Category: Fun Etymology

Yet another Tuesday – yet another animal-related word!

Last week, we talked about dog, so it really only makes sense to talk about its ancient enemy (though not always) the cat this week!

Cat comes from Old English cat, from Proto-Germanic *kattuz, from Late Latin cattus. So far so good.

Then, it gets tricky.

The word for this domesticated animal is now nearly universal in the European languages, first appearing in Europe as the Latin word catta. Later, we also find the Byzantine Greek word katta (from around 350) and by c. 700, it was in general use on the continent.

So, what’s the problem, you ask?

Well, though almost all European languages have it and we know that it came to these languages through Latin and/or Greek… then we hit a wall.

We don’t know where it came from originally! We do know that Latin and Greek have it by the 1st century and that most modern languages which have it have had it for as long back as their records go.

The likely source is often pointed out as Egypt. It makes sense: the cat was first domesticated in Egypt (as early as 2000 B.C.), so guessing that the name comes from there is not unreasonable. Yet, early mentions of the word also indicate that it might be Slavonic or even Germanic in origin.

So, like with dog, we simply don’t really know! But here, have a picture of a cat as a treat!

(I know you got my supercute dog last week, but, sorry, I don’t have any cats. Hope the picture will do anyway!)

It’s Tuesday! Let’s keep going with one of my favourite animals: dogs!

The word dog is a bit of an etymological mystery. From Old English docga, it’s origin is unknown and.. odd.

It is quite rare in Old English, appearing only in glossaries or in so-called onomastic evidence (that is, in the study of proper names such as Dogbury Hill, an ancient hill fort). That, the OED notes, might be because it was considered informal as there is a more commonly attested synonym: hound.

So, what’s so odd about this word?

Well, despite trying, no likely cognates have been found so far and the word’s phonological form is… problematic. You see, we have a stem-final geminate <g> (that is, a doubled <g> – looking at Middle English forms, the word is often spelt dogg). But the geminate <g> is not due to West Germanic consonant gemination*.

We do know that it eventually replaced Old English hund, which came from the PIE root *kwon- and is still in evidence in Swedish hund, by the 16th century.

We do find words that we might first interpret as cognates: French dogue, for example. Yet, upon further study, all of the so-far investigated words have eventually been shown to be a direct or indirect borrowing from English.

We do know, though, that English has a number of these words that appeared to form both a morphological and semantic group. Aside from dog, we also have hog, frog, pig, stag in this odd little group.

So, in the end, we really don’t know where this word comes from! But, to console you for not getting a straight answer, here’s a picture of Kyra, my own goofy hund! Enjoy your week!

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*West Germanic gemination was a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages around the 3rd or 4th century AD. While I’d love to tell you all about it, FunEty is not the place for such discussions. Check out Wikipedia’s article on it in the meantime!

Another Tuesday = another Fun Etymology!

As I’ve done some nature-related words lately, I thought that we’d also take a look at some animal-words! So, today’s word is lemur!

Today, this word refers to this cute little guy/girl:

A nocturnal mammal from Madagascar, the animal was first referred to as lemur by Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician, in his catalogue of the Museum of King Adolf Frederick of Sweden.

Before that, though, the word meant something quite different…

From lemures, the Latin plural of *lemur, this word actually referred to the “evil spirits of the dead”.

Other than the Latin word, the origin of this word is unknown. It is possible that the word was borrowed into Latin from a non-Indo-European language (perhaps Anatolian or Etruscan). It is also possible that it is cognate with the Greek word lamia, meaning “female vampire” or “man-eating monster”.

But that’s really speculative. We really don’t know, which is not uncommon in historical linguistics.

But, the real question here is:

What was it about these cute little fellows that made Linné think that a Latin word for malevolent spirits was an appropriate name?

Another Tuesday – another Fun Etymology!

Today, we continue with our nature-related words! Today is a tricky one… Let’s look at forest!

As with many things in historical linguistics, the exact etymology of this word is a bit… unclear.

Coming to English around the 13th century from Old French forest (modern-day French forêt), this word probably originates with late Latin (or medieval Latin) forestem silvam, meaning “the outside wood”, a term hailing from the time of Charlemagne – then denoting “the royal forest”.

If this etymology is true, the word stems from Medieval Latin foris, meaning “outside”, perhaps denoting something like “outside of fenced areas”.

However, there is another suggestion.

It might be that the French word ultimately derives from Latin forestis, originally meaning “forest preserve, game preserve” from Latin forum, meaning “court, judgment”. If so, it might have meant something like “land subject to a ban” – as in, don’t shoot a deer here.

And that’s is our unclear etymology for today!

It’s another Tuesday! Today, we’re doing something on a suggestion. The climate has been a hot topic lately and I was recently asked where this word comes from. So, to answer that question: today’s word is climate!

A borrowed word from Middle French climat, from Latin clima, meaning region or slope of the earth. The Latin word itself derives from Greek klima, meaning region, zone or, more literally, “an inclination, slope”. In the end, we get something like “slope of the earth from equator to pole”. This comes from a suffixed form of PIE *klei-, meaning to lean.

It came to English around the late 14th century. Back then it meant “horizontal zone of the earth’s surface measured by lines parallel to the equator”.

You see, ancient geographers divided the earth into zones (which we still do). The zones were based on the angle of the sun on the slope of the earth and the length of daylight.

Some counted as many as 24 to 30 climates, others 7 and still others 12 climates around the world. (Today, we usually say that there are 3 main climate zones: tropical, temperate, and polar. These can, of course, be further divided into smaller zones.)

Anyway, change of temperature gradually came to be considered more and more important. By the late 14th century, the word referred to a distinct region, considered with respects to its weather. Eventually, the sense shifted to what we find today: the combined results of weather associated with a particular region. This includes the characteristic condition of a country or region with reference to the variation of heat, cold, rainfall, etc. This is a sense that has been in evidence since around the 1600s.

And that’s our story! Of course, today, we talk more about climate change than about climate itself but now you know! Isn’t that something to mention at the next strike?

Until Thursday, when we meet again for a new Early Germanic Dialects post, my dear followers, I hope you enjoyed this week’s FunEty!