Talk:Zelkova
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"Zelkova" has no entry in my Shorter Oxford Dictionary or my Macquarie Dictionary. It's not in most of the online dictionaries either. Babelfish cannot translate it to any other language. It is in the online Merriam Webster which gives its etymology as Georgian -> Russian -> New Latin (the genus name) -> English. Encarta states the 19th century as the time of the word appearing in English. The fact that the English word was borrowed from the scientific name probably explains why it is so often capitalized unlike most English common nouns. It doesn't give the Russian spelling but Googling in Russian I find "дзельква" and to a lesser extent "дзелькова". Can anybody verify this? (M-W seems to give two Russian spellings but only in transliteration). I'd also really like to find the Georgian spelling. I'm collecting citations for this word at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Zelkova/Citations - I'm particularly interested in uses from well-known people or early uses. So far I've found it mostly in novels translated from Japanese and books on trees or bonsai.
I believe I've tracked down the origin of this word in Georgian "ძელქვა". Please look at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:Zelkova and leave any suggestions if you're interested. — Hippietrail 13:42, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
