# dog, gos, perro, chien, cane, hund



## RedRag

How come the word for "dog" is translated into apparently totally unrelated words, even in languages otherwise quite similar: (althogh the latin root nealy always seems to show through in related words : canine, kennel etc).

Language:
"Normal"
"Latin form"

English: 
Dog [also hound (cf NL: hond, D: Hund)]
Cur

French: 
?
Chien

Spanish: 
Perro 
Cane

Catalan:
Gos
Ca

Italian: 
Cane

German: 
Hund
? (Kanaille?)

Portugese: 
?
Cao

Romanian
?
câine

Occitan
gos
can


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## se16teddy

RedRag said:


> How come the word for "dog" is translated into apparently totally unrelated words,


Because languages change over time. 

Note though that some of the words you refer to, RedRag, are not as unrelated to one another as appears at first glance. German _hund_ and English _hound_ are related to Latin _canis_ and so to _cane_ / _can_ / _chien_. Think of the following Germanic h / Latin c pairs

hundred - centum 
head / haupt - caput
hemp - cannabis
house - casa
heart - cordis


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## mgwls

I tried to look up the etymology for the word "dog" but as it turned out it is quite uncertain. OED only notes the OE variant, _docga_ and highlights that a similar case occurs with the Spanish for dog, _perro_. I checked this at the RAE dictionary and it indeed doesn't have an etymology for the word _perro_ either. Therefore, the, at least apparent, unrelatedness between "dog" and the words used in other languages might be due to the strange (or just unknown) origin of this word.

Saludos


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## Outsider

Here's a thread about the Spanish word _perro_.


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## se16teddy

mgwls said:


> I tried to look up the etymology for the word "dog" but as it turned out it is quite uncertain. OED only notes the OE variant, _docga_ and highlights that a similar case occurs with the Spanish for dog, _perro_. I checked this at the RAE dictionary and it indeed doesn't have an etymology for the word _perro_ either. Therefore, the, at least apparent, unrelatedness between "dog" and the words used in other languages might be due to the strange (or just unknown) origin of this word.


 
Yes, _dog _and _bird _are rare examples of very common English words whose appearance in the English language is unexplained.


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## OldAvatar

I have to reckon that it isn't very clear to me why you separated „Latin form” from the normal one for some languages, like French, Portuguese or Romanian.
_Câine _in Romanian, for example, is the „normal form”.


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## RedRag

OldAvatar said:


> I have to reckon that it isn't very clear to me why you separated „Latin form” from the normal one for some languages, like French, Portuguese or Romanian.
> _Câine _in Romanian, for example, is the „normal form”.



I suppose I changed my mind halfway through so I guess "normal form" could read "non Latin form" - which now I know isn't correct anyway as hound is related to canis.


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## Frank06

Hi,


RedRag said:


> I suppose I changed my mind halfway through so I guess "normal form" could read "non Latin form" - which now I know isn't correct anyway as hound is related to canis.


I still don't understand. 'Hound' is related to 'canis', but that doesn't make 'hound' a word coming from Latin. Both 'hound' and 'canis' go back to the same PIE root.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Miguel Antonio

RedRag said:


> Spanish:
> Perro
> Cane Can


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## libero30

I don't think that there is an PIE root. In Punjabi the word for dog is 'gutta' so I don't know where the word comes from.


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## Aoyama

> German _hund_ and English _hound_ are related to Latin _canis_ and so to _cane_ / _can_ / _chien_. Think of the following Germanic h / Latin c pairs


I would have thought that there _could also be a link_ between *hound *and *hunt *(*ch*asser in French) ...


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## Frank06

Hi,


Aoyama said:


> I would have thought that there _could also be a link_ between *hound *and *hunt *(*ch*asser in French) ...



What English is concerned, there is no relation between _hunt_ (< PIE *kend) and _hound_ (< PIE *kwn).
Idem dito for French _chien_ (< Lat. canis, "obscurely related" to PIE *kend, according to the ODEE) and French _chasser_.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Maroseika

RedRag said:


> German:
> Hund
> ? (Kanaille?)


Kanaille < French canaille < Italian canaglia (lit. "pack of dogs") < cane (dog) < Latin саnis (acc. to Max Vasmer)


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## Lugubert

libero30 said:


> I don't think that there is an PIE root. In Punjabi the word for dog is 'gutta' so I don't know where the word comes from.


The PIE root is very well attested. Sanskrit has shvan, which fits the reconstructed PIE well enough, but another word used in Sanskrit times, kukkura (because of dogs' growling? or borrowed from a neighbouring language?) developed into modern Hindi kutta and the Panjabi word quoted.


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## Rajki

To me it seems that all these words (with the exception of Cat. gos, Basque txakur etc.) come from imitative roots like kwa-kwa and prr/pss.

Kwa-kwa is the sound of dogs barking and prr/pss imitates the sound of the master calling his dog.

Kwa-kwa evolved into *kwon and *kwntos in PIE (Lat. canis, Germanic hundaz etc.) and *kukkura, *kutta in other ur-languages (> Hungarian kutya, Hindi kutta etc.).

Prr evolved into Spanish perro, pss into Common Slavic pes, pas.

Rus. sobaka remains obscure.


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## Corsicum

RedRag said:


> Italian:
> Cane


Basque: _tsakurr_
Sardinian: _giágaru_
Corsican (South) : _ghjacaru _(never _cane)_
Corsican (North) : _cane (_never,… never_ ghjacaru)_

*Here :*
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1541854&highlight=ghjacaru


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## Maroseika

Rajki said:


> Prr evolved into Spanish perro, pss into Common Slavic pes, pas.
> 
> Rus. sobaka remains obscure.


Slavic пес (pes) is from пестрый (varicoloured) 
Собака (sobaka) is probably from Turkic _köbäk_.


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## Kanes

In Bulgarian it is куче (kuche), the word is spread in few countries, including Hungary as was said above. They are probably related. It is kinda strange that such basic word in a language is different in so related families.


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## Outsider

My idea: since dogs are such ubiquitous pets and farm animals, it may be that people tend to find nicknames for them. Many of the words for dog may have originated in playful names.


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## jazyk

It is köpek in Turkish. See the dictionary above: http://www.wordreference.com/entr/dog


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## clevermizo

Outsider said:


> My idea: since dogs are such ubiquitous pets and farm animals, it may be that people tend to find nicknames for them. Many of the words for dog may have originated in playful names.




I find this a really satisfying proposition.


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## Rajki

Maroseika said:


> Slavic пес (pes) is from пестрый (varicoloured)
> Собака (sobaka) is probably from Turkic _köbäk_.


 
1) Slavic *pes from PIE *pek- (variegated). Are there other examples of dogs called "variegated"? If not, this solution remains doubtful.

2) Russian sobaka from Turkic *köbäk. Very problematic.

How did initial Turkic *k- change into Russian s-? Are there other examples of such a change? If not, this solution must be discarded.

Whence Russian feminine -a? Are there other examples of such a change of the ending? If not, this solution must be discarded.

If a male *sobak ever existed, which is unlikely, how did the vowel-set in *köbäk change into its own opposite in *sobak? Are there other examples of such a change? If not, this solution must be discarded.

3) According to Vasmer, sobaka is akin to Persian sag (*spaka-). This is very doubtful, but still much more feasible than the Turkic *köbäk proposal.


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## elirlandes

In Irish:
madra = dog
cú = hound (could this be related to the English _cur_)


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## ampurdan

The DCVB says that Catalan "gos" probably comes from "kos" or "kus", onomatopoeia of what was used to call a dog. Seemingly, it has variants in all Romances: Sp. _gozque _(I never knew)_, _Old Fr. _gous, _Port. _gozo, _It. _cuccio, _etc. 

Spanish also has "chucho" (which comes from a similar onomatopoeia "chuch", according to the DRAE), a colloquial way to call a dog.


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## Maroseika

Rajki said:


> 1) Slavic *pes from PIE *pek- (variegated). Are there other examples of dogs called "variegated"? If not, this solution remains doubtful.


Avestian раēsа- leper < spotty
Greek ποικίλος - varicoloured



> 2) Russian sobaka from Turkic *köbäk. Very problematic.
> How did initial Turkic *k- change into Russian s-? Are there other examples of such a change? If not, this solution must be discarded.


In fact there was no Turkish *k in *köbäk, because 'k' was palatized, and this is the reason why Russian had  to change it somehow, as well as all other palatized consonants in this word. Trubachev calls this 'dissasimilation' and explains this effect with "depalatalization" of the Turk consonant (kä > sa) and dissimilation k - k>s - s in the epoch when palatalized k was still alien to Slavs. 
One more example: Turc käräkä / Mari karaka > карась (crusian carp). 



> Whence Russian feminine -a? Are there other examples of such a change of the ending? If not, this solution must be discarded.


I don't see a big problem here. Maybe the elder form was собакъ > собака. Anyway, for none of Russian dog names we can find such simple pairs as собака-собак. Almost all the domestic animals have the m/f pairs based on the different congnats (one of the exceptions - коза/козел (she/he goat) is due to Slavs have got this animal relatively late).



> If a male *sobak ever existed, which is unlikely, how did the vowel-set in  change into its own opposite in *sobak? Are there other examples of such a change?


I'm afraid I don't understand this question. Why do you call *sobak and *köbäk 'opposite' forms?



> 3) According to Vasmer, sobaka is akin to Persian sag (*spaka-). This is very doubtful, but still much more feasible than the Turkic *köbäk proposal


.
Version of Vasmer, or better say IE version contradicts the facts known nowadays (and not known by Vasmer). *spaka existed only in the South-Iranian languages never contacting with Slavic languages directly, only thru the Northern-Iranians (Sarmats, Skythians). But there is nothing like that in any of these languages (such as Ossetyan, for example). How could it come?
Besides, even *spaka is from much later epoch than the Russian word (Middle-Persian).
These facts make IE version aboslutely impossible. Turkish version is not proved completely, but it doesn't contradict the facts remaining the most appropriate.


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## Erick404

In Portuguese, there are two names for dogs: _cão_, which is the natural evolution of latin _canis_, and _cachorro_, which has a Celtic origin (although I don't know the original word).


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## JGreco

> Spanish also has "chucho" (which comes from a similar onomatopoeia "chuch", according to the DRAE), a colloquial way to call a dog



The word "chucho" is a very bad word in Caribbean Spanish synonymous with the "male genitalia" (at least in Panama), while "chucha" is a bad word related to the female genitalia. The word "cachorro/a" means puppy in Caribbean Spanish.


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## ampurdan

JGreco said:


> The word "cachorro/a" means puppy in Caribbean Spanish.



So does in Iberian Spanish.

The DRAE says it comes from Latin "catulus" though.


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## apmoy70

In Greek we use two different words for it; i) κύων ('cion, _m.,f._, from the ancient 'kūōn, _m.,f._) which is its formal name (from PIE *kuon), and
ii) σκύλος ('scilos, _m._) which is its colloquial name since the Hellenistic or Byzantine times (from the ancient verb «σκύλλω-'scūllō», "to rend apart, to tear")

[c] is a voiceless palatal plosive


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## Erick404

ampurdan said:


> So does in Iberian Spanish.
> 
> The DRAE says it comes from Latin "catulus" though.



I've checked in Wikipedia, and it seems I was mistaken in my previous post. According to here, _cachorro_ is of Basque origin.


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## Miguel Antonio

ampurdan said:


> The DRAE says it comes from Latin "catulus" though.


The Latin _catulus _is probably the origin of the Galician word for puppy: _cadelo. _A dog i_s can_, a bitch _cadela, _a puppy bitch _cadeliña_.

Woof woof

MA


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## Outsider

_Cadela_ is the word for a female dog in Portuguese, as well.


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## XiaoRoel

En las lenguas occidentales indoeuropeas todo esto parece venir de una raiz **kHṇ-*: *ṇ *representa, ya que no tengo otro signo, una sonante de timbre dental que puede desarrollar vocal de anaptisis o perder sus componentes consonanticos para convertirse en vocal. La presencia de la *laringal* solucionaría muchos problemas de vocalismo en las lenguas diversas, pero se puede prescidir de ella sin que cambien mucho las cosas.
Otras palabras parecen de sustrato: muy interesante el término vasco y el corso, que creo relacionados.


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## Chris K

Outsider said:


> My idea: since dogs are such ubiquitous pets and farm animals, it may be that people tend to find nicknames for them. Many of the words for dog may have originated in playful names.


 
A possibility. More generally, certain categories of very familiar words show a strong tendency to generate euphemisms, pet names, etc. Thus Italian _testa_ rather than a derivative of Latin _caput_, etc. See p. 54 in the following link:

http://www.lingref.com/cpp/hls/8/paper1254.pdf


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## Angelo di fuoco

In modern Italian, the word "capo" in the literal, etymologic sense survives in some expressions ("da capo a piedi") and was quite common in literature at least until the 20th century (e. g. D'Annunzio).


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## j0nas

elirlandes said:


> In Irish:
> 
> cú = hound (could this be related to the English _cur_)



Like Latin canis, I guess.


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