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Re: JF's reply to BB on azure (and blue birds and butterflies)]
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>>>>>>>> Note to Jansy: if our Russian speakers tell us the etymology of
/lazur'/, I'll bet the /l/ is not from Persian but the French definite article.
In fact, it is other way round.
The Vasmer etymological dictionary says (in translation); " Old Russian " lazor' "... through Polish lazur, from Mid/Upper German lazu^r, lasu^r "blue stone", which derives from Medieval Latin lazurium, lasurium (Italian l'аzzurо, azurro from lazurro), from Arabic la^zavard...."
th e"blue stone" in question is lapis lazuli with etymology, from Medieval Latin, from Latin lapis + Medieval Latin lazuli, genitive of lazulum lapis lazuli, also from Arabic lAzaward.
The famous poem "Lapis Lazuli" by Yeats (1936) is very much about something coming from the azure:
" For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out.
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat..."
Note almost complete coincidence with Blok's (1910, i.e. pre-Great War) prophetic "The Aviator": "Nochnoi letun, vo t'me nenastnoi Zemle nesushchii dinamit" ["Night flyer, who in stormy darkness brings the dynamite to earth below"]
In Russian, lapis lazuli is lazurit.
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