# Bear



## francois_auffret

What is the name of the bear in your language??? Can you add phonetic pronounciation...

*French*: OURS
*Breton*: ARZH
*Urdu.* RÎCH

I had read that in English, the name of the Bear is actually a 'mistake' and is coming from the indo-european root for Boar has anyone heard about that????


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## Christhiane

Norwegian: Bjørn
Italian: Orso


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## Mjolnir

*Hebrew*: דוב (Dov)


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## Joannes

In Dutch: *beer* /be:r/

*Beer* also means 'male pig' and 'dung' (as in *beerput* 'cesspit'). De Vries writes that these uses are unrelated.


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## robbie_SWE

Romanian: *urs*

Swedish: *björn*

 robbie


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## spakh

Turkish, 

ayı


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## AuroraCs

*Spanish:*oso
*Portuguese:* urso
*Slovak:* medveď
*Polish: *niedźwiedź 
*Ukrainian: *vedmid 
*Belorussian: *myadzvedz’ 

*bear: *Old English _bera_ "bear," from Proto-Germanic_*beron_ "the brown one". Both Greek _arktos_ and Classical Latin _ursus_ retain the PIE root word for "bear" (_*rtko_), but it has been ritually replaced in the northern branches because of hunters' taboo on names of wild animals (cf. the Irish equivalent "the good calf," Welsh "honey-pig," Lithuanian "the licker," Rus. _medved_ "honey-eater").


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## Outsider

I've added the phonetic transcription to AuroraC's post:


AuroraCs said:


> *Portuguese:* urso  ['ursu]


The "r" is either a flap or a guttural.

I take it you're only looking for the masculine version of the name...


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## miyamoto_musashi

Latin: ursa


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## 0stsee

Indonesian:

*beruang*

the *e* represents a schwa.

"Beruang" can also mean "having money". So *beruang beruang* means "a bear with money".


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## SerinusCanaria3075

In Greek (Modern) it's feminine by default:
*η αρκούδα* (i arkúda)

(I guess "ο άρκτος" would be the masculine form, but I'm not sure)

Spanish:
Masculine: *Oso *(from Latin _ursus_)
Female: *Osa* (from Latin _ursa_)

Romanian:
Masculine: *Urs*
Feminine: *Ursoaică*.

Latin:
Masculine: *Ursus*.
Feminine: *Ursa*.


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## Kannan91

Malayalam: കരടി ['käɾəɖi], although the spelling (transliterated karaṭi) might lead one to falsely suppose that it is pronounced ['käɾəʈi].


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## Mahaodeh

Arabic دبّ - Dubb


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## CapnPrep

francois_auffret said:


> I had read that in English, the name of the Bear is actually a 'mistake' and is coming from the indo-european root for Boar has anyone heard about that????


According to the AHD, the English word goes back to the IE root *bher meaning "brown". The same goes for the word _beaver_.

The OED mentions a possible relationship between _bear_ and Latin _ferus_ meaning "wild".

You might like to read this article, if you have access to JSTOR. It also discusses _boar_.
*A Systematic Tabulation of Indo-European Animal Names: With Special Reference to Their Etymology and Semasiology*
Eugene Gottlieb, _Language_, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Sep. 1931), pp. 5–48.


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## deine

Lithuanian:

meška

_or_

lokys


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## Hakro

*Finnish:*

_karhu_

There are other names like _otso, kontio, nalle, mesikämmen,_ etc. that were used in the old times when people wanted to avoid to mention the real name of the dangerous beast.


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## Nizo

Esperanto:  _urso_
Malagasy:  _orsa_
Zulu:  _ibhele, amabhele_
Hawaiian:  _pea_
Afrikaans:  _beer_ (as in Dutch, the word _beer_ also equates to the English _boar_)
Albanian:  _arí
_


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## shannenms

Much like Latin in Persian:Khers
with "kh" pronounced as "ch" in German doch.


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## Orreaga

Hakro said:


> *Finnish:*
> 
> _karhu_
> 
> There are other names like _otso, kontio, nalle, mesikämmen,_ etc. that were used in the old times when people wanted to avoid to mention the real name of the dangerous beast.



That's very interesting, because in *Navajo *it's traditionally taboo to speak the name of this animal when in the mountains: *shash*. It is believed that a bear will come after the person speaking it.   I'm not sure about this taboo in other Native American languages, although the *Apache *also have the word *shash* for bear. I didn't know a similar phenomenon was present in Europe.


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## Outsider

It seems to be a very common taboo across cultures. Here's a previous thread you might find interesting, about the word for "fox" in Spanish. 

(I apologize for the momentary slight off-topic.)


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## macta123

Hindi = bahlu
Malayalam = karaDi


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## kusurija

In Czech:
Medvěd
(_or_ míša non formal)

In Japanese:
熊[kuma]


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## franz rod

In Italian:
Orso


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## OldAvatar

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> Romanian:
> Feminine: *Ursoaică*.



Sometimes: _ursă_; a bit archaic, but it's still there.


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## Saluton

Russian: *медведь* (pronounced 'medv*e*d', literally meaning 'honey-knower' or perhaps 'honey-eater'). Hence the name of Russia's current president 
The word has an intereseting history. It is considered to have originated as a euphemism... while the real name for a bear was tabooed. I've read on the Inet that the real name is *бер* ('ber'), too. Not sure if it's true.
Informal words for bear: *миша* (misha) or *мишка* (mishka).
In Ukrainian, the verb and the noun switched places: *ведмiдь* (vedm*i*d', know-honey-er )


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## 2PieRad

熊 [xiong2] in Chinese.


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## apmoy70

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> In Greek (Modern) it's feminine by default:
> η αρκούδα (i arkúda)
> 
> (I guess "ο άρκτος" would be the masculine form, but I'm not sure)...


The MoGr *«αρκούδα»* [arˈku.ða] is the feminine form of the Byzantine Greek neuter diminutive *«ἀρκούδιν» arkoúdin* which desribed the animal, of an earlier masculine/feminine form *«ἄρκος» árkos* which derives from the Classical masc./fem. *«ἄρκτος» ắrktŏs*; *«ἄρκος» árkos*  is either (1) a simplification of the difficult to pronounce cluster *«-κτ-»* /-kt-/, or, (2) a contaminated word with the Classical v. *«ἀρκέω/ἀρκῶ»** ărkéō* (uncontracted)/*ărkô* (contracted).

The Classical masculine/feminine *«ἄρκτος» ắrktŏs* is an old IE name of the bear found in Skt. ऋक्ष (ŕ̥ks̠a), Av. arša, Arm. արջ (arj), Lat. ursus, Hitt. ḫartagga etc.
In MoGr we use the ancient name *«άρκτος»* [ˈark.tɔs] (fem.) only for the constellation of _Ursus Major _in the northern hemisphere = *«Μεγάλη Άρκτος»* [meˈɣa.li ˈark.tɔs] (both fem.).


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## nimak

Macedonian

bear =

мечка (mečka) ['mɛt͡ʃka], _feminine_; a female bear; a sow. It is also used as a general name for a bear if we don't know if it's male or female.
мечок (mečok) ['mɛt͡ʃɔk], _masculine_; a male bear; a boar
мече (meče) ['mɛt͡ʃɛ], _neuter_; a baby bear; a cub


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## Sardokan1.0

*Sardinian *

Bear :
_
Masculine : "Ursu" -> plural "Sos Ursos"
Feminine : "Ursa" -> plural "Sas Ursas"
Diminutive : "Ursittu / Ursitta"_


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## AndrasBP

Georgian:

*დათვი *(datvi)

Latvian:

*lācis *(related to Lithuanian _lokys_)


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## franknagy

AuroraCs said:


> *Slovak:* medveď
> *Polish: *niedźwiedź
> *Ukrainian: *vedmid
> *Belorussian: *myadzvedz’


*Hungarian*: medve.


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