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Jul. 28th, 2004 03:44 pm
Tough shell to crack
Snaps to the GWO for knowing the Latin for "turtle": testudo. It stuck because there's a military formation of that name: The soldiers all link their shields above their heads to form protect against projectiles raining down from above. The resemblance to the Italian word testa, meaning "head", is not coincidental: Both derive ultimately from Latin testu "(clay) pot".
I didn't recall that testudo had any offspring, but this morning I found testuggine in my Italian dictionary. The regular word, though, is tartaruga, which is believed (by Coromines and Larousse, among others) to come from--of all places--Greek tartarouchos "inhabitant of Tartarus [i.e. Hell]". Both our words turtle and tortoise are thought to stem (by means of various distortions and confusions) from the French cousin of tartaruga, tortue. The OED doubts the ultimately demonic etymology and looks for one involving tortus "twisted", but I've learned not to trust them with etymologies too far removed from English.
I haven't had any luck in discovering what words our Anglo-Saxon ancestors might've used. Our German cousins use Schildkröte "shield-toad", a transparent compound that is unlikely to be the reflex of any ancient term. It's a popular image, though, adopted in one variant or another by all other modern Germanic speakers, from the Dutch with their schildpad to the Icelanders and their skjaldbaka.
Surveying these terms, I'm struck by the fact that all are secondary derivations (as is the case even in Greek, Gaelic, and Welsh) are compounds. Nowhere in Western Europe, it seems, is the turtle's name a basic term on a par with "snake" or "sparrow". Why is that? Are they so uncommon there? Or does their curious appearance simply invite such naming strategies? After all, it's hard to put a finger on the more salient characteristic of a deer, something that would serve as a nail to hang a description on, but what could be more obviously testudinal than a shell? But, if that's the case, then how did, for instance, the East Asians (with their atomic terms gui1, kame, and kepuk) all independently resist the urge?
I didn't recall that testudo had any offspring, but this morning I found testuggine in my Italian dictionary. The regular word, though, is tartaruga, which is believed (by Coromines and Larousse, among others) to come from--of all places--Greek tartarouchos "inhabitant of Tartarus [i.e. Hell]". Both our words turtle and tortoise are thought to stem (by means of various distortions and confusions) from the French cousin of tartaruga, tortue. The OED doubts the ultimately demonic etymology and looks for one involving tortus "twisted", but I've learned not to trust them with etymologies too far removed from English.
I haven't had any luck in discovering what words our Anglo-Saxon ancestors might've used. Our German cousins use Schildkröte "shield-toad", a transparent compound that is unlikely to be the reflex of any ancient term. It's a popular image, though, adopted in one variant or another by all other modern Germanic speakers, from the Dutch with their schildpad to the Icelanders and their skjaldbaka.
Surveying these terms, I'm struck by the fact that all are secondary derivations (as is the case even in Greek, Gaelic, and Welsh) are compounds. Nowhere in Western Europe, it seems, is the turtle's name a basic term on a par with "snake" or "sparrow". Why is that? Are they so uncommon there? Or does their curious appearance simply invite such naming strategies? After all, it's hard to put a finger on the more salient characteristic of a deer, something that would serve as a nail to hang a description on, but what could be more obviously testudinal than a shell? But, if that's the case, then how did, for instance, the East Asians (with their atomic terms gui1, kame, and kepuk) all independently resist the urge?
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