Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.13112

c10.13112

SARBATANE, SARBACANE, s. This is not Anglo-Indian, but it often occurs in French works on the East, as applied to the blowing-tubes used by various tribes of the Indian Islands for discharging small arrows, often poisoned. The same instrument is used among the tribes of northern South America, and in some parts of Madagascar. The word comes through the Span. *cebratana, cerbatana, zarbatana*, also Port. *sarabatana, &c.*, Ital. *cerbotana*, Mod. Greek *ζαποβοτάνα*, from the Ar. *zabaṭāna*, ‘a tube for blowing pellets’ (a pea-shooter in fact!). Dozy says that the *r* must have been sounded in the Arabic of the Spanish Moors, as Pedro de Alcala translates *zebratana* by Ar. *zarbaṭāna*. The resemblance of this to the Malay *sumpit* (q.v.) is curious, though it is not easy to suggest a transition, if the Arabic word is, as it appears, old enough to have been introduced into Spanish. There is apparently, however, no doubt that in Arabic it is a borrowed word. The Malay word seems to be formed directly from *sumpit*, ‘to discharge from the mouth by a forcible expiration’ (*Crawfurd, Mal. Dict.*).