[PLUG-TALK] dog?

Russell Senior russell at personaltelco.net
Tue Mar 27 05:39:59 UTC 2018


>>>>> "Russell" == Russell Senior <russell at personaltelco.net> writes:

>>>>> "Galen" == Galen Seitz <galens at seitzassoc.com> writes:
Galen> Sending this to the list for others amusement, but hoping John
Galen> can answer.  Hi,

Galen> My wife and I were having a conversation this evening and somehow
Galen> we ended up puzzling over the seemingly dramatic differences for
Galen> the word for dog.  Chien, perro, Hund, cane, cachorro, dog.  How
Galen> did six western languages with such close connections end up with
Galen> six very different words for dog?

Russell> I wonder if it is because the kinds of dogs were different from
Russell> place to place and somehow the breed inflected what became the
Russell> generic name in each culture?

Russell> That's a totally uneducated wild-assed guess, in case it isn't
Russell> obvious.

By way of confirmation-bias, I found this passage:

From: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dog

"In 14th-century England, hound (from Old English hund) was the general
word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype of hound, a
group including the mastiff. It is believed this dog type was so common
that it eventually became the prototype of the category "hound".[2] By
the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun
to refer only to dog types used for hunting.[3]"

I re-iterate my disclaimer.


-- 
Russell Senior
russell at personaltelco.net



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