this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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[โ€“] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

According to Wiktionary, this is the path the word took (from Latin into Polish at least):

elephantus (Latin, "elephant")

*ulbanduz (Proto-Germanic, "camel")

๐Œฟ๐Œป๐Œฑ๐Œฐ๐Œฝ๐Œณ๐Œฟ๐ƒ (Gothic, "camel")

*velัŒb(l)วซdัŠ (Proto-Slavic)

Wielbล‚ฤ…d (Polish)

[โ€“] Microw@lemm.ee 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Poles got a germanic word when German didnt lol

[โ€“] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

East-Germanic languages, as e.g. the Gothic language, were spoken in todays Poland between the rivers Oder and Vistula and are a different (and extinct) branch of the Germanic languages than West-Germanic (German, Dutch, Frisian, English) or North-Germanic (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese).

[โ€“] Klear@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh god oh fuck. Shit.

This applies to Czech (velbloud) as well. The thing is, we already call hippos elephants. The Czech word "hroch" is related to the chess piece "rook" in English. What about the Czech name for elephant then? It's "slon" and it means lion.

[โ€“] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

The polish word for elephant is sล‚oล„, it's very similar