[This entry is taken from a chapter of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]
[Go to Part 1 of Words for Mushrooms and Other Fungi]
Oyster mushroom (hiratake)
Species of the Pleurotus genus of gilled mushrooms are
among the most cultivated mushrooms in the world, as they are much appreciated
for cooking, especially in Japanese, Korean and Chinese cuisine, where they are
considered a delicacy, but also in other parts of the world. They are saprotrophic
mushrooms found wild growing on trees in temperate and subtropical forests
around the world. They are characterized by an offset cap, not centered on the
stem or stipe, if there is even one, which is what the name Pleurotus
refers to in Latin (see below).
There are several dozen species in this genus.[ii]
Some of the better known species, in particular the species Pleurotus
ostreatus, go by the names oyster mushroom, abalone mushroom,
or tree mushroom in English.[iii]
The reference to oysters (and abalone) is no doubt due to their shape, which varies
somewhat from species to species. The reference to trees is because these
mushrooms grow on the sides of trees, not on the ground.
Spanish has a number of names for these mushrooms, some of
which also make reference to oysters or similar things: seta de ostra ‘oyster
mushroom’, hongo ostra ‘oyster mushroom’, seta de concha ‘shell
mushroom’, champiñón ostra ‘oyster mushroom’ (note that here the word champiñón
is used as a generic word meaning ‘mushroom’, like in French, see above), as
well as seta de chopo ‘poplar mushroom’, orejón ‘lit. big-ears’,
and orellana.[1]
Another, typically Spanish name for some varieties of this genus and in
particular the species Pleurotus ostreatus, is gírgola, although
this word is not found in any of the regular Spanish dictionaries. It is found,
however, in Catalan dictionaries, the language where this word may come from.[v]
The species Pleurotus ostreatus of this genus, found
in North America and northern Eurasia, is perhaps the best known species of the
Pleurotus genus. Its most common name in English is oyster mushroom,
but also pearl oyster mushroom. Some also know it by its Japanese name, hiratake
(ひらたけ).[vi]
In Chinese, it is known as 平菇 (pínggū) which means literally
‘flat mushroom’. Another common member of this genus is P. pulmonarius, which
is found in North America, Eurasia, and Australasia and is known as phoenix or
Indian oyster mushroom. Another well-known species is P. eryngii, known
as king oyster mushroom, found in Europe and the Middle East, which we will
discuss separately in the next section.
The name of the taxonomic genus these mushrooms belong to, Pleurotus,
is a New Latin word, created by scientists, and related to the name of the
family this genus belongs to, namely Pleurotaceae. These words were
created from two Ancient Greek roots, the one of the nouns πλευρά (pleura) ‘side’ and ὠτός (ōtós), genitive form of οὖς (oûs) ‘ear’, making allusion to
the fact that the cap of these mushrooms is not centered on the stipe but is
somewhat off, or sometimes there seems to be no stipe and the cap grows
directly off the tree. The appellative ostreatus of the species name means
something like ‘oystered’ is derived from the Latin (first declension,
feminine) noun ostrea ‘oyster, mussel’, a loanword from Ancient Greek ὄστρεον (óstreon), by means of the
Latin suffix ‑ātus which, among other things, derives adjectives from
nouns (see above).[2]
And, indeed, the shape of some of these mushrooms reminds one of the shape of
oysters.
[1] Sp. ostra
is a cognate of Eng. oyster since both descend from Latin ostrea,
which was a loanword from Ancient Greek ὄστρεον
(óstreon) or ὄστρειον (óstreion).
Eng. oyster is a loanword from Anglo-Norman/Old French oistre
(cf. Modern French huître).
[2] Sp. ostra
seems to be a late 16th century loanword from Portuguese. The original Spanish
words were ostria or ostia (the loss of the r presumably
due to the influence of hostia ‘host, Eucharistic wafer’, DCEH), cf. Fr.
huître, It. òstrica, and Gall. ostria. The word for
‘oyster’ in some varieties of Spanish, such as Andalucía and Cuba, derive from
the original Spanish word in the augmentative ostión.
Ancient Greek ὄστρεον
(óstreon) is thought to be related somehow to Ancient Greek ὀστέον (ostéon) ‘bone’. This word is
found in the medical word osteoporosis in English and Spanish, a
compound that also contains Greek πώρωσις
(pṓrōsis) ‘petrification, callousness’, from Greek πῶρος
(pôros) ‘tuff, a porous type of rock’.
[i] Source: By Charl de
Mille-Isles from Mille-Isles, Canada - Pleurotus ostreatus / Pleurote en
huître, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373646
(2022.04.08)
[iv] Source: By voir
ci-dessous / see below - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3330721
(2022.04.10)
[vi] Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotus_ostreatus,
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotus_ostreatus
[vii] Source: By voir
ci-dessous / see below - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3330811
(2022.04.10)
No comments:
Post a Comment