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LEARN THE DIFFERENCE PEOPLE 👏👏👏 (mander.xyz)

submitted 7 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 40 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Fun fact about the etymology of "alligator:" When the Spanish first landed in what is now Florida, they found alligators and simply called them "el lagarto," which literally translates to "the lizard." While there were many reptiles in the swamps and bayous, only one was enough of a problem to be called "THE lizard," and after ~~several mistranslations~~ being borrowed into other languages, "el lagarto" morphed into "alligator"

Or at least that's what I read somewhere once.

[-] Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca 12 points 7 months ago

We still colloquially call them lagartos, regardless if its a crocodile or alligator.

[-] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Good to know! I took years of Spanish classes and my kids are in a Spanish immersion school in California, but I've only ever heard lagarto for smaller lizards and cocodrilo for anything resembling crocodilians

Thanks for the info

[-] Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago

Yeah lagarto literally means lizard, but we use it for pretty much any type of reptilian that looks like a lizard lol

[-] hakase@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago

All of this is correct, except that it's not a "mistranslation", it's a borrowing. Boundaries between words and morphemes are commonly lost in borrowing, and borrowed sounds commonly undergo adaptation as well.