Here is an interesting followup to my video about the Ottomans as a Roman dynasty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L-fA...). I was reading an article this morning and came across this snippet from a 16th-century Portuguese named Garcia da Orta who lived in India and wrote a book about Indian pharmacology. He was confused about the difference between a Turk and a Rumi ('Roman'). First the Portuguese and then my translation into English:
"Muytas vezes perguntava, andando nas guerras destes reis da India, a algum soldado branco se era Turco, e respondia que não, senão que era Rume; e a outras perguntava se erão Rumes e respondião-me que não, senão que erão Turcos: e perguntandolhe qual era a differença que havia antre hum e outro, diziãome que eu a não podia entender, porque não sabia os nomes das terras nem a lingua mo sabia dar a entender."
"Many times, during the wars of the kings of India, I would ask some white soldier ["soldado branco" referred to any non-Indian mercenary, usually from the Middle East] if he was a Turk, and he would answer, "No, I am a Rumi." And at other times I would ask if they were Rumis and they would answer, "No, we are Turks." And asking him what was the difference between one and the other, they would tell me that I cannot understand, because I don't know the names of the countries nor can I understand the language."
Quoted in Salih Özbaran, "Ottomans as 'Rumes' in Portuguese Sources in the Sixteenth Century," Portuguese Studies, 17, no. 1 (2001), 71-72.
Fun fact: Garcia da Orta's pharmacology book, published in 1563, was the third book ever printed in India.
Premodernist
Here is an interesting followup to my video about the Ottomans as a Roman dynasty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L-fA...). I was reading an article this morning and came across this snippet from a 16th-century Portuguese named Garcia da Orta who lived in India and wrote a book about Indian pharmacology. He was confused about the difference between a Turk and a Rumi ('Roman'). First the Portuguese and then my translation into English:
"Muytas vezes perguntava, andando nas guerras destes reis da India, a algum soldado branco se era Turco, e respondia que não, senão que era Rume; e a outras perguntava se erão Rumes e respondião-me que não, senão que erão Turcos: e perguntandolhe qual era a differença que havia antre hum e outro, diziãome que eu a não podia entender, porque não sabia os nomes das terras nem a lingua mo sabia dar a entender."
"Many times, during the wars of the kings of India, I would ask some white soldier ["soldado branco" referred to any non-Indian mercenary, usually from the Middle East] if he was a Turk, and he would answer, "No, I am a Rumi." And at other times I would ask if they were Rumis and they would answer, "No, we are Turks." And asking him what was the difference between one and the other, they would tell me that I cannot understand, because I don't know the names of the countries nor can I understand the language."
Quoted in Salih Özbaran, "Ottomans as 'Rumes' in Portuguese Sources in the Sixteenth Century," Portuguese Studies, 17, no. 1 (2001), 71-72.
Fun fact: Garcia da Orta's pharmacology book, published in 1563, was the third book ever printed in India.
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