Читать книгу The History of Ink, Including Its Etymology, Chemistry, and Bibliography - Thaddeus Davids - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The derivation of the English word “INK,” and of its representatives in various modern languages, has caused much perplexity to philologists, and has been the subject of many erroneous conjectures. We suffix the names by which it is known in those nations who have most employed it:

English,	Ink.
Low-Dutch, Neder-Duytsch, Hollandisch,	Inkt.
German or Deutsch,	Dinte and Tinte.
Old German,	Anker, Tincta, Tinta and Dinde.
Danish, Norwegian, }	Blaek, (India Ink, Tusch.)
Norse, Icelandic, }
Swedish,	Blaeck, (India Ink, Tusk.)
French,	Encre.
Old French,	Enque.
Italian,	Inchiostro.
Spanish,	Tinta.
Portuguese,	Tinta.
Illyrian,	Ingvas.
Polish,	Incaust.
Basque,	Coransia.
Latin,	Atramentum.
Mediæval Latin,	Encaustum.
Greek,	Melan.
Hebrew,	D’yo.
Chaldee,	N’kaso.
Arabic,	Nikson, Anghas.
Persian,	S’y’ah’o.
Hindustani, }	S’yaho, Rosh’na, kali, shira, mas,
and Hindui, }	murakkat, kalik, midad.
Sanscrit,	Kali, (Black.)
Armenian,	Syuaghin.

We might amuse ourselves by extending this tabular list indefinitely. Enough, however, has been already shown to illustrate a few remarkable facts which we wish to present that are connected with the etymology of our subject; but we present a page of Lithographic illustrations which will enable any “curious reader” to trace the word further.

No dictionary of the English language gives us any help or light about the matter. Webster suggests “inchiostro,” (the Italian word,) as the source of derivation; and all the Italian lexicographers agree that inchiostro is from the later Latin ENCAUSTUM, which is in fact Greek, Εγκαυστον, (Encauston,) “burned-in or corroded.” Encaustum became corrupted into “enchaustrum,” from which the transition to “inchiostro,” is by the regular form of derivation from the Latin to the Italian—the L before a vowel giving place to a short I—as “piano” from PLANUS. (The CH, in Italian is always sounded hard, like the English K.)

Leaving the French word encre as on the middle ground between different etymologies, and affording no light either way—we find the Spanish and Portugese “tinta,” and the German (a language widely remote from those of the Iberian peninsula in origin and affinities) “dinte, tinte and tincta,” forcibly reminding us of the Latin participle TINCTUS, TINCTA, TINCTUM, from the verb TINGO, which is represented in English by TINGE, and other derivatives, such as “tincture,” &c. We cannot refuse to recognize the Holland-Dutch “Inkt” as from the same root to which we have thus traced the corresponding word in a language which we may call its “cousin-German;” and it is hard to exclude the Old French “Enque” and modern “Encre” from this circle of relationship.

Then, we are somewhat impressed by the discovery of the word Ingvas in the Illyrian, a language of the Slavonic (or more properly Slovenic) stock, like the Polish—and, like that, enriched by words derived from the Latin. The Polish, however, presents us with the actual Graeco-Latin Encaustrum.

Still more remote from the English and Italian, we find among the Orientals of the Shemitish race, ANGHAS and NIKSON in the Arabic, and N’KASHO in the Chaldee, with a manifest resemblance in sound, and with an actual possession of the same elements and radical letters, N. K. Yet we do not think of suggesting that these words had a common origin with the corresponding ones in European Languages, though so nearly coincident in sound. The case is simply one of accidental resemblance, a remarkable coincidence—(because occurring at three different and remote points,) but yet a coincidence not wholly unparalleled.

The probability is that the English word, like the Dutch, German, Spanish, &c., came from the Latin TINCTUM, but it may be left “an open question;” for if we had not these instances to direct the formation of our opinions, we should have no hesitation in acknowledging the Italian Inchiostro as the true ETYMON; just as, if we had neither of these in view, we might suspect the origin of our word to be in the Oriental ANGHAS or NIKSON.

The Ethiopic KALAMA at first sight appears to be related to the Hindustani KALI; but the latter is merely the word in all the languages of Hindustan for black—while the former is but a modification of the Greek and Latin CALAMUS, a reed or pen—the instrument (naturally enough) giving its name to the liquid which was essential to its use.

The word ENCAUSTUM connects, in a very interesting and instructive manner, both with the history and the chemistry or manufacture of our modern inks, and is a satisfactory demonstration of the utility of such etymological researches as those in which we have been here indulging.

The one great distinction between the ancient and the modern inks is this: The old inks were PAINTS; the writing inks now in use by all nations (excepting those of Southern Asia) are DYES. That is the whole difference.

It would be well to give a definition or limitation of the words “Ancient” and “Modern.” No one has done it hitherto. We will not attempt to fix the point precisely, but may reasonably say that the period intervening between September, A.D. 410, (when Rome was taken by ALARIC and his Visigoths) and December 25, A.D. 800, (when Karl the Great, otherwise called Charlemagne, was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo with the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) contains the interval between antiquity and modern times.

The introduction of Paper as the common material upon which significant characters were to be marked must have had a great agency in producing a change in the composition of the liquid employed in making the marks.

Parchment was the substance in use, among all the European nations, as the substratum of manuscript, from the time when the Egyptian papyrus went out of fashion. Both the parchment and the papyrus were written upon, by Romans, Greeks and Hebrews, with pens made of small reeds, dipped in a fluid composed of carbon, (not dissolved, but) held in a state of suspension by an oil or a solution of gum.

The letters were originally painted on the surface of the papyrus, parchment, board, or other material so employed—the ink not being imbibed or absorbed by the substance on which it was shed, but remaining on the surface, capable of being removed by washing, scraping, rubbing, or any similar process. The surface thus cleansed was then in a state to receive a new inscription; so that erasions and inscriptions might be indefinitely repeated upon it, as upon a modern sign-board.

Modern Ink, on the contrary, leaves its marks upon paper, parchment, &c., by penetrating the material to such a depth that it cannot be erased (mechanically) without the removal or destruction of the surface which it has tinged. Chemical agency, as of various acids, chlorine and its compounds, is generally employed, therefore, to discharge the color from modern writing-ink-marks. Carbon, in all its common forms, (charcoal, bituminous coal, anthracite, jet, plumbago, lignite, ivory-black, lamp-black and soot,) is wholly unalterable in color by any of these chemical means.

Printing Ink (which is composed of carbon suspended in a drying oil) is, in essential characteristics, identical with the writing-inks of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It is impressed upon the surface of paper, (that which is unsized or bibulous being commonly preferred,) and is retained unchanged by the action of moisture, on account of the insolubility of the carbon and the repulsion between oil and water. These two forms of ink are therefore the exact opposites of each other, in the qualities on which their use and permanence depend. The most important peculiarity of the modern writing-ink, as contrasted with the ancient, naturally suggested the two names which it bore in the Latin and Greek of the middle ages, or (to speak more definitely,) the time of its invention and first employment. It was a Tincta, a DYE, or STAIN, which tinged and tinctured the material on which it was placed, entering among its fibres as coloring fluids do into cloth in the ordinary processes of manufacture. It penetrated the substance of the paper (as caustics or powerful chemical solvents and corrosives act on the organic fibre): it bit in, or burned in—and was therefore well named ENCAUSTON and Incaustum.