差分

The English form ''roc'' originates via [[Antoine Galland]]'s French from [[Arabic]] ''ruḵḵ'' ({{lang-ar|الرُخّ|ar-ruḫḫ}}) and that from [[Persian language|Persian]] ''ruḵ'' ({{IPA-prs|/rux/}}).<ref name="TNSOED-roc">'''roc''' /[phonetic transcription]/ n. Also (earlier) '''✝roche''', '''✝rock''', '''✝ruc(k)''', '''✝rukh'''. L16 [Sp. ''rocho'', ''ruc'' f. Arab. ''ruḵḵ'', f. Pers. ''ruḵ''.] A mythical bird of Eastern legend, imagined as being of enormous size and strength (''The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', Clarendon Press, Oxford, Volume 2 N-Z, 1993 edition, page 2614)</ref> In both languages, Arabic and Persian, the word is written in the [[Arabic script]] as '''رخ'''. Common [[Romanization of Arabic|romanizations]] are ''ruḵḵ'' for the Arabic form<ref name="TNSOED-roc" /> and ''ruḵ'',<ref name="TNSOED-roc" /> ''rokh'' or ''rukh'' for the Persian form. Despite the similarities and sometimes claims to the contrary, the word is not related to the English word ''[[Rook (bird)|rook]]''.

==Eastern origins==

According to art historian [[Rudolf Wittkower]], the idea of the roc had its origins in the story of the fight between the Indian solar bird [[Garuda]]<ref>Wittkower noted the identification of the roc and Garuda made in Kalipadra Mitra, "The bird and serpent myth", ''The Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society'' (Bangalore) '''16''' 1925–26:189.</ref> and the [[chthonic]] serpent [[Nāga]]. The [[mytheme]] of Garuda carrying off an elephant that was battling a crocodile appears in two Sanskrit epics, the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' (I.1353) and the ''[[Ramayana]]'' (III.39).

== Western expansion ==

Rabbi [[Benjamin of Tudela]] reported a story reminiscent of the roc in which shipwrecked sailors escaped from a desert island by wrapping themselves in ox-hides and letting [[griffin]]s carry them off as if they were cattle.<ref>M. Komroff, ''Contemporaries of Marco Polo'' 1928:311f.</ref>