On Some Animal Names in Italic

Abstract

Heretofore, in etymological investigations, in the Indo-European field at least, several processes have been overworked, being used to explain quite too many instances of irregularity. These include the following: (1) ablaut variation within the permissible grades, but without any indication of the reason for the variation; (2) cognation with words found in remote branches of the Indo-European family, but without any near congeners; (3) special phonetic laws, set up to explain some two or three examples, and so narrowly defined that they can apply to very few examples. The necessity of such dubious procedure can be very largely removed, if the etymologist will realize that many words in the various Indo-European dialects were secured by borrowing from non-Indo-European neighbors,' many of them no longer traceable, and that many other peculiarities of the vowels and consonants are due to the manifestations of analogy, especially in the particular form which is known as wordcontamination, the influence of one word upon another. For while word-contamination has been operated with for many years, the wide extent of its application has been realized by but few etymologists. True, H. Giintert has devoted an entire volume to it in Indo-Iranian and Greek,2 and 0. Jespersen emphasizes its value in English studies;3 but these and similar results may be yet a long while in gaining a full admission to the etymological handbooks.4 For this reason I wish to discuss here the apparent irregularities in the Latin names for certain animals, in which word-contamination is the most important factor contributing to the true interpretation-though not the sole one.