
Taboo language turned the wolf into a monster - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/81/maps/never-say-wolf
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hprotagonist
We literally don’t know the oldest word(s) for “bear” as a result of this sort
of practice.

bear means “the brown one”. The common explanation is that bears were either
objects of cultic veneration or seen as kinda human or some combination
thereof, so their true name was hidden — as a measure of respect or fear or
honor. or some combination of the three.

Allusive and indirect names then got applied to “bear” too — a common
scholarly opinion is that “Beowulf” is “Bee-hunter”, a bear. (Though opinions
differ there).

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/bear](https://www.etymonline.com/word/bear)

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0xBABAD00C
In Russian it's 'medved', i.e. the one who knows about the honey ('mead-wit'
would be the exact English cognate).

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hprotagonist
is it “knows” or “eats” or “finds”? i’ve heard all three

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0xBABAD00C
ved = 'know' in Slavic, comes from this PIE root:
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
Eur...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
European/weyd-)

~~~
nbabitskiy
Literally the same source suggests that "honey-eater" is a folk etymology,
probably false: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Slavic/m...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Slavic/medv%C4%9Bd%D1%8C)

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im3w1l
I've heard this story a few times now, and every time I hear it I question it
a little bit more.

Swedish has cognate "ulv" which is synonymous to "varg". It's not used much
anymore, but I think it fell into disuse fairly recently. Reading fairy tales
from 1800's and early 1900's you are bound to encounter it.

And alternate spelling "Ulf" is a top 50 first name in Sweden.

In summary I don't think a taboo is an explanation in this case.

EDIT: Oh and the word for werewolf is varulv.

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clauderoux
In the case of Latin, the word for fox is vulpus, which is a direct evolution
of the indo-european root. In this case, the problem is less of a taboo word
than of an appropriation of the sense to a different animal.

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danaris
There's a comment on the story itself that says this, with a reply pointing
out that it's not "vulpus" but "volpes", which evolved from a slightly
different proto-Indo-European root.

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marton78
In Hungarian it's a similar situation: the usual word for wolf is "Farkas",
which means "with tail", i.e. "tailed one".

