Part 14 (2/2)
When, during the lazy autumn days, the living creatures seem for a time to have taken themselves completely beyond our ken, it may be interesting to delve among old records and descriptions of animals and see how the names by which we know them first came to be given. Many of our English names have an unsuspected ancestry, which, through past centuries, has been handed down to us through many changes of spelling and meaning, of romantic as well as historical interest.
How many people regard the scientific Latin and Greek names of animals with horror, as being absolutely beyond their comprehension, and yet how interesting these names become when we look them squarely in the face, a.n.a.lyse them and find the appropriateness of their application.
When you say ”wolf” to a person, the image of that wild creature comes instantly to his mind, but if you ask him _why_ it is called a wolf, a hundred chances to one he will look blankly at you. It is the old fault, so common among us human beings, of ignoring the things which lie nearest us. Or perhaps your friend shares the state of mind of the puzzled old lady, who, after looking over a collection of fossil bones, said that she could understand how these bones had been preserved, and millions of years later had been discovered, but it was a mystery to her how anyone could know the names of these ancient animals after such a lapse of time!
Some of the names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back than the Latin word _camelus_, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo word _eleph_, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant one who tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. In several English and German names of persons, we have handed down to us a relic of the old fas.h.i.+on of applying wolf as a compliment to a warrior or soldier. For example, Adolph means n.o.ble-wolf, and Rudolph glory-wolf.
Lynx is from the same Latin word as the word _lux_ (light) and probably was given to these wildcats on account of the brightness of their eyes.
Lion is, of course, from the Latin _leo_, which word, in turn, is lost far back in the Egyptian tongue, where the word for the king of beasts was _labu_. The compound word leopard is first found in the Persian language, where _pars_ stands for panther. Seal, very appropriately, was once a word meaning ”of the sea”; close to the Latin _sal_, the sea.
Many names of animals are adapted from words in the ancient language of the natives in whose country the creatures were first discovered. Puma, jaguar, tapir, and peccary (from _paquires_) are all names from South American Indian languages. The coyote and ocelot were called _coyotl_ and _ocelotl_ by the Mexicans long before Cortes landed on their sh.o.r.es.
Zebra, gorilla, and chimpanzee are native African words, and orang-utan is Malay, meaning Man of the Woods. Cheetah is from some East Indian tongue, as is tahr, the name of the wild goat of the Himalayas. Gnu is from the Hottentots, and giraffe from the Arabic _zaraf_. Aoudad, the Barbary wild sheep, is the French form of the Moorish name _audad_.
The native Indians of our own country are pa.s.sing rapidly, and before many years their race may be extinct, but their musical, euphonious names of the animals they knew so well, often pleased the ear of the early settlers, and in many instances will be a lasting memorial as long as these forest creatures of our United States survive.
Thus, moose is from the Indian word _mouswah_, meaning wood-eater; skunk from _seganku_, an Algonquin term; _wapiti_, in the Cree language, meant white deer, and was originally applied to the Rocky Mountain goat, but the name is now restricted to the American elk. Caribou is also an Indian word; opossum is from _possowne_, and racc.o.o.n is from the Indian _arrathkune_ (by further apheresis, c.o.o.n).
Rhinoceros is pure Greek, meaning nose-horned, but beaver has indeed had a rough time of it in its travels through various languages. It is hardly recognisable as _bebrus_, _babbru_, and _bbru_. The latter is the ultimate root of our word brown. The original application was, doubtless, on account of the colour of the creature's fur. Otter takes us back to Sanskrit, where we find it _udra_. The significance of this word is in its close kins.h.i.+p to _udan_, meaning water.
The little mouse hands his name down through the years from the old, old Sanskrit, the root meaning to steal. Many people who never heard of Sanskrit have called him and his descendants by terms of h.o.m.ologous significance! The word muscle is from the same root, and was applied from a fancied resemblance of the movement of the muscle beneath the skin to a mouse in motion--not a particularly quieting thought to certain members of the fair s.e.x! The origin of the word rat is less certain, but it may have been derived from the root of the Latin word _radere_, to scratch, or _rodere_, to gnaw. Rodent is derived from the latter term. Cat is also in doubt, but is first recognised in _catalus_, a diminutive of _canis_, a dog. It was applied to the young of almost any animal, as we use the words pup, kitten, cub, and so forth. Bear is the result of tongue-twisting from the Latin _fera_, a wild beast.
Ape is from the Sanskrit _kapi_; _kap_ in the same language means tremble; but the connection is not clear. Lemur, the name given to that low family of monkeys, is from the plural Latin word _lemures_, meaning ghost or spectre. This has reference to the nocturnal habits, stealthy gait, and weird expression of these large-eyed creatures. Antelope is probably of Grecian origin, and was originally applied to a half-mythical animal, located on the banks of the Euphrates, and described as ”very savage and fleet, and having long, saw-like horns with which it could cut down trees.
It figures largely in the peculiar fauna of heraldry.”
Deer is of obscure origin, but may have been an adjective meaning wild.
Elk is derived from the same root as eland, and the history of the latter word is an interesting one. It meant a sufferer, and was applied by the Teutons to the elk of the Old World on account of the awkward gait and stiff movements of this ungainly animal. But in later years the Dutch carried the same word, eland, to South Africa, and there gave it to the largest of the tribe of antelopes, in which sense it is used by zoologists to-day.
Porcupine has arisen from two Latin words, _porcus_, a hog, and _spina_, a spine; hence, appropriately, a spiny-hog. Buffalo may once have been some native African name. In the vista of time, our earliest glimpse of it is as _bubalus_, which was applied both to the wild ox and to a species of African antelope. Fallow deer is from fallow, meaning pale, or yellowish, while axis, as applied to the deer so common in zoological gardens, was first mentioned by Pliny and is doubtless of East Indian origin. The word bison is from the Anglo-Saxon _wesend_, but beyond Pliny its ultimate origin eludes all research.
Marmot, through various distortions, looms up from Latin times as _mus monta.n.u.s_, literally a mountain mouse. Badger is from badge, in allusion to the bands of white fur on its forehead. The verb meaning to badger is derived from the old cruel sport of baiting badgers with dogs.
Monkey is from the same root as _monna_, a woman; more especially an old crone, in reference to the fancied resemblance of the weazened face of a monkey to that of a withered old woman. Madam and madonna are other forms of words from the same root, so wide and sweeping are the changes in meaning which usage and time can give to words.
Squirrel has a poetic origin in the Greek language; its original meaning being shadow-tail. Tiger is far more intricate. The old Persian word _tir_ meant arrow, while _tighra_ signified sharp. The application to this great animal was in allusion to the swiftness with which the tiger leaps upon his prey. The river Tigris, meaning literally the river Arrow, is named thus from the swiftness of its current.
As to the names of reptiles it is, of course, to the Romans that we are chiefly indebted, as in the case of reptile from _reptilus_, meaning creeping; and crocodile from _dilus_, a lizard. Serpent is also from the Latin _serpens_, creeping, and this from the old Sanskrit root, _sarp_, with the same meaning. This application of the idea of creeping is again found in the word snake, which originally came from the Sanskrit _naga_.
Tortoise harks back to the Latin _tortus_, meaning twisted (hence our word tortuous) and came to be applied to these slow creatures because of their twisted legs. In its evolution through many tongues it has suffered numbers of variations; one of these being turtle, which we use to-day to designate the smaller land tortoises. Terrapin and its old forms _terrapene_ and _turpin_, on the contrary, originated in the New World, in the language of the American Redskin.
_Cobra-de-capello_ is Portuguese for hooded snake, while python is far older, the same word being used by the Greeks to denote a spirit, demon, or evil-soothsayer. This name was really given to designate any species of large serpent. _Boa_ is Latin and was also applied to a large snake, while the importance of the character of size is seen, perhaps, in our words _bos_ and _bovine_.
The word viper is interesting; coming directly from the Romans, who wrote it _vipera_. This in turn is a contraction of the feminine form of the adjective _vivipera_, in reference to the habit of these snakes of bringing forth their young alive.
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