Map Enthusiasts

4766 readers

15 users here now

For the map enthused!

Rules:

post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
be nice

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

zksmk@sopuli.xyz

garfaagel@sh.itjust.works

251

Spread of four words for 'camel' across the Old World (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 3 months ago by Blaze@lemmy.zip to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderwort

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

According to Wiktionary, this is the path the word took (from Latin into Polish at least):

elephantus (Latin, "elephant")

*ulbanduz (Proto-Germanic, "camel")

𐌿𐌻𐌱𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌿𐍃 (Gothic, "camel")

*velьb(l)ǫdъ (Proto-Slavic)

Wielbłąd (Polish)

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Poles got a germanic word when German didnt lol

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

East-Germanic languages, as e.g. the Gothic language, were spoken in todays Poland between the rivers Oder and Vistula and are a different (and extinct) branch of the Germanic languages than West-Germanic (German, Dutch, Frisian, English) or North-Germanic (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese).

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh god oh fuck. Shit.

This applies to Czech (velbloud) as well. The thing is, we already call hippos elephants. The Czech word "hroch" is related to the chess piece "rook" in English. What about the Czech name for elephant then? It's "slon" and it means lion.

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago

The polish word for elephant is słoń, it's very similar