Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
[Footnote 1: M. AD. PICTET has availed himself of the love of the elephant for water, to found on it a solution of the long-contested question as to the etymology of the word "elephant,"-a term which, whilst it has passed into almost every dialect of the West, is scarcely to be traced in any language of Asia. The Greek [Greek: elephas], to which we are immediately indebted for it, did not originally mean the animal, but, as early as the time of Homer, was applied only to its tusks, and signified ivory. BOCHART has sought for a Semitic origin, and seizing on the Arabic fil, and prefixing the article al, suggests alfil, akin to [Greek: eleph]; but rejecting this, BOCHART himself resorts to the Hebrew eleph, an "ox" and this conjecture derives a certain degree of countenance from the fact that the Romans, when they obtained their first sight of the elephant in the army of Pyrrhus, in Lucania, called it the Luca bos. But the [Greek: antos] is still unaccounted for; and POTT has sought to remove the difficulty by introducing the Arabic hindi, Indian, s thus making eleph-hindi, "bos Indicus." The conversion of hindi into [Greek: antos] is an obstacle, but here the example of "tamarind" comes to aid; tamar hindi, the "Indian date," which in mediæval Greek forms [Greek: tamarenti]. A theory of Benary, that helhephas might be compounded of the Arabic al, and ibha, a Sanskrit name for the elephant, is exposed to still greater etymological exception. PICTET'S solution is, that in the Sanskrit epics "the King of Elephants," who has the distinction of carrying the god Indra, is called airarata or airavana, a modification of airavanta, "son of the ocean," which again comes from iravat, "abounding in water." "Nous aurions done ainsi, comme corrélatif du gree [Greek: elephanto], une ancienne forme, âirâvanta ou âilâvanta, affaiblie plus tard en âirâvata ou âirâvana.... On connaît la prédilection de l'éléphant pour le voisinage des fleuves, et son amour pour l'eau, dont l'abondance est nécessaire
And Chepharhaammonai, and Ophni, and Gaba; twelve cities with their villages: Gibeon, and Ramah, and Beeroth, And Mizpeh, and Chephirah, and Mozah, And Rekem, and Irpeel, and Taralah, And Zelah, Eleph, and Jebusi, which is Jerusalem, Gibeath, and Kirjath; fourteen cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of the children of Benjamin according to their families.
Some of the names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back than the Latin word camelus, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo word eleph, which means an ox.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking