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Misc.: Survey of Source Languages
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Scientific names have traditionally been derived from Latin and Greek,
but many other languages have been used, too. This page gives examples
of some of those languages.
Help, please! This page is new, and I will be relying on readers to
contribute more examples. Please note, however, that I will not include
most proper names here. Tangaroa, for example, is the name of a
Tahitian god; it is not included here because the name is not derived
from a Tahitian common word. Texas, though derived from Caddoan,
does not belong here unless the genus is named for the Caddoan meaning
("friends") and not the location.
Afrikaans: Patellapis (Chaetalictus)
hakkiesdraadi Timmermann 2009 (bee) "Hakkiesdraadi" means
"barbed wire", for the bee has bristles resembling barbed wire on its
metasomal sterna. (It is also a brand of South African liquor, which
the biologists discovered separately.) [Timmermann & Kuhlmann
(2009), Zootaxa 2099: 1-188.]
Aleut: Aaptos kanuux Lehnert, Hocevar & Stone,
2008 (sponge) "kanuux" is the Aleut word for
"heart". [Zootaxa 1939: 65]
Amharic: Eragrostis tef (teff, an
Ethiopian grain). "Teff" is from Amharic or a related
language.
Arabic: Alanqa 2010 (pterosaur) from "Al
Anqa", meaning Phoenix.
Chinese: Shanweiniao Hou & Chen, 1999
(early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird) = "fan-tailed bird".
Crow: Suuwassea Harris & Dodson, 2004 (sauropod
dinosaur) "first thunder heard in spring," from suu, "thunder"
and wassea, "ancient".
Greek: Drosophila (fruit fly) =
"dew-loving".
Guarani: Netta peposaca (Vieillot, 1816)
(rosybill) "Peposaca" transcribes the Guarani name, which means "showy
wings". ("Netta" is ancient Greek for "duck".)
Hawaiian: Aloha Kirkaldy, 1904 (fulgorid bug) =
"love", named for the traditional greeting.
Hebrew: Marah Kellogg, 1863 (manroot) =
"bitter", from the taste of all parts of the plant.
Japanese: Tsuga (hemlock, the conifer
genus)
Kiswahili: Euphorbia kalisana Carter, 1982 (African
plant), a very spiny plant, from Kiswahili kali sana = "very
fierce".
Lakota: Ekgmowechashala (Early Miocene primate) =
"small fox-man".
Latin: Ursus (bear) = "bear".
Malagasy: Ravensara (laurel) from
"ravintsara", meaning something like "good leaf".
Malay: Cananga (ylang-ylang, an aromatic
tree)
Maori: Waimanu Slack et al., 2006
(Paleogene penguin) = "waterbird".
Nahuatl: Manilkara zapota (sapodilla, a
fruit tree) from Nahuatl "tzapotl". The family
Sapotaceae has the same root.
Navajo: Seitaad Sertich and Loewen 2010
(Jurassic saurischian) derived from the Navajo word, "Seit'aad," a
sand-desert monster from their creation legend who swallowed its
victims in sand dunes, as the dinosaur skeleton Seitaad had
been found "swallowed" in a fossil sand dune.
Polish: Dziwneono etcetera Dworakowska, 1972
(leafhopper) Dziwne ono = "it is strange".
Quechua: Chenopodium quinoa (quinoa) from
Quechua "quinua" via Spanish.
Sesotho: Australopithecus sediba (South
African fossil hominin) "sediba" = "wellspring."
Taino: Zea mays L. (maize) "Mays"
(variously spelled) is the Taino word for the plant.
Tok Pisin: Juncus nupela Veldk. (rush)
nupela = "new thing". [Blumea 23: 415]
Tupi: Tapejara Kellner, 1989 (pterosaur) = "old
being".
Turkish: Caracal caracal (African/Asian
cat) from "karakulak", "black ear".
Welsh:
Talpohenach Kay and Cartmill, 1977
(fossil primate) from
talp o hen ach, "Piece (lump, fragment)
from an ancient lineage"; also an
anagram of
Palaechthon
Zuni: Jeyawati 2010 (hadrosaur dinosaur)
The name, pronounced HAY-a-WHAT-ee, is derived from Zuni words meaning
"grinding mouth".
Other root languages are represented in names that were given probably
after the root name was westernized.
Amharic: Equus zebra (zebra) zebra = "zebra",
adopted partly through Portuguese and Dutch.
Basque: Lainodon orueetxebarriai (upper
Cretaceous mammal) Orueetxebarria is a common Basque family name
meaning, in part, "new house".
Hottentot: Equus quagga Gmelin 1788 (extinct South
African wild ass) quagga from "quahah", imitative of the
animal's cry.
Last modified: .
© 2002-2008
Mark Isaak.
All rights reserved.