[Lexicog] What is a bat?

Wed Sep 14 16:29:55 UTC 2005

Dear Fritz,

I am trying to make an order in my Inbox folders, and doing so came
across your old email on 'bat'. In addition to many 'bat' names in
languages (it struck me you didn't mention its name in the holy tongue--the book you were discussing "Naming Day in Eden" is telling the story how Adam named animals), Hebrew and Aramaic have similar words for 'bat'. Namely Hebrew ʕaTallef, Aramaic ʕaTallefa. 
The words are built following quadroliteral pattern (which is well known, but not frequent occurrence in Semitic morphology). There were many attempts to etymologize the words, but the basic dispute remained unsolved.
What is clear, however, that the first two letters ayin and tet are coming from the root group with meaning “to be dark” or “to immerge, to cover, to be cloaked, wrapped” and as such show that it is either night time animal or animal cloaked [by darkness or by wings?]. Some refer to root ayin-tet-heh (ʕaTaH) [to wrap (himself)], other to root 
ayin-tet-peh (ʕaTaF) [to wrap, to cloak]. Still others think this is a loan word in Hebrew and other Semitic languages (Aramaic and Phoenician) and thus the etymologies described do not apply to the words. 
The Arabic correspondence to this root is GhiTriif – ‘hawk’
from which derived very honorific words like “illustrious man, chief, ambition, comely, elegant”, etc. By the way compare English
‘ace’ and its metaphoric meanings, the same as related to aquila, eagle, Adler, Russian oryol, Heb. nesher, etc.      

Best regards,
Hayim Y. Sheynin
Gratz College

-----Original Message-----
From: Fritz Goerling [mailto:Fritz_Goerling at sil.org] 
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 5:50 PM
To: lexicographylist yahoogroups
Subject: [Lexicog] What is a bat?

In Noah J. Jabobs' amusing "Naming Day in Eden" (The MacMillan Company
Collier-MacMillan Ltd., London 1958), p. 16, I found the following
interesting quote on how the bat is named in different languages:

"...how did Adam name the bat? Which characteristic impressed him at
 the moment of naming? Did its blindness move him to call it
 'murciélago'(Spanish), its baldness 'chauve-souris'(French), its
 shyness 'pipistrello'(Italian), its leathery skin 'Läderlapp'(Swedish)
 or 'böregér'(Hungarian from 'bör,' leather; 'egér,' mouse), its
 preference for the night 'nukteris'(Greek), its resemblance to the
 mouse 'Fledermaus'(German) or 'letutsaya mysh'(Russian), the sound of
 its flapping wings 'watwat'(Arabic), its winglike hands 'chiroptera'
 (Greek 'chir,' hand, plus 'pteron,' wing), its resemblance to a lily(!)
 'liliac'(Rumanian), its reputed love of bacon 'bat' (Old English
 'backe,' bacon)? The Chinese have conferred a number of laudatory
 names on this mouse-like mammal, such as 'embracing wings, heavenly
 rat, fairy rat, night swallow,' and use it as a symbol of happiness
 and long life because its name 'fu' in Chinese happens to be a
 homonym which means both 'bat'and 'prosperity.'"

I have found African stories about the bat being sad because it does
not know where it belongs.
How do you name the bat in your language? And where would you put it
in a domain dictionary?

Fritz Goerling
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