Language Log

« previous post | next post »

In reacting to the fierce denunciation of Xi Jinping by Cai Xia (see bibliographical note at the bottom of this post), Conal Boyce mused:

Mind-boggling material. I had to do a double-take on the passage you show that contains both chǔn and jiāhuo (蠢家伙 ["stupid guy / fellow"]).  And sure enough, in the video, she actually uses the term zhèngzhì jiāngshī (政治僵尸 ["political zombies"]) more than once!

These are shocking terms, with a peculiar color all their own. They reminded me that, in a sense, there are no words that are actually 'equivalents' between two languages. For instance, the Turkish for 'cat' is 'kedi', which has a comfortable look of familiarity at first, because of English 'kitty', yet we suspect that the semantic range of 'kedi' in Turkish versus the semantic ranges for 'cat' and 'kitty' in English probably overlap in some unexpected Venn diagram style, with much of 'kedi' not immediately accessible to a speaker of English.

Here's the etymology for "kedi" in Wiktionary:

From Ottoman Turkish كدی‎ (kädi). Replaced native pisi, now often restricted to archaic use and child-speak.

Mehmet Olmez provides rich historical background:

No, it is not from English :).

There was not a Turkic word for 'cat', there were some words for 'wild cat'. Detailed description about the cat we can find in Divanu Lugati't-Turk (from 11th century, 1072-1074). Turkish kedi 'cat' must be related to European CAT and KATZE. But it cannot be a direct borrowing as mentioned from Europe. According to A. Tietze and R. Dankoff, it can be related with Armenian kadu or Ar. qiṭṭ . In Siberian languages there is just 'wild cat' (similar Mongolian malur and other forms): manu. About Mongolian forms Juha and Sasha can write more. About Turkic forms Marcel, Jens, Stefan, Uwe, both Peter  'hocalarım', Róna-Tas, Marek can write more.

I can share here Clauson's explanation:

?F çetük ‘(female) cat’. The various Turkish words for ‘cat’ are collected in Shcherbak, p. 129. Some of them, e.g. maçı:, VU mö:ş, and mışkıç, are demonstrably l.-w.s, and it is likely that the rest, including this one, which has no obvious etymology, are also l.-w.s. The Turks prob. did not meet cats early enough to have their own word for them. (Xak.?) xıv Muh. al-sinnūr ‘cat’ çetük Mel. 72, 6; çe:tük Rif. 174: Oğuz xı çetük al-hirra ‘female cat’; (VU) küwük (unvocalized) çetük al-ḍaywan ‘tom cat’ Kaş. I 388; a.o. III 127 (mö:ş): Xwar. xıv çetük ‘(female) cat’ Qutb 42: Kıp. xııı al-qiṭṭ ‘tom cat’ (ma:çı:, also called) çe:tük Hou.  ıı, ıı: xıv çetük (c-c) al-qiṭṭ İd. 42; Bul. 10, 10: xv al-qitt setük (sic) Kav. 62, 3; sinnūr (maçı and) çetük Tuh. 19a. 11: Osm. xıv ff. çetük, occasionally çetik, ‘cat’; common till xvı, occasionally later TTS I 155; II 222; III 147; IV 165: xvııı çetik (spelt) in Rūmī, gurba ‘cat’, in Ar. hirra and sinnūr San. 205r. 14. [Clauson 402b:]

We need to check Ščerbak and Sevortyan too.

Right now I have to leave home for a workshop. That is all that I can write about on short notice.

mıškıč ~ Man. Sogd. mwškyč, mwškyšč(h) ‘Wildkatze’ // wild cat Heilk I (Uigurisches Wörterbuch, Neubearbeitung Band I.1: kulak sakzı bolsar … ölüg mıškıčnıŋ yakrısın ergüzüp sürtser ačılur Heilk I (Uigurisches Wörterbuch, Neubearbeitung). [Gershevitch § 382 and 382, footn. 1.; more see Gharib, Sogdian Dictionary, § 5561; Sims-Williams & Durkin-Meisterernst 2012: mwškyč ‘cat’ s. 117b]

See also S. Nişanyan: https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=kedi

Juha Janhunen fills in many gaps and adds new dimensions:

Mongolian has muur (from Chinese mao-er 貓兒) and mii : migui (apparently native onomatopoetic words, but recent, since the sequence -igui is unique). The word for 'wild cat', manuul, which Mehmet mentions, is clearly more basic and may be old (though I do not know anything more of its origin). – Words for 'cat' are often recent, descriptive / onomatopoetic, or borrowed. Finnish has kissa, from Swedish kisse (but note also Russian kisa), ultimately from the sound k-s with which cats are called. Other Baltic Finnic languages have *kassi > Estonian kass, which is probably connected with the Indo-European words, but not as a regular borrowing. But even French chat (< *kat) and Italian gatto do not quite match because of the initial consonants.

Sasha Vovin contributes a vital anthropological detail:

Just a small addition to what Juha already said. Western Middle Mongolian has miγui 'cat' attested just once in the Leiden Glossary (66b). No Eastern MM attestations, which is no wonder since feeding cats would fit poorly in the nomadic lifestyle.

All of this leaves me with two burning questions:

1. Why are words for the domestic cat, an animal now so widespread and much adored (think of Hello Kitty, the zillions of cat videos, etc.), relatively late in many languages?
2. Why is the evidence for cats so relatively scant in the archeological record? — except for ancient Egypt, where there were millions of mummified cats, so many that in the 1800s they were sold for fertilizer in Europe.  Incidentally, the ancient Egyptians also mummified millions of dogs. (Source)

Etymological notes on English "cat"

The origin of the English word 'cat', Old English catt, is thought to be the Late Latin word cattus, which was first used at the beginning of the 6th century. It was suggested that the word 'cattus' is derived from an Egyptian precursor of Coptic ϣⲁⲩ šau, "tomcat", or its feminine form suffixed with -t. The Late Latin word is also thought to be derived from Afro-Asiatic languages. The Nubian word kaddîska "wildcat" and Nobiin kadīs are possible sources or cognates. The Nubian word may be a loan from Arabic قَطّ‎ qaṭṭ ~ قِطّ qiṭṭ. It is "equally likely that the forms might derive from an ancient Germanic word, imported into Latin and thence to Greek and to Syriac and Arabic". The word may be derived from Germanic and Northern European languages, and ultimately be borrowed from Uralic, cf. Northern Sami gáđfi, "female stoat", and Hungarian hölgy, "stoat"; from Proto-Uralic *käďwä, "female (of a furred animal)".

Wikipedia

 

From Middle English cat, catte, from Old English catt (“male cat”), catte (“female cat”), from Proto-Germanic *kattuz.

Further etymology and cognates.

The Germanic word is generally thought to be from Late Latin cattus (“domestic cat”) (c. 350, Palladius), from Latin catta (c. 75 A.D., Martial), from an Afroasiatic language. This would roughly match how domestic cats themselves spread, as genetic studies suggest they began to spread out of the Near East / Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic (being in Cyprus by 9500 years ago, and Greece and Italy by 2500 years ago), especially after they became popular in Egypt. However, every proposed source word has presented problems. Adolphe Pictet and many subsequent sources refer to Barabra (Nubian) (kaddîska) and "Nouba" (Nobiin) kadīs as possible sources or cognates, but M. Lionel Bender says the Nubian word is a loan from Arabic قِطَّة‎ (qiṭṭa). Jean-Paul Savignac suggests the Latin word is from an Egyptian precursor of Coptic ϣⲁⲩ (šau, “tomcat”) suffixed with feminine -t, but John Huehnergard says "the source […] was clearly not Egyptian itself, where no analogous form is attested."

Huehnergard opines it is "equally likely that the forms might derive from an ancient Germanic word, imported into Latin and thence to Greek and to Syriac and Arabic". Guus Kroonen also considers the word to be native to Germanic (due to morphological alternations) and Northern Europe, and suggests that it might ultimately be borrowed from Uralic, compare Northern Sami gađfe (“female stoat”) and Hungarian hölgy (“stoat; lady, bride”) from Proto-Uralic *käďwä (“female (of a fur animal)").

Related to Scots cat, West Frisian kat, North Frisian kåt and kaat, Dutch kat, Danish kat, Norwegian katt, Swedish katt, German Low German Katt and Katte, German Katze, Alemannic German Chatz, Icelandic köttur, Afrikaans kat, Latin cattus, French chat, Norman cat, Occitan cat, Portuguese gato, Spanish gato, Aromanian cãtush, Scottish Gaelic cat, Irish cat, Breton kazh, Welsh cath, Cornish kath, as well as Ancient Greek κάττα (kátta), Greek γάτα (gáta), and from the same ultimate source Russian кот (kot), Ukrainian кіт (kit), Belarusian кот (kot), Polish kot, Kashubian kòt, Lithuanian katė, and more distantly Armenian կատու (katu), Basque katu, Hebrew חתול‎ (khatúl), Arabic قِطَّة‎ (qiṭṭa) alongside dialectal Maghrebi Arabic قَطُّوس‎ (qaṭṭūs) (from Berber, probably from Latin).

Wiktionary

 

Old English catt (c. 700) "domestic cat," from West Germanic (c. 400-450), from Proto-Germanic *kattuz (source also of Old Frisian katte, Old Norse köttr, Dutch kat, Old High German kazza, German Katze), from Late Latin cattus.

The near-universal European word now, it appeared in Europe as Latin catta (Martial, c. 75 C.E.), Byzantine Greek katta (c. 350) and was in general use on the continent by c. 700, replacing Latin feles. Probably ultimately Afro-Asiatic (compare Nubian kadis, Berber kadiska, both meaning "cat"). Arabic qitt "tomcat" may be from the same source. Cats were domestic in Egypt from c. 2000 B.C.E., but not a familiar household animal to classical Greeks and Romans. The nine lives have been proverbial at least since 1560s.

The Late Latin word also is the source of Old Irish and Gaelic cat, Welsh kath, Breton kaz, Italian gatto, Spanish gato, French chat (12c.). Independent, but ultimately from the same source are words in the Slavic group: Old Church Slavonic kotuka, kotel'a, Bulgarian kotka, Russian koška, Polish kot, along with Lithuanian katė and non-Indo-European Finnish katti, which is from Lithuanian.

Online Etymological Dictionary

 

[Middle English, from Old English catt, from Germanic *kattuz; akin to Late Latin cattus and Old Church Slavonic kotŭka, all ultimately of unknown origin.]

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.

 

Selected readings

• "Magi, myrrh, and mummies" (12/24/14)
• "Is Hello Kitty not a cat?" (8/30/14)
• "Cat chat and tax talk" (12/12/19) — Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen is a cat lover
• "The importance of being and speaking Taiwanese" (7/21/20) — Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the United States and the the closest confidant(e) to President Tsai Ing-wen, is also a cat lover

 

Bibliographical note

Zhōnggòng zhōngyāng dǎngxiào tuìxiū jiàoshòu Cài Xiá nèibù jiǎnghuà wénzì gǎo: Cóng xiūxiàn kāishǐ, zhège dǎng yǐ shì yīgè zhèngzhì jiāngshī

中共中央党校退休教授蔡霞内部讲话文字稿：从修宪开始，这个党已是一个政治僵尸

"Transcript of internal speech by Cai Xia, a retired professor of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China: Since the revision of the constitution, this party has been a political zombie"

Video

Note that Xi was the former director of the Central Party School.

 

[Thanks to Erika Gilson]

July 25, 2020 @ 5:44 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Borrowing, Etymology, Language and animals

Permalink