A Note on Beavers

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

<JoatSimeon at aol.com> (domenica 6 maggio 2001 11.41) writes:
<<...The neolithic range of the beaver stopped well short of the
mediterranean and most of Anatolia.  Again, this reinforces the PIE lexicon
for animals as being specifically north-central Eurasian...>>

The Beaver definitely appears to be a native of Anatolia.  So the beaver is
just another example of an animal that apparently could support an Anatolian
origin for IE languages.

In fact, it appears the beaver could support a origin of the IE languages on
the Eurprates. See: Legge, A. J. and P.A. Rowley-Conwy, "The Beaver (Castor
fiber L.) in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin." Journal of Archaeological Science
13:469-476 (1986).  References to the beaver being absent from "the
mediterranean zone" is to a narrow climate zone, not a location.  The beaver
lived in the south.

<JoatSimeon at aol.com> (domenica 6 maggio 2001 11.41) also writes:
<<-- I would certainly agree on "beaver" (PIE *bhebhrus) .... and the
derivation from a color term is obvious in PIE *babhrus.>>

Boy, beaver just doesn't seem to be a good candidate for a PIE word.
Especially if it's supposed to come from something like "reddish-brown".
You'd have to carry a Pantone color ring around in the woods with you to tell
reddish-brown animals apart.  And what was unique about the beaver or the
beaver's fur was not it's color, which is variable.

There seems to be an extremely transparent meaning in Greek that would be
hard to miss if it wasn't assumed the word was PIE.  <brucho:> and <bruko>
means to chew, to gnaw, to grind, to eat noisily.  <bruchetos> is chattering
of teeth.  <bruche:>, gnashing of teeth.  <diabro:sis>, eating through,
chewing, erosion.  <diabro:ma>, that which is eaten through.

<bibro:sko:> means to eat up, chew up; in its passive forms, e.g.,
<bebro:oetai>,  <bebro:menoi>, something that is eaten, gnawed or chewed up.
<rhiza bebro:menoi> is, e.g., "worm-eaten."  (The <bi-/be-> prefix might also
be considered causal  - e.g., bibazo:, bebaioo: < baino:.)  Also related are
<bebro:thois>, chew up; <brugde:n>, with clenched teeth.  <bruchiao:> is
chatter or some related defect of speech.

If there's anything about a beaver in living form, it's them mighty incisors
and the work they do.

Although the beaver's teeth would be obvious even to city folk who saw a pelt
with the head still in place, country folk would know to identify the beaver
from their work.  They leave plenty of chewed-up things behind - "bebro:-".
The beaver-gnawed tree or fence post is distinctive.  There are plenty of
papers on the beaver's role in ancient land clearance and creating
tree-dammed ponds.  Where there's beaver, there's gnawing.

But the Greek words above don't come from the beaver.  They might come from
just eating. (<bora>, post-Homeric for food.)  Or they might come from
references to the noise -- by gnashing (or gnoshing), chattering or even
roaring --coming from the mouth or throat.  So that <bruche:>, above, is not
only a "gnashing of teeth," but also "bellowing" (in L&S, connected to
bruchaomai).  (See also, bruchêdon, bruche:thmos, bruche:ma,
bruche:te:r and maybe bruchios.) Possibly as collateral extensions, there's
<brochizo:>, hang, strangle.  And post-Homeric <brochthos>, throat, throatful
(as in vomited).  But the connection of the word with beavers I believe comes
later.

Based on a quick look at the texts and glossaries, it appears that the Greeks
did not use a bruch-/bibro- word for the beaver.  But they used it in
connection with animals often.  <bebro:ko:s boos> in Homer is a cow chewed up
by a lion.   And horses chomp the bit, <hippi ie: bruke>.  I think in
Antigone, <bebro:tes> is used to refer to scavenger birds.  A kind of smelt
was called <bebrada>, maybe because it was a chum or cut bait fish. And then
there is the <babuko:s>, the pelican. (If you've ever fed a pelican, you'll
think there was some connection), etc.

Based on all the above, I think that one might guess that the application of
the bebr- word to the beaver is late.  One also might guess that the word
traveled along the trade routes as a common name from the source of the pelt
(later than for the castors) - "the gnawer."

<<Now, in Old Indian/Sanskrit, there has been a semantic shift; there's a
cognate term, babhru, but it means 'mongoose'....>>

I don't know how a mongoose eats or what it leaves behind or if it has musk
glands.  My suspicion would be that this is a fur trade word.  If the pelts
have some similarity.  On the other hand, it may also be that this was by
some analogy to the badger - a closer animal I think - as a harvested animal
and the demand for its glands in the marketplace.  (See, e.g., Joshua T.
Katz, The Curious Case of the Hittite Mustelid, Abstract, Abstracts of
Communications of the 208th Annual Meeting, American Oriental Society, re the
connection of the name for the badger with the testicular gland in northern
IE and the connection to castor.)


In a message dated 5/14/2001 1:45:39 PM, centrostudilaruna at libero.it writes:
<<fiber seems to find a correspondence in the gallic Bibr(acte) (a personal

name), ...>>

<fiber> is probably a reference to the beaver's castors which must be removed
from inside its groin and are attached by ligament-like membranes.  <fibra>
is the older word meaning any "filament" in a plant or animal, generally
identified for some practical purpose, e.g., wicker-making, and it comes to
mean intestines.

<<...in the high old german bibar (modern german Biber), in the lituan bebras
and in sanskrit babhru, which has two different meanings: as adjective it
means “brownred”...>>

Color words logically need to start as a reference to something and then that
word also becomes the name of the color.  "Turquoise" becomes something to
generalize to other objects of similar color.  "Babhru" would therefore
possibly originally refer to a fur, then to furs of similar color, and travel
across languages where fur was traded.

<<Also the greek "phrxne" comes from the same theme, which is the i.e.
*bhebhru- (I take those informations from the Pokorny).>>

Can't find that Greek word.  Is this a reconstr using <phrugo:>, to roast?

Finally this word of caution about what is a beaver and what is not, from
Honore de Balzac:

"Cheapness, monsieur. In the first place, very handsome silk hats can be
built for fifteen francs, which kills our business; for in Paris no one ever
has fifteen francs in his pocket to spend on a hat. If a beaver hat costs
thirty, it is still the same thing-- When I say beaver, I ought to state that
there are not ten pounds of beaver skins in France. That article is worth
three hundred and fifty francs a pound, and it takes an ounce for a hat.
Besides, a beaver hat isn't really worth anything; the skin takes a wretched
dye; gets rusty in ten minutes under the sun, and heat puts it out of shape
as well. What we call 'beaver' in the trade is neither more nor less than
hare's-skin. The best qualities are made from the back of the animal, the
second from the sides, the third from the belly.  I confide to you these
trade secrets because you are men of honor...."

Regards,
Steve Long