`zebra'

[Jim Rader]

The supposed Bantu origin of <zebra> is discussed in an article by R.
Loewe in _Zeitschrift fu"r vergleichende Sprachforschung_, v. 61
(1933-34).  Loewe refutes a conjectured Amharic origin.  Castro and
Menendez Pidal completely demolished the African speculations in the '30's,
though, by pointing out that <cebra>, <zebra>, <zebro>, <enzebro>,
etc., were attested as Iberian Romance names for the wild ass in the
Middle Ages (1207 for Castilian, 13th cent. in the Galician version
of Alfonso X's _General Historia_ ; see Corominas s.v. <cebra> for the
details and bibliography).  I do not have immediate access to
Machado's Portuguese etymological dictionary, which might document
when the name was transferred from the wild ass to one or more
species of zebra.  That such a transfer took place seems pretty
indisputable--whatever the ulterior origin of the Iberian Romance
word.

English dictionaries are very slow to update information.  _The
Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ (1966) and _The Concise
Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ (1986) continue the long
discredited "Congolese" origin.  By 1993 Oxford finally saw the light
and plumped for the Romance origin the _New Shorter Oxford_.

Jim Rader

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