resemble very much those of a plant that the English call radigche [radish], although they exceed these a lot in both length and width...
Bananas were known to the ancient Romans, as a very rare foreign delicacy. There is exactly one mention of them in ancient times, in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia (XII.12), from the 1st century AD:
- Maior alia pomo et suavitate praecellentior, quo sapientes Indorum vivunt. Folium alas avium imitatur, longitudine trium cubitorum, latitudine duum. Fructum cortice emittit admirabilem suci dulcedine, ut uno quaternos satiet. Arbori nomen palae, pomo arienae. Plurima est in Sydracis, expeditionum Alexandri termino. Est et alia similis huic, dulcior pomo, sed interaneorum valetudini infesta. Edixerat Alexander ne quis agminis sui id pomum attingeret.
- There is a greater one, surpassing other fruit trees even in softness, which Indian sages live on. Its leaf copies the wings of birds, being three cubits in length and two in width. It produces its fruit from its bark, and the fruit is astonishing in its sweetness, one being enough for four people. The name of the tree is the pala, and ariena [or: ariera*] that of the fruit. It is found in great number among the Sydraci, at the limit of Alexander the Great's campaigns. There is furthermore another fruit similar to this one that is even sweeter, but dangerous for the health of the intestines. Alexander declared nobody in his army could try tasting this other fruit.
Over a thousand years later, at the very end of the 13th century, Marco Polo would, very interestingly, remark the same thing about bananas and Indian sages when discussing les Abraiamain de la provence de Lar, "the Brahmins of Lar", who he believed had been originally preached to by Jesus' apostle (Doubting) Thomas, but now followed a twisted and strange sort of religion.
Here is the relevant section from chapter 177, as written by his prisonmate Rustichello da Pisa, in Oïl-based crusader lingua franca. I am copying a longer section of the description than I need just to show Rustichello's rambling, mesmerizing style...
- Encore vos di qe il ardent le oisi dou buef et en font poudre, puis s'en ongent en plusors leu dou cors con grant reverence, bien con ausi grant con font le cristiens de l'eive beneite. Il ne menuient en scuelle ne in talieor, mès menuient lor viandes en sus fuieles de pome de paraïs ou en autres foilles grant, mès non pas q'el soient ver, me seche: car les vers dient-il qu'elles ont arme, et por ce stoit pechiés, car je voz di qe il se gardent sor tutes les criatures dou monde de non fer couse dont il creesent qe fuissent pechés, car avant se lairont-il morir qe il fesse couse qe il creoist pechere.
E quant les autres homes les demandent por coi il vont nus e qe il ne ont vergogne de mostrer lor nenbre, et il dient, nos alon nus por ce qe nos ne volan nulle couse de cest monde, por ce qe noz venimes en cest monde sanz nulle vestimente et nus, de ce qe nos ne avon vergogne de mostrer nostre ninbre, si est ce qe nos ne faison nul pechiés con elz, e por ce n'en avons nos plus vergogne qe avés vos quant voz monstrés vostre main o le vix, ou autres vostre nenbre de coi voz ne aurés à pechiés de luxure, mès por coi voz aurés vostre nenbre en pechiés et en luxurie, por ce le portés vos coverte et n'avés vergogne, mès nos ne avon plus qe de mostrer le dois, por ce qe nos ne faison nul pechiés con elz. Or tiel raison rendent à les homes qe li demandent por coi il ne avoient vergogne de mostrer lor nembre.
Et encore vos di qe il ne ocirunt nule crature ne nul animaus dou monde, ne mouches, ne pulces, ne proques, ne nul vermes, por ce qe il dient qu'il ont arme, e por ce dient qu'il ne le menuierent por le pechiés qe il en aurent. Et encore vos di qe il ne menuierent nule couste vers, ne erbes ne rais jusque à tant q'eles ne fuissent seches, por ce qe il dient qe les couses vert ont arme...
- Moreover, I tell you, they burn cows' bones and make powder of them, and then they rub it on their body with great reverence, as great as the reverence Christians hold when doing it with holy water. They don't eat on dishes or cutting boards, but eat their food on the leaves of the fruit tree of Paradise or on other big leaves, but not if they're green, only if they're dry, because they say they have souls, and so it'd be a sin. And I tell you, they, more than any other creature in the world, take care not to do anything they believe is a sin, as they'd rather let themselves die than do anything they think is sinning.
And when other people ask them why they go naked without any shame of showing their member [the penis], they say, "We go naked because we want nothing from this world, because we came to this world without any clothes, naked. This is why we don't feel shame of showing our member. We don't sin at all with it, and so we don't feel any more shame than you when you show your hand or face, or any other part you don't feel any shame of. But why do you think of your member as both in sin and in [the fault of] lust? So you cover it, and you don't feel shame. But we don't feel more shame than when showing our back, because we don't sin with it." And so this is the reason they give people that ask them why they don't feel shame of showing their member.
And moreover, I tell you, they won't kill any creature nor any animal in the world. Neither flies, nor fleas, nor ???*, nor worms, because they say they have souls, and so they say they don't eat them because of the sin they'd commit. And moreover, I tell you, they don't eat anything green, not herbs, not roots, unless they're dry, because they say green things have souls...
