![]() ![]() Some languages allowed the true name of the bear to evolve in a normal fashion with minor changes the Greek name was arktos, the Latin ursos. ![]() It’s worth noting that not everyone was that scared of bears. In Slavic languages, the descriptions got even better: the Russian word for bear is medved, which means “honey eater.” These names weren’t done to be cute they were created out of fear. (In German, it’s Bär.) The predominant theory is that this name came from a simple description, meaning “the brown one.” But in Germanic languages, the bear is called…bear. “Arctic,” for example, which probably means something like “land of the bear.” Same with Arthur, a name probably constructed to snag some of the bear’s power. H₂ŕ̥tḱos, which is pronounced with a lot of guttural noises, became the basis for a bunch of other words. “Because bears were so bad, you didn’t want to talk about them directly, so you referred to them in an oblique way,” says Byrd. The bear, along with the wolf, was the scariest and most dangerous animal in the northern areas where Proto-Indo-European was spoken. Or at least it was in Proto-Indo-European, the hypothesized base language for languages including English, French, Hindi, and Russian. That name, which I am free to use because the only bear near where I live is the decidedly unthreatening American black bear, is h₂ŕ̥tḱos. The evolution of “bear.” Photo Illustration: Aida Amer (Bear: Quagga Media/ ALAMY background: Public Domain)Ī great example of this is the word “bear,” in English. That means we have to figure out a way to talk about something without using the actual word for it. So we avoid using the true name, but sometimes we still need to communicate with each other about those beings or concepts. The true name is powerful, and we normal humans can’t handle that power. Basically, we are scared of the true names of certain beings or concepts, because to use them might mean we summon them, which we don’t want, or anger them, which we definitely don’t want, or simply make other humans mad at us, which is slightly less bad but still not ideal. “Taboo deformation is one possible way for a word to change its meaning,” says Andrew Byrd, a professor of linguistics at the University of Kentucky who specializes in Indo-European languages. Instead we are weak, fragile idiots who can’t really take advantage of the power of true names instead, we’re terrified of them, and at risk of gruesome death if we use them. The real-life version of this very fun idea is a bit different, partly because humans aren’t heroes on the scale of Odysseus or the Jewish god or Duny from A Wizard of Earthsea. ![]() But delightfully, this concept translates to everyday, non-fantasy-novel life as well. In stories like those above, one’s true name is a carefully guarded secret, and if someone finds out your true name, you’re sort of screwed that person will have all sorts of power over you. There are stories about the true name of the Egyptian sun god Ra, of the Jewish monotheistic god, and later of various angels and demons and wizards in stories ranging from the Bible to, uh, the Earthsea fantasy novels written by Ursula K. This pops up in humanity’s oldest stories: the idea is that each thing-person, god, object-has a true name, and that knowledge of that true name conveys power. The word for a certain concept isn’t just a symbol it is tied in some fundamental way to the concept itself. It’s easy to assume that language is, for all its variations and complexities, a shortcut, a way to convey meaning through sounds that represent concepts. Dagnabbit is an example of the perceived power of words to hurt us. They are words we created because, in a very fantasy-novel sort of way, we are scared of the True Names of our enemies and overlords. These words are called, among linguists, taboo deformations. ![]() “Dagnabbit,” along with the English words “bear” and “wolf,” are creations of a terrified populace, scared of beings visible and not. It is dark and ominous and paved with fear. Photo Illustration: Aida Amer (Image: Public Domain)Īmong the most hilarious words in the English language is “dagnabbit.” It’s full of very funny hard syllables and, for most Americans, it’s most often heard coming out of the cartoon mouth of Yosemite Sam, who has a funny voice and a big hat (big hats are also funny).īut the way the word evolved is not really funny. ![]()
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