11.1765, Sum: Idiosyncrasies of the Word "Butterfly"
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Subject: 11.1765, Sum: Idiosyncrasies of the Word "Butterfly"
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Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 11:44:14 -0400
From: William Beeman <William_Beeman at brown.edu>
Subject: Idiosyncrasies of the Word "Butterfly"
-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 11:44:14 -0400
From: William Beeman <William_Beeman at brown.edu>
Subject: Idiosyncrasies of the Word "Butterfly"
For Query: Linguist 11.1658
The Elusive Butterfly
William O. Beeman
Department of Anthropology
Brown University, Providence, RI 02912
One of the bedrock principles of linguistic analysis since the nineteenth
century has been the principle of the regularity of cognate borrowing. It
forms the basis of the "comparative method" not only in linguistics, but in
all of social science. Within the same linguistic family it is expected
that a large proportion of linguistic material will be recognizably related
due to the derivation of that material from a common linguistic ancestor.
Historical linguists endeavor to show how the patterns of language exhibit
regular change as they evolve from mother to daughter languages. The most
ambitious theoreticians, such as Morris Swadesh, have claimed to be able to
date the divergence of populations from each other "glottochronologically"
by correlating presumed migratory movements with rates of linguistic change.
Others have used cognate similarities between languages to speculate on the
earliest forms of human language. Stanford linguist, Joseph Greenberg, for
example, notes that many languages have a form dik, dig, or tik that
refers either to the number "one" or to the index finger, suggesting a
bodily origin for words for numbers (the English term being "digit"). Paul
Friedrich uses a compilation of common tree names in Indo-European
languages to trace a purported geographical origin of the Indo-European
people.
However, there is a limited, but powerful countervailing tendency in
language behaviorwords that absolutely resist borrowing even from their
closest linguistic relatives. These words seem to be coined anew by each
population group. Because we expect cognate borrowing as a norm, it is
surprising when we encounter these fascinating examples. It makes us wonder
about the cultural processes that govern the development of communication
systems, and the functional differences between segments of vocabulary.
Butterflies
This little discussion started with an inquiry by a group of mathematician
friends at Santa Clara University. They noted the curious fact that the
word for "butterfly" was different for every European language, including
those most closely relatedsuch as Spanish and Portuguese. I later found
that the "butterfly problem" is one of those linguistic curiosities that
has lurked at the edges of scholarship for some time without much in the
way of a full research effortthe linguistic equivalent of the study of
yawning by biomedical researchers. The first well-known linguist to note
this phenomenon was Emmon Bach, but it has occupied the interest of a
surprising number of people (1).
In modern mode, I went to LinguistList.org and posted a query asking for
the word for butterfly in different languages. I got fifty replies in two
days, and they are still coming in. A large number of people have been
collecting their own lists for years. Patricia Black, a Philosopher at Ohio
University wrote:
I started out being intrigued by the variety of ways the European languages
do the word "German" . . . But then the Spanish turned out to be almost
the same as the French. Phooey. But I knew the English, French, Spanish,
Italian, and German for butterfly. I met a Portuguese speaker and thought
their word would be the same as the French or Spanish, but it was markedly
different and I was off and running. Now no one is safe from me, once I
learn he or she is from a country of which I do not have the word.
One of the nicest of the compendia I received was a short list from an
unpublished paper compiled by linguist Haj Ross, formerly at MIT, and now
teaching at North Texas University. Starting with Ross' list, I have added
many additional terms contributed by email correspondents. This list has
not been regularized. Some of these terms are phonetic transcriptions
(Cantonese, Mandarin), others are transliterated, and still others reflect
the orthography of their original language.
Afrikaans: schärlink, skoenlapper
Albanian flutur
Amharic: burabiro
Arabic: farasha
Arabic, Algerian bu frtutu
Baagandji: bilyululijga
(New South Wales, Australia)
Bambura: dimago
Basque: txipilota, pinpilinpauxa
Bengali: prajapathi
Bulgarian peperuda
Buli (Gur language in N. Ghana): kpalo?
Byelorussian matylok
Cantonese: woo deep
Cape Verdean Criolu: gorgoleta
Cheyenne: hevavahkema
Czech: motýl
Dagon: peplim (pee plim´)
Danish sommerfugl,
(N. Jutland) sommerflue,
(S. Jutland) skurvefugl
Djingli: marlimarlirni
(Australian N.T.)
Danish: sommerfugl [ = summer + bird ]
Dutch: vlinder
Estonian liblikas
Finnish: perhonen
French: papillon
Fulani: lilldeh
Gaelic: dear badan-de, seillean-de
German: Schmetterling
Greek: petalou'da
Gujarati: popti
Hausa: bude-littafi
Hawaiian: pulelehua
Hebrew: parpar
Hindi: titli
Hungarian: lepke (fig.), pillango (insect)
Icelandic: fithrildi
Indonesian kupu kupu
Irish: feileacan
Italian: farfalla
Japanese: choochoo
Javanese kupu
Kitaita: kifurute
Konni (Gur language in N. Ghana): kpanjabi?
Korean: navi
Kwara'áe: bébe
(a language of the Pacific)
Lan: fufú
(another language on the
same island as Kwara'áe)
Lao: maingkabula
Latin: papilio
Latvian: tauriøð
Lithuanian: peteliðkç
Luo oguyo
Lingala (Congo) mpornboli
Majang (Nilo-Saharan): bimbilo
Malay: kupukupu/ramarama
Mandarin: huudye
Maori pulelehua
Masai osampurumpuri
Mayi-Kulan (Queensland, Austr.) pardirr
Mekeo: fefe, fefe-fefe
(an Austronesian language of South East Papua)
Mekeo (West) pepeo
Motu (Papua): kau-bebe,
Nahuatl papalotl, huitzil
Navaho ho'o neno
Ngaju Dayak (Indonesia): kakupo
Norwegian: sommerfugl [ = summer + bird ]
Paiwan (native to Taiwan) kalidungudungul
Patois of St. Thomas zanimo
Persian: parvaneh
Polish: motyl
Portuguese: borboleta
Rumanian: fluturi
Russian: bábochka
Senegalese lupe lupe
Serbo-Croatian: leptir
Setswana (Gabarone) serurubele
Shona: shavishavi
Sinhala samanalaya
Slovenian metulj
Sotho serurubele
Spanish: mariposa
Swahili: kipepeo
Swazi luvivane
Swedish: fjäril
Tagalog: paruparo
Thai: pi sugnya
Tok Pisin (New Guinea) bataplai, bembe
Tiwi: kwarikwaringa
(Melville & Bathurst Islands, Australia)
Trukese: nipwisipwis
Tshiluba (Zaire): bulubulu
Turkish: kelebek
Vietnamese: bayboum
Welsh: pili pala/bili bala, glowyn byw,
iar fach yr haf,
plyfyn bach yr haf
Wik-Ngathan kalpakalpay
(W. Cape York Peninsula, Australia)
Xitchangani phapharati
(a Bantu language
of Mozambique)
Yoruba: labalaba
Zulu: uvevane
One astonishing reply came from correspondent Gianfranco Unali, who gives
all of the terms found in Sard, the Italian/Spanish/Catalan influenced
variety spoken in Sardinia. In addition to farfalla, a clear borrowing, one
finds: arrèndza, áspu, bellagasu, bollankàu, kakare, kalare, karabáttula,
kárru, kásu, kolare, farina, grattare, lèppore, lìlliri, máma, maría,
nòvas,maripòsa,paparéddu, pappagállu, pappare, pompòni, prebelèi,
pummeribèlla, pudzòne, sesè, spioni, tutare, and volare.
Ross contrasts these terms with the words for cat in some of the
Indo-European languages in this group just to show the stark contrast
Danish: kat
Dutch: kat
French: chat
German: Katze
Greek: gata
Italian: gatto
Polish: kot
Portuguese: gato
Russian: koçska
Spanish: gato
Swedish: katt
The terms for butterfly have several things that generally unite them: they
involve a degree of repetitious sound symbolism, (Hebrew parpar; Italian
farfale) and they use visual and auditory cultural metaphors to express the
concept. Inspecting the list of butterfly terms, it is easy to see how
these principles play out in the construction of the terms. In each case,
with the many cases of reiterated b's, p's, l's and f's (in widely
separated language families) one can almost hear the gentle rustle of
butterfly wings and see their repetitive motion.
In those cases where such sound symbolism is not present, more conventional
metaphoric processes prevail. To give a sense of this, several examples
follow. One internet correspondent, linguist Neal Norrick, gives a
definitive explanation for the German term:
The German word for "Butterfly" is "Schmetterling." -ling is a diminutive
suffix, but "Schmetter" comes from the Czech word for cream (smetana). Like
the English butterfly, the connection with cream fits both with the
behavior and color of the common yellow butterfly. So it seems German has
in a sense borrowed a word for butterfly. German also has the word
"Falter," literally 'folder', from the motion of the wings.
Bert Beynan offers this explanation for the Russian term:
The Russian word for 'butterfly' is babochka, a diminutive of baba, (old)
woman. The explanation I have heard is that butterflies were thought to be
witches in disguise in Russian folklore. It is or was therefore an
emotionally highly charged word, which may be the reason for its resistance
against borrowing.
Lameen Souag provides the following for the Algerian Arabic bu frtutu
buu means possessor of a certain attribute (lit. father) and f'rTuuTuu is
onomatopoeia for 'flutter'.
Aesthetic Impulses
The explanation for this phenomenon defies analysis using the traditional
techniques of historical linguistics. Looking for more basic principles of
cognitive tendencies in human language seems more productive.
The eminent linguist Edward Sapir wrote a prominent paper entitled "A Study
in Phonetic Symbolism," in which he suggests that there may be something
inherent in human cognition associating particular sounds with particular
concepts. His experiments were somewhat imprecise and nearly anecdotal, but
no one reading the paper can fail to come away without a feeling that he
"had something" in his formulation. In particular Sapir notes that "high"
vowels, /i/, /e/ connote small things, and low vowels: /a/, /o/ connote
larger things. Sapir also notes that onomatopoeic terms in all languages
are iconic in nature, resembling the sound they represent.
The use of metaphor is also a universal process in language, both in the
coinage of words as in the construction of discourse. George Lakoff,
linguist and Mark Johnson, psychologist, of Berkeley have identified
metaphoric construction as the basis for most semantic processes. Linguist
Roman Jakobson, and anthropologists Paul Friedrich and James Fernandez
point out that aesthetically conceived tropic structures are fundamental
building blocks for all cultural materials.
All of these researchers lend excellent support to the idea that the
linguistic realization for butterfly might be something welling up from the
most basic cognitive creative processes, rather than from a process of
inheritance from a mother language or borrowing from a neighbor language (2).
But why should this process be so universal? And why should butterflies be
singled out as unique aesthetic creations of language whereas terms for
cats and dogs get borrowed wholesale? Emmon Bach suggests that it has
something to do with the creature itself. Whereas cats and dogs are
commonplace, however much we may love them, butterflies are uniquely
inspirational poetic creatures that by their nature demand special
linguistic treatment.
Haj Ross puts this argument beautifully: "the concept/image of butterfly is
a uniquely powerful one in the group minds of the world's cultures, with
its somewhat unpromising start as a caterpillar followed by its dazzling
finish of visual symmetry, coupled with the motional unforgettability of
the butterfly's flipzagging path through our consciousnesses. Butterflies
are such perfect symbols of transformation that almost no culture is
content to accept another's poetry for this mythic creature. Each language
finds its own verbal beauty to celebrate the stunning salience of the
butterfly's being."
However, one then wonders about the other great poetic images found in so
many cultures: flowers, clouds, trees, mountains, birds, and so many other
objects of beauty and wonder. Although the terms for individual species of
animals or plants, and for specific geographic features may be language
specific, the generic terms for the categories are widely borrowed between
language. It may be that the butterfly and its unique status in human
linguistic cognition will remain as elusive and mysterious as the creature
itself.
Notes
(1) One researcher early in this century was William Oehl (1922).
"Elementare Wortschopfung: papilio, fifaltra, farfalla", in Miscellanea
linguistica dedicata a Hugo Schuchardt, Genève, Biblioteca dell'Archivum
Romanicum, 1922, pp. 75-115.
(2) However, Isaac Mozeson, author of The Word, a treatise on common word
origins, contributed this commentary based on his own theories of universal
word derivation:
I had in my "PYRALIDID" entry (appendix A) the PR Greek, the PPL Latin, the
Malay PPL and the Nahuatl PPL terms for butterfly. All should be
influenced by Hebrew PaR PaR (butterfly) and the PR root of PiRPooR (to
twitch). I am grateful for the Tagalog paruparo, and would like to credit
the contributor. As for the Paiwan/Taiwan term, two phonemes are at work.
One, kali, could be like Hebrew KAL (light, swift), and the other is a
duplicated dungudungul, which appears to be a nasalized DIGDAIG (Hebrew for
the tickle-like wavering motion of DAG (fish) and DeGel (flag). Needless to
say, TICKle itself is a form of this Daled-Gimel root from
Edensprach. Lastly, the Autronesian KUPO root could be a form of Ayin-Peh,
KHuPh (to fly -- see "AVIATE" in THE WORD, p. 26).
William O. Beeman
Department of Anthropology
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
USA
Tel: (401) 863-3251; Fax: (401) 863-7588
email: William_Beeman at Brown.edu
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