Etymology of Names of Animals. 5GS9 



Remarks on the Etymology of Names of Animals. 

 By the Rev. Philip H. Newnham, M.A. 



" Polonius. What do you read, my lord? 

 Hamlet. Words, words, words!" 



Hamlet, Act. ii. Scene 2. 



Duking the last few years Etymology has made great progress. 

 We have outgrown the era of Johnson, Home Tooke, Junius, and 

 others of the same stamp, when a word was held to be sufficiently 

 "derived" if it were referred to its counterpart in French or Latin, or 

 if a strong resemblance could be traced between it and another word. 

 So little, at this time, was the true theory of the science understood, 

 that the most fanciful and arbitrary origins for words were elaborated. 

 Etymology was thus brought into great disrepute : it was, for the most 

 part, looked down upon by men of learning, as an amusement for 

 dabblers and triflers, whose happiest conjectures merited little other 

 praise than that which might be accorded to a successful pun. 



This state of things, however, has given place to a sounder and more 

 rational view of the science ; and, in consequence, the not unmerited 

 sneers which were then bestowed on etymologists are now heard less of. 

 Nor has any one contributed more to the effecting this result than 

 Mr. Trench, whose charming books have rendered the study of 

 words so deservedly popular: no one has more successfully shown 

 the fascinating interest that is excited by the disinterment of the 

 "fossil history and poetry" that lurk beneath the apparently un- 

 attractive surface-soil of " mere words." 



That the subject is one to which a strong interest naturally attaches 

 few will venture to deny. When we speak of a dog, a horse, or a pig, 

 surely we are not to be contented with simply knowing that these are 

 the names of certain animals; should we not ask why they bear these 

 names ? Should we not ask whether there be any reason why a pig- 

 might not be called a whale, or the grampus change names with the 

 eagle, without any principle being violated ? And, if there be any 

 such reason, should we not endeavour to investigate it ? And, again, 

 when we see how much of a nation's history — of its manners and 

 customs, and antiquities — can be elucidated from a study of its lan- 

 guage, we cannot help feeling how interesting, as well as how im- 

 portant, that study is. And there is abundant proof that this feeling 

 is growing in the public mind : in all popular books on Zoology which 

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