Sea Pigs

Wed Jul 21 17:02:12 UTC 2010

I'm in total agreement with you re: common sense and historical/geographical knowledge.  That is precisely the point I was making.  I felt dismayed that a few respondents didn't seem to accept the possibility of 'морская свинка' being a purpoise/dolphin.  And while dictioaries are of course essential, sometimes we need more and i believe that is what Bakhtin advocates

AMD

> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:47:05 -0700
> From: jrosengrant at EARTHLINK.NET
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Sea Pigs
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> I think Professor Dunn's point may simply have been that the answer to the
> original question was readily available in the most authoritative resource
> for 19th-century Russian: Vladimir Dahl's great dictionary. There's even a
> version of it (2nd edition) available on-line: <http://vidahl.agava.ru/> or
> <http://dic.academic.ru/contents.nsf/enc2p/>.
> 
> If you read Dahl's article on 'свинья' you'll find 'морская свинка' glossed
> as 'дельфин (Delphinus phocaena)'. Since the alternative of 'Guinea pig' is
> obviously inappropriate for geographical and historical reasons, you can
> take Dahl's word for it and call it either 'dolphin' or 'porpoise'.
> 
> That last 'or' raises the interesting question of which species actually
> pertains. I would tend to think the first, since dolphins appear to be much
> more common in the North Pacific than porpoises. But I would want to
> research the local conditions before making a final decision. It
> could be the text was talking about harbor porpoises.
> 
> The derivation of 'porpoise' is interesting too: it seems to come from the
> French 'pourpois', which itself derives from the Latin 'porcopiscus' or
> 'pig-fish'. Or as the the Russian has it, 'морская свинка' (the second word
> probably not being a diminutive but a regional alternative with the simpler
> declension, like 'морковка'). Or as a yet another old English alternative,
> 'mereswine' (ОЕД cites 725 - 1886).
> 
> In short, it all probably has less to do with Saussure or Bakhtin (as truly
> wonderful as they are) and more with consulting the basic professional
> resources available to us with the click of a mouse and then using a little
> common sense in regard to geography and history.
> 
> 
> Judson Rosengrant, PhD
> PO Box 551 
> Portland, OR 97207
> 
> 503.880.9521 mobile
> jrosengrant at earthlink.net
> 
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