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I've long been deeply intrigued by the word "macaque".  It's an odd-looking term with a murky history, but somehow it just seems to fit the creature that it designates.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed.:

French, from Portuguese macaco, of Bantu origin; akin to Kongo makako, monkeys : ma-, pl. n. pref. + -kako, monkey.

Online Etymology Dictionary:

East Indian monkey, 1757, from French macaque, from Portuguese macaco "monkey," a Bantu word brought from Africa to Brazil (where it was applied 17c. to a type of monkey there).

From the Portuguese entry on "macaco" in Wiktionary:

Thought to have been borrowed from a Bantu language. Bantu maka, "cat", comes from -mañga (an old East African Bantu word for the sea-coast, often applied to any strange or foreign product). But it seems unlikely that the Bantu would have used such a word to denote familiar animals like apes and monkeys. However, none of the many Bantu words for apes and monkeys resembles "macaco". Other suggested derivations include:

• • from a language of Madagascar;
  • from Galibi Carib macaca (“simian”), though it may have been loaned into Galibi from a language of African slaves;
  • from dialectal French macao (“cat; monkey; long-tailed monkey”), allegedly used in Normandy and Berry.
  • from Spanish muchacho or Macau +‎ -aco (for Portuguese bugio, Spanish mono, Latin simia).

CNRTL (Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales)

Étymol. et Hist. 1. a) 1680 zool. macaco (Guattini et Carli, Relation curieuse et nouvelle d'un voyage de Congo, p. 29 ds König, p. 29); 1698 macaq (Froger, Relation d'un voyage fait en 1695, 1696, 1697 aux côtes d'Afrique, p. 144, ibid.); 1766 macaque (Buffon, Hist. nat., t. 14, p. 194); b) 1867 fig. «personne très laide» (Mérimée, Lettres duchesse de Castiglione-Colonna, p. 40); 2. 1745 entomol. ver macaque (Hist. de l'Académie des Sciences, Mém.,p. 471 ds König,p. 131). Empr. au port. macaco «id.» (1555 ds Fried.), qui a lui-même empr. le mot aux lang. bantoues où il signifiait «bête sauvage», «quadrumane» et spéc. «cynocéphale». Les Portugais ont également introduit le mot dans le Nouveau Monde au xvi^es. (cf. Fried. et FEW t. 20, p. 88a).

From the entry on "macaco" in OED:

< French macaco (late 17th cent.) or its etymon Portuguese macaco (mid 16th cent.) monkey, ape < a Bantu language. The word is attested in use in the Congo (as macaquo ) by G. Marggraf Historiae Rerum Naturalium Brasiliae (1648) 227, and (in the form makaku ) in the vocabulary copied c1651 by the Flemish Capuchin Joris van Geel. Compare macaque n.

The consensus seems to be that ultimately "macaque" comes from a Bantu word for "monkey", where the first syllable indicates the plural.

Now things start to get really interesting.

The Sinitic word for "macaque" is míhóu 獼猴.  This has the look, shape, and feel of one of those ancient disyllabic lexemes that we've discussed on Language Log so often before, words like those for "reindeer" (qílín 麒麟), "butterfly" (húdié 蝴蝶), "spider" (zhīzhū 蜘蛛), "phoenix" (fènghuáng 鳳凰), "pear-shaped lute" (pípá 琵琶, Jap. biwa), "harp" (kōnghóu 箜篌)  and so on and so forth.  Some of these words can be connected with non-Sinitic terms from outside the Sinographic sphere.

What is even more intriguing about míhóu 獼猴 is that it has variant graphic forms, thus:

mùhóu 沐猴 — from the surface significations of the characters, it looks like it means "bathe / cleanse monkey"

mǔhóu 母猴 — from the surface significations of the characters, it looks like it means "mother monkey"

mǎhóu 馬猴 — from the surface significations of the characters, it looks like it means "horse monkey"

I think that, in all three cases, these are transcriptions of the same word that lies behind míhóu 獼猴.  This is the principle in Sinitic linguistics that students in my classes learn early and never forget:  the priority of sound over shape.

So far as I can tell, the phonophore hóu 侯 ("marquis; lord; noble; high official; marquess; nobleman", etc.), which did occur in the earliest stages (oracle bones and bronze inscriptions, 2nd and 1st millennia BC) of the writing system, did not acquire the meaning of "monkey" until the canine semantophore 犭(< 犬) was added to it during the period of the seal characters (latter part of the first millennium BC).

Below, I will delve into the Old Sinitic (OS) (ca. 600 BC) pronunciations of míhóu 獼猴, mùhóu 沐猴, mǔhóu 母猴, and mǎhóu 馬猴 to see if they are close enough to warrant the possibility that — taking areal and temporal variation into account — they might have reflected the same or related words in a non-Sinitic language from which they were borrowed.

Let us look at the contexts in which these different orthographies occur.

míhóu 獼猴

Chǔ cí 楚辞 (Songs of the South; Elegies of Chu); circa late 4th-early 3rd c. 《楚辭-招隱士》: “獼猴兮熊羆，慕類兮以悲。攀援桂枝兮聊淹留。”

"Macaques and bears".

mùhóu 沐猴 

Shǐjì 史記 (The Grand Scribe's Records); circa 94 BC《史記-本紀-項羽本紀》: “居數日，項羽引兵西屠咸陽，殺秦降王子嬰，燒秦宮室，火三月不滅；收其貨寶婦女而東。人或說項王曰：'關中阻山河四塞，地肥饒，可都以霸。'項王見秦宮皆以燒殘破，又心懷思欲東歸，曰：'富貴不歸故鄉，如衣繡夜行，誰知之者！'說者曰：'人言楚人沐猴而冠耳，果然。'項王聞之，烹說者。”

"It is said that the people of Chu are macaques wearing hats".

mǔhóu 母猴

Lǚshì chūnqiū 呂氏春秋 (Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals); circa 239 BC《呂氏春秋-慎行論-察傳》："夫得言不可以不察，數傳而白為黑，黑為白。故狗似玃，玃似母猴，母猴似人，人之與狗則遠矣。此愚者之所以大過也。聞而審則為福矣，聞而不審，不若無聞矣。齊桓公聞管子於鮑叔，楚莊聞孫叔敖於沈尹筮，審之也，故國霸諸侯也。吳王聞越王句踐於太宰嚭，智伯聞趙襄子於張武，不審也，故國亡身死也。"

"Macaques are like humans".

Hán Fēi Zǐ 韓非子 (Master Han Fei); mid-3rd c. BC 《韓非子·外儲說左上》："宋人有請為燕王以棘刺之端為母猴者，必三月齋然後能觀之，燕王因以三乘養之。右御、治工言王曰：‘臣聞人主無十日不燕之齋。今知王不能久齋以觀無用之器也，故以三月為期。凡刻削者，以其所以削必小。今臣治人也，無以為之削，此不然物也，王必察之。’王因囚而問之，果妄，乃殺之。治人謂王曰：‘計無度量，言談之士多棘刺之說也。’" 

"To carve a macaque on the tip of a thorn".

Since this became a set phrase (chéngyǔ 成語), jícìmǔhóu 棘刺母猴, that is still in use today, because to grasp the full implications of this saying requires a deeper understanding of the background story, and because it is intrinsically interesting, I have permitted myself to quote the English translation of the entire passage as rendered by  W. K. Liao, with minor changes.

Once a man of Song asked permission to engrave a macaque on the tip of a bramble thorn for the King of Yan. According to him, the King must remain purified for three months before he could see it. The King, accordingly, supported him with the emolument of three chariots. Thereupon the smith who attended on the King, said to him: "Your servant has heard, 'No lord of men can remain purified for ten days without having a drinking feast in the meantime.' Now that the Song man knows the inability of Your Majesty to remain purified long enough in order to see a useless object, he purposely set three months as the period of purification. As a rule, the instruments of engravers and carvers must always be smaller than their objects. Being a smith himself, your servant finds no way to make him any instrument for carving. It is an unattainable object. May your Majesty deliberate on the matter!" Accordingly, the King arrested and questioned the man of Song, found out his falsehood, and put him to death. The smith again said to the King, "If the state has no weights and measures to regulate things, garrulous itinerants would mostly present such absurd discussions as the Bramble Thorn Story".

The meaning of the set phrase (chéngyǔ 成語) jícìmǔhóu 棘刺母猴 ("carve a macaque on the tip of a thorn") is "to tell a tall tale to the credulous so as to hoodwink them and thereby gain benefit".  Unfortunately, most people who encounter and use this expression, even those who are learned and know the original story from Han Fei Zi, think that mǔhóu 母猴 means "mother monkey", following the surface meaning of the transcriptional characters.  This is where linguistic expertise is necessary to understand the true significance of the espression, though I doubt that many people will be patient enough to acquire the requisite philological skills to comprehend why mǔhóu 母猴 means "macaque", not "mother monkey".

mǎhóu 馬猴

Qing (1644-1912) philological scholars such as Wáng Yún 王筠 (1784-1854) drew a connection between mǔhóu 母猴 and mùhóu 沐猴 and said that mǎhóu 馬猴, which was current in their time, represented the same morphemes.  They rejected such outlandish, simplistic notions as that mǎ 馬 ("horse) is a big animal, hence mǎhóu 馬猴 meant "big monkey".

Bearing in mind all of the problems surrounding the notion of "Old Sinitic" (there could not have been a single version of Sinitic that existed throughout the first millennium BC and across the whole of continental East Asian [see "Selected reading" below]), let us nonetheless give two attempts at the OS reconstructions of the four Sinographic variants for "macaque" to see if they are in the same ball park:

míhóu 獼猴

(Baxter–Sagart): /*mə-ɡˤ(r)o/

(Zhengzhang): /*mnel-ɡoː/

mùhóu 沐猴

            (Baxter–Sagart): /*C.mˤok-ɡˤ(r)o/
            (Zhengzhang): /*moːɡ  ɡoː/

mǔhóu 母猴

            (Baxter–Sagart): /*məʔ-ɡˤ(r)o/
            (Zhengzhang): /*mɯʔ-ɡoː/

mǎhóu 馬猴

            (Baxter–Sagart): /*mˤraʔ-ɡˤ(r)o/
            (Zhengzhang): /*mraːʔ-ɡoː/

If the etymologies of "macaque" and "míhóu 獼猴", etc. are obscure, that of their cousin, the monkey, is equally so:

AHD 5th

Perhaps ultimately from Middle Low German Moneke, name of a young ape in the beast epic Reynke de Vos ("Reynard the Fox"), shortening of Simoneke, diminutive (used in punning reference to Latin sīmia, ape, monkey; see simian) of the Middle High German name Simon (equivalent to English Simeon Simon).

Wiktionary

Borrowed from Middle Dutch monnekijn, or Middle Low German Moneke, name of the son of Martin the Ape in Reynard the Fox, a diminutive based on Old Spanish mona (“mona monkey”), shortening of mamona, variant of maimón, perhaps through Turkish maymun (“monkey”), from Arabic مَيْمُون‎ (maymūn, “baboon”). Compare Old French Monequin.

Online Etymology Dictionary

1520s, also monkie, munkie, munkye, etc., not found in Middle English (where ape was the usual word); of uncertain origin, but likely from an unrecorded Middle Low German *moneke or Middle Dutch *monnekijn, a colloquial word for "monkey," originally a diminutive of some Romanic word, compare French monne (16c.); Middle Italian monnicchio, from Old Italian monna; Spanish mona "ape, monkey." In a 1498 Low German version of the popular medieval beast story Roman de Renart ("Reynard the Fox"), Moneke is the name given to the son of Martin the Ape; transmission of the word to English might have been via itinerant entertainers from the German states.

The Old French form of the name is Monequin (recorded as Monnekin in a 14c. version from Hainault), which could be a diminutive of some personal name, or it could be from the general Romanic word, which may be ultimately from Arabic maimun "monkey," literally "auspicious," a euphemistic usage because the sight of apes was held by the Arabs to be unlucky [Klein].

"See no [evil], hear no [evil], speak no [evil]."

mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru 見ざる, 聞かざる, 言わざる

-zaru is a negative conjugation of the three verbs, matching zaru, the modified form of saru 猿 ("monkey") used in compounds

(source)

Appendix:  WordReference.com Language Forums discussion of relevant terms

vince (6/15/08):

The Hong Kong movie "Iron Monkey" (which was actually shown in American/Canadian screens) is entitled titmaalau "铁马骝" in Cantonese (written in Simplified characters). Monkey seems to be maalau "马骝" in Cantonese (馬騮 in Traditional characters).

What does a monkey have to do with a horse: maa "马" and "legendary horse": lau "骝"?

Is the Standard Chinese/Mandarin word 猴子 ever used in Cantonese outside of formal/written contexts?

Ghabi (7/24/11):

First of all the word 馬騮 (pinyin: ma3liu2; also written 馬留/馬流 in ancient texts) is not exclusively Cantonese (jyutping: maa5lau1). There's a well-known [folk] etymology concerning the word: it's believed that if a monkey is put among the horses, the latter would become, somehow, immune from diseases (thus 馬留 "horse-preserving").

Based on this folk belief, Monkey (in the novel Journey to the West 西遊記) is given the grandiose title 弼馬溫 by the Jade Emperor, when the former is appointed a groom in the Heaven Stable. Monkey is understandably furious when he finds out later that 弼馬溫 bi4ma3wen1 is actually a pun on 辟馬瘟 pi4ma3wen1 "[one who] drives away equine plagues".

It's unlikely the the word ma3liu2 has anything to do with horses, though. Like many animal names in Chinese, "monkey" has a monosyllabic version as well as disyllabic one (compare 蝶~蝴蝶). Now the monkey is known as 猴 but also as 獼猴mi2hou2*/母猴mu3hou2/沐猴mu4hou2/馬猴ma3hou2 in ancient texts. The different written forms suggest that this is a disyllabic morpheme (or perhaps a monosyllabic one with an initial consonant-cluster?), instead of a compound word. And 馬騮 ma3liu2 seems to be a cognate of this disyllabic word. I don't know how to explain the /x/~/l/ variation, though.

Skatingbc (7/10/14):

母 *mə- seems to be a morphologically atrophied element originally attached to the stressed root 猴 *go (< Baxter-Sagart's reconstruction *mə-ɡˁo 母猴). 猴 always came with 母 and never stood alone during the Pre-Qin era (e.g., 《呂氏春秋》狗似玃，玃似母猴，母猴似人; 《韓非子》 以棘刺之端為母猴者). By the time of the Han Dynasty, the first syllable was dropped in the Central Plains, but it was preserved in the Chu region, taking the form of 沐猴 *mokgwa (陸璣云：猱，獼猴也。楚人謂之沐猴). The Old Chinese 母猴 was borrowed by other Chinese dialects, in which the originally meaningless first syllable was reanaylzed as an independent word with a lexical identity such as "big" (母音轉爲馬, 馬之言大也 ==> 馬猴) and "mother" (方言呼母曰㜷, hence 母音轉爲彌 ==> 獼猴). The timing of these changes can be inferred from the following: (1) 獼 was not attested in 《说文解字》, and (2) 三國吳 陸璣 defined 猱 as 獼猴. Also, (3) 馬's pronunciation in the Han Dynasty has been reconstructed as *mrǟ́ and in the Early Postclassic Period as *mạ̄́, which is a better match with 母 *mǝ̄́. To sum up, we can assume: Early Old Chinese *mgo "monkey" > Late Old Chinese *mə-ɡo > Han Dynasty *(mə) ɡwa > Early Postclassic *(mV) gōw.

馬's association with "monkey" could be a result of linguistic interference (e.g., Austroasiatic: Proto-Vietic *k-mah, Chứt mah, Alak məəw "monkey"). 馬留/馬流 also has cognates in the proto-forms of neighboring languages (e.g., Proto-Lolo-Burmese *mhlukx "monkey"; Zhuang 壯語 maxlaeuz; 黎语 *mlok). 狖 "a type of ape" was attested in the Western Han but absent in 《说文解字》, an indication that it was a newly introduced word. It was probaby pronounced as *Łuh (余救切), whose latteral fricative mirrors –hl– in Proto-Lolo-Burmese *mhlukx. That is to say, 馬留/馬流 is possibly a loanword.

Of course, based on 黎语 *mlok,Proto-Lolo-Burmese *mhlukx, Old Chinese *mgo, and other proto-languages, we may reconstruct something like *mluko, which however would not be called "Chinese" and therefore will not be discussed here.

Skatingbc (7/22/14):

Compare:

Sanskrit markaṭa "monkey, ape", Hindi markat, Old High German mericazza, Dutch meerkat "monkey", English meerkat "a small southern African mongoose".
Proto-Altaic *mḗča "monkey"

fdb (7/22/14):

English meerkat is a fairly modern borrowing from Afrikaans. Otherwise, the Germanic words for "monkey" seem to represent a mediaeval borrowing from Indo-Aryan, reinterpreted by folk etymology as meer+catte "sea cat".

Skatingbc (7/22/14):

English meerkat was already in existent in English meaning "monkey" in the late 15th century, so I'm not sure whether it is best described as a recent borrowing from Afrikaans or a recent semantic shift due to language contact.

Anyway, the reason I listed those words is to show that *m– seems to be an integral part of the word. It is to support my treatment of Old Chinese 母 *mə- as a "morphologically atrophied element" rather than a "prefix".

fdb (7/22/14):

According to the OED, "mercat" (monkey) is attested between 1481 and 1598 only, while "meerkat" (in its current meaning) does not show up until 1801. So it probably better to keep them separate.

Selected reading

"Makaku, macaco, macaque, macaca…" (8/16/06)

"The 'whole mess' of Old Sinitic reconstruction" (12/14/20) — with extensive bibliography

"Monkeys in Chinese culture" (Wikipedia) — especially the section on "Hou and Muhou".

[Thanks to Diana Shuheng Zhang, Yijie Zhang, Vito Acosta, Yixue Yang, and Chenfeng Wang]

December 17, 2020 @ 4:31 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Borrowing, Etymology, Reconstructions, Transcription

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