note on 'dhole'

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/8/2001 7:06:18 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:

<< I agree that that is what the usual supects say, on the linguistics
side, but on the biology side, all my sources agree that wolves do not occur
in south India, and therefore in the Kannada area.  (Why is not entirely
clear to me.  They did not spread from China into SE Asia either.  Dislike
of tropcal heat?)  Therefore there is something not quite right here.

Dr. David L. White >>

I suppose it's worth repeating.  What's not quite right is equating the wolf
word to the animal in the wild.

A word for wolf does not have to refer to an actual animal.  Imported wolf
hides or wolf heads, wolf teeth, wolf images, wolf stories, wolf totems,
powdered wolf whatevers, people with wolf nicknames, animals or animal
by-products that might be like a wolf in some form or function or captive
wolves traveling with an ancient equivalent of a circus or at the zoo might
all answer to the name "wolf."

The actual distribution of the wolf in the wild therefore may have only minor
relevance to its presence in a particular vocabulary.

Steve Long