{"id":18966,"date":"2020-03-19T16:02:35","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T16:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=18966"},"modified":"2020-03-20T15:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T15:07:00","slug":"good-calves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=18966","title":{"rendered":"Good Calves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday while looking into Celtic words bear<\/a>, I found some interesting ones in the Goidelic languages: math\u00fain<\/strong> [\u02c8m\u02e0ahu\u02d0n\u02b2] in Irish, mathan<\/strong> [\u02c8mahan] in Scottish Gaelic and maghouin<\/strong> in Manx. These come from the Old Irish mathgamain<\/strong> [\u02c8ma\u03b8\u0263\u0259\u1e7d\u0259n\u02b2], from math<\/em> (good) and gamuin<\/em> (calf).<\/p>\n

So bears were called “good calves” – this is possibly an example of taboo naming, that is using an alternative name for a dangerous animal rather than naming it directly, in the belief that this might it less likely to attack you.<\/p>\n

In the Brythonic languages words for bear are arth<\/strong> (Welsh & Cornish) and arzh<\/strong> (Breton), which come from the Proto-Celtic *artos<\/em> (bear), from the Proto-Indo-European h\u2082\u0155\u0325t\u1e31os<\/em> (bear). This is also the root of English word Arctic<\/strong>, and words for bear in Romance and other European languages.<\/p>\n

There are no bears in the Anglo-Celtic Isles these days, except in zoos, but there were bears in Britain and Ireland until about 3,000 years ago. The Celtic languages were spoken back then.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about words for bears in other European languages<\/a> before here. In Slavic languages, for example, bears are “honey eaters” – \u043c\u0435\u0434\u0432\u0435\u0434\u044c<\/em> in Russian.<\/p>\n

\"European<\/a>