cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/6433568
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Farry_Bite on 2025-07-28 13:27:49+00:00.
cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/6433568
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Farry_Bite on 2025-07-28 13:27:49+00:00.
It’s extra funny that “bear bear bear” would be considered the beariest bear, because “bear” doesn’t even mean bear.
Many languages had a taboo against saying the word bear - “bear” comes from the word for “brown”, because people used to say “the brown one” instead. Some languages seem to have used “sweetpaw” or something similar.
This is akin to the modern toilet-taboo, where except for terms like “shitter/pisser” all the words are euphemisms. Even “toilet” comes from towel.
Ah yes, the black brown one
In the Indo-European family it’s mostly the Balto-Slavic and Germanic branches that avoided the original word, *h₂ŕ̥tḱos - the first one replaced it with “honey-eater”, the second one as you said with “the brown one” (IIRC it would be *bʰérh₃os or similar)
If *h₂ŕ̥tḱos survived in Germanic it would’ve become **urght [ɜːt] in English, and probably **Urcht [uɐ̯χt] in German. Not sure in the Slavic languages, but Lithuanian (Baltic) does keep irštvà for “bear den”, so the bear itself would be probably **irštas.
I believe some uralic languages do it too. I’ve heard some attempts to link it to a circumpolar bear cult that there’s still scattered evidence for from groups as far away as the ainu, but I don’t know how solid that is.
The case of Uralic vs. PBS + PGerm can be explained by interaction, but the Ainu doing the same is interesting.
I’ve heard that factoid numerous times over the years, but I never saw a single source for it. I’d love to read more about this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear.
Etymology section