cat < ?

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/10/2001 7:24:36 PM, rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:
<< Corominas says cattus "wildcat" was first documented in late Latin 4th c.
and springs from an unknown source [Corominas 1980] Buck (1949: 182) goes
back to Greek káttos, kátta, gáttos from an unknown source>>

The earlier term for cats in Greek was <ailouros> or <aielouro>.  Herodotus
describes them in Egypt in a way that seems to indicate that domestic cats
were not very familiar to his readers.  Aristophanes mentions cats as part of
a grabbag of wild game that is to be eaten.

<ailouros> might be some kind of a contraction, <Aiguptos?> + <ouros>,
guardian.  Or a compound, <haili-> <ouros>, ship watcher.  (A study in the
'70's showed that the spread of the currently dominant feral breed of
domestic cat, the blotched tabby, can be traced back to European sea port
towns.  Associating cats with ships might be the first impression -
especially since they served the purpose of protecting grain cargoes against
mice and rats.)  <ouros> is also a word in Greek refering to Egyptian desert
country and the Libyan desert wildcat is very closely related to the European
domestic cat.  <ouros> also brings up the Lynx and <lungourion>, a kind of
amber, the word derived by both Latins and Greeks "from lunx, ouron, and
supposed to be the coagulated urine of the lynx."  Finally there is <ailinos>
wailing, cry of anguish.  (Cf., Latin <feles>, cat; <fletus> weeping;
<flere>, to neigh as a horse does).

<feles>, the original Latin word for domestic cat, is often derived from
<felix>, referring either to the fecundity of cats or to the good effect they
have on preserving growing things and grains against rodents and birds.

Lidell-Scott give the first citation of <kattos> for cat as Aristophanes, but
this is ambiguous and may be too early.  <kottos> appears in Greek as
rooster, horse and two varieties of fish.  <chatos> may have been a rooster.
<gale:> refers in general to ferrets, martens, polecats and weasels.  The
lynx <lunx> is the main wildcat in the Greek world, drawing the chariot of
Bacchus and such.  In Latin, it is the ferret that gets the job of mouser by
name, <mustêla> or <mustella>, indicating maybe that cats were not that
common early on.

One possibility, though slightly distasteful to a cat appreciator like
myself, is that the cat got its name from the use of its parts.

Gr <kassuo:>, Att. <kattuo:>, to sew, to stitch together like a shoemaker.
<kattus>, a piece of leather (or animal skin.)  <katateino:>, stretch, draw
tigth, especially a cord or strip of animal skin.  Perhaps this is somehow
the source of "catgut", for which I haven't seen a decent explanation.
(Attested is a Persian or Babylonian fur prepared from mouse skins,
<gaunacum> or <kaunakê>, so anything was possible.)

<<G & I also list Arabic kitt, Aramaic katta, Georgian katla, Laz k'at'u,
Kabardian gedu, Dido gedu, Avar keto, Turkish kedi...If it's from Gaulish;
could it be derived from catu- "fighter"? -I remenber seeing a similar
sounding word meaning "stealthy" or whatnot. >>

Genetically, many domestic cat shows very close ties to the North African
breed.  (O'Brien, S. J.: Molecular genetics in the domestic cat and its
relatives. Trends Genet. 2: 137-142, 1986. Masuda, R., Lopez, J. V., Pecon
Slattery, J., Yuhki, N., and O'Brien, S. J.: Molecular phylogeny of
mitochondrial cytochrome b and 12S rRNA sequences in the Felidae: Ocelot and
domestic cat lineages. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 6: 351-365, 1996.)

A Gaulish origin seems unlikely.  But all of the languages cited above could
have been influenced by the Hellenistic Greeks.

Regards,
Steve Long