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

submitted 6 days ago by Blaze@lemmy.zip to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz

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

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[–] SnootBoop@lemm.ee 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I like how they manage to shoehorn Old Norde into the map but ignored Russian and Polish.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 28 points 6 days ago (2 children)

At least for my eyes, верблюд and wielbłąd seem to have a different origin than the ones depicted.

[–] Justas@sh.itjust.works 22 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Same with Lithuanian kupranugaris which just translates into humpback.

[–] sqw@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 6 days ago

maybe they were not looking to depict oneoffs that did not catch on more broadly

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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 5 days ago (1 children)

Poles got a germanic word when German didnt lol

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days 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 4 days 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 4 days ago

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