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

submitted 3 weeks 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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[-] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

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 weeks ago

Poles got a germanic word when German didnt lol

[-] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks 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 3 points 3 weeks ago

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 weeks ago

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

this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025

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