kimanda:plavapticica:languagethings:wordfully:imminentmoose:I was reading the other day that it was
kimanda:plavapticica:languagethings:wordfully:imminentmoose:I was reading the other day that it was believed that using the Proto-Indo-European word for bears (which evolved into the Latin ‘ursus’ and the Greek ‘arktos’) would summon one to wreck your shit, so the Germanic people speaking Old English would use ‘bruin’ or ‘brown one’ as a euphemism. The original word is now completely lost because of it.Sourcethis is 100% true story.in slavic languages, it was considered taboo to say bear as well, so lot’s of them replaced it with a variation of “медведь” : someone who eats honey. Ok but magic words are my fave thing about language ever, also unknowable words and Name magic (knowing someone’s name gives you power over them) and also Song as a way of keeping people alive or willing the dead back to life but literally not figuratively ( see lectures on Singing the Rug and also the hero obsession with fame)The same applies to Irish! (perhaps it applies to the Celtic languages overall but I can only speak for Irish with absolute certainty) The original Irish word for bear was “art” but the Celts also believed that speaking the true name of something would summon it. So to avoid using the real name of the bear, the Irish would use the name “mathúin” which is a contraction of “maithghamhain” which is a combination of “good” and “calf”. So the bear’s fake name in Irish was “good calf”. (in modern times it has become more typical to use “béar” when talking about a bear in Irish, although I’ve seen a few people prefer to use “mathúin”… not as common though) Same thing happened with the wolf. The original Irish word for wolf was “faol” but the Irish used the fake name “mactíre” instead. The fake name means “son of country” and intrestingly enough, survives today as the modern Irish word for “wolf”. -- source link
#linguistics#language tag#long post