Into the Wardrobe

I heard somewhere that Aslan means "lion" in Turkish. I decided to use that [fact?] for a speech I will be giving on Tuesday about the characters and races of Narnia. I looked in my trusty (and very neat and insightful) "Companion to Narnia", which is sort of like a Narnian encyclopedia, but I cannot find it anywhere in the book. Can anyone else tell me if this is true, and, if so, give me a credible source to which I can cite it?

Thanks!

Do you consider Wikipedia credible?

"Aslan is a Turkish word meaning Lion. [C. S. Lewis] came up with the name when [he] was on a trip to the Ottoman empire (modern-day Turkey), where he was impressed with the Sultan's elite guards also called Aslan because of their bravery and loyalty."

I've heard that Wikipedia is credible 90 percent of the time, but my instructor won't allow us to cite it.

From that entry, I don't consider it reliable

Lewis never went to the Ottoman Empire (which ceased to exist when he was 24).

'Aslan' is a slightly archaic version of the modern Turkish word for lion, which transliterates into English as arslan. When I say slightly archaic, I'm told it sounds, in Turkish, somewhat the way the King James Bible sounds in English. Lewis found the word in a footnote in Edward Lane's translation of, and commentary on, The Thousand and One Nights: Commonly Called, in England, The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. This book is available currently in an two volume abridged edition. The edition Lewis read it in was volume 16 of the series Harvard Classics (1909).

Took me a while to find a citation. Obviously, I had read it somewhere, but I couldn't remember where, and you said it wasn't in Ford's Companion to Narnia.

Well, it's in Ford's Companion to Narnia, , the entry for 'Aslan's Name', note 2. The additional info I provided I don't have a citation for. The edition being the Harvard Classic I got from one of Lewis' letters (I think, I bought a copy right after reading that detail), and it being an archaic word came from a Turkish member of the Wardrobe back in the days of threaded forums.

Oh! I can't believe I didn't see it!

Thanks, Sven!

"Aslan is a Turkish word meaning Lion. [C. S. Lewis] came up with the name when [he] was on a trip to the Ottoman empire (modern-day Turkey), where he was impressed with the Sultan's elite guards also called Aslan because of their bravery and loyalty."

Gosh! Who comes up with this clap-trap?