Taboo replacements

[Robert Orr]

At 09:33 AM 4/16/99 +0000, you wrote:

>A few comments on the discussion below, though we are drifting rather
>far from Indo-European:  as a source for <anaconda>, the Tamil
>compound translated as "elephant killer" is cited in Yule and
>Burnell's  _Hobson-Jobson_, but retracted more or less in a
>parenthetical note in later editions in favor of a Sinhalese word
><henekandaya:>.  As far as I know, no one has ever seriously disputed
>the <henekandaya:> etymology.  The Sinhalese word was borrowed into
>English, not Portuguese, and the misapplication to a South American
>snake was due to confusion among biologists.  The Brazilian
>Portuguese word for the anaconda (Eunectes murinus) is <sucuri>, with
>many variants, borrowed from Tupi.  If <anaconda> exists in current
>Portuguese, it is as a borrowing of an international zoological term.

>I don't think Robert poses a really valid objection to Larry's
>points.

Not surprising, as the anaconda comment was meant to be in SUPPORT of point 5)
(but thanks for the clarification of the "anaconda" etymology)

Robert Orr

>Jim Rader

>> LARRY TRASK:

[ moderator snip ]

>> >(5) from Amharic <zebra:> `zebra'.

[ moderator snip ]

>> >(5) looks good, if the word is real, but how would an Amharic word
>> >	get into Spanish and Portuguese?  (Of course, the Portuguese
>> >	were all over east Africa early on, but in Ethiopia?)

>ROBERT ORR:

>>         when you consider what you have to assume to get Tamil yaanai-kolra
>> - "elephant killer" 1) borrowed into Portuguese 2) transferred all the way
>> to South America 3) become establsihed enough in the language to refer to
>> another giant snake, i.e.,  "anaconda" (the exact path taken by stages 2 and
>> 3 is open to debate), (5) above doesn't really look like a problem at all.