--- Piotr Gasiorowski <
gpiotr@...> wrote:
> All those modern European words derive from late Latin cattus,
> which is itself pretty enigmatic. Something like *kat- 'young/small
> animal' has indeed been sugested as the source. In Slavic we have
> kotiti se 'give birth to a litter' which may be independent from the
> Latin loanword kot 'cat' (though ultimately related to it). The
> latter spread among the Slavic-speaking peoples in the early Middle
> Ages; Christian missionaries and monks from the post-Roman South and
> West can no doubt be credited with introducing domestic cats to newly
> converted countries. PIE certainly had a term for 'wildcat', as local
> varieties of Felis silvestris used to occur throughout Eurasia (and
> much of Africa, of course), but I don't quite believe it was *bHel-.
> In Slavic the words for 'cat' and 'wildcat' are not related, but
> those for the latter don't seem to me to have cognates outside
> Slavic. Perhaps the PIE word has been completely lost, together with
> the names of many other common carnivores -- like martens, badgers,
> weasels and polecats. Even the words for 'fox' and 'lynx' are
> difficult to reconstruct (only wolfs, bears and maybe otters have
> been luckier).
I read about another animal misnamed as cat: civet cat. A native of
Ethiopia, it is (� believe) a mink-like rodent, prized for its musk
(which in excessive amounts smells as bad as skunk musk). They are
also better mouse catchers than the familiar house cat.
Here's the listing in Dolgopolsky for possible relatives to _felis_.
The use of Nostratic data is merely for comparative purposes (and not
to promote anything). My comments afterwards.
Nost.*bujL- "furry animal" (L = voiced lateral fricative)
IE *bhel- "marten"
Latin f�l�s "wild cat, marten, polecat"
Welsh bele (< *bhelego-) "marten"
Uralic *pojL- "ermine"
Proto-Sami *p�ytak (dimunitive)
Norweg. Sami buoid�
Kildin Sami pujdeG
Samoyedic
Tundra Nenets pija, pijako (latter is dimunitive)
Forest Nenets pw�je@, pije@
Bay Enets fi�da
Nganasan f�d'u, p�d'u
Mator hudja "ermine"
Altaic
Proto-Mongolian *bulugan "sable"
Middle Mong. bulugan, bulGan
Classical Mong. bulagan
Halha bulga(n)
Kalmyk bulG@...
Dravidian *pulli "tiger"
Tamil puli, pul
Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu puli
Kota puj
Toda p�Sy (compare English "pussy(cat)"!)
Tulu pili
Koraga hili
Naikri pul
Nalki pul(a)
Gadba pullu, pulu, berpul
Gondi pull�, puli, pul
My comments
Apparently the "buydha" is some Eurasian animal, probably non-feline
(despite the Latin data), is referred to here, since the mentioned
language groups are IE, Uralic and Mongolian. How Dolgopolsky relates
Dravidian "tiger" I don't know -- a tiger is MUCH larger than a marten
or polecat. The phonemic correspondences match up pretty well though.
Apparently, the primitive Indo-Europeans didn't think much of calling a
small cat and a marten different names. They may not have even
domesticated the cat -- the Egyptians are considered the first known
people to do that. Or did the Dravidians domesticate the mighty tiger
of India? (that would be right awesome...)
> EIEC poinats out the possible relationship to Latin catulus 'young
> animal'. ?*bhel- 'wildcat; any small carnivore' and ??*kat- 'cat'
> are given as doubtful PIE etyma for felids. EIEC suggests Nubian
> katis is the ultimate origin.
Nubian, I wouldn't doubt it (the cat family seems to be ultimately
African in origin). I'll check on any possible Nilo-Saharan origin.
117. Whatever it takes.
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