Somehow the word zebu came up, and I thought “That’s an odd word, I wonder where it came from?” Turns out nobody knows; the OED says (in an unrevised entry) “< French zébu (Buffon, who states that it was shown under this name at a fair in Paris in 1752).” I thought surely more must be known by now, but no, the latest Merriam-Webster Collegiate and the latest American Heritage Dictionary both just say it’s from zébu. There are more details at Hobson-Jobson, which takes a sensible attitude:
This whimsical name, applied in zoological books, English as well as French, to the humped domestic ox (or Brahminy bull) of India, was taken by Buffon from the exhibitors of such a beast at a French fair, who perhaps invented the word, but who told him the beast had been brought from Africa, where it was called by that name. We have been able to discover no justification for this in African dialects, though our friend Mr. R. Cust has kindly made search, and sought information from other philologists on our account. Zebu passes, however, with most people as an Indian word; thus Webster’s Dictionary, says “Zebu, the native Indian name.” The only word at all like it that we can discover is zobo (q.v.) or zhobo, applied in the semi-Tibetan regions of the Himālaya to a useful hybrid, called in Ladak by the slightly modified form dsomo. In Jäschke’s Tibetan Dict. we find “Ze’-ba . . . . l. hump of a camel, zebu, etc.” This is curious, but, we should think, only one of those coincidences which we have had so often to notice.
The only word at all like it that we can discover is zobo (q.v.) or zhobo, applied in the semi-Tibetan regions of the Himālaya to a useful hybrid, called in Ladak by the slightly modified form dsomo. In Jäschke’s Tibetan Dict. we find “Ze’-ba . . . . l. hump of a camel, zebu, etc.” This is curious, but, we should think, only one of those coincidences which we have had so often to notice.
Given that the word describes a humped bull from India, is it not equally likely that the word was adopted from the Tibetan by some visitor to the “semi-Tibetan regions” at some time ? The sniffy reference to a coincidence seems to ignore that possibility rather off-handedly.
I think that the “semi-Tibetan” origin is quite likely. It does not mean that the beast originated in Tibet or in a neighbouring region, only that the dictionary compiler recorded a similar word there. The Tibetan word is recorded as Ze-ba, and a quotation from 1898 (in the H-J article) gives the Indian word as Zebra, perhaps a mishearing on the part of the recorder, who is well aware that the word does not refer to the African equine but to “Indian humped cattle”. The other terms quoted are compatible with regional variations on the same name.
“Zébu” as written in French is probably not an original transcription from the spoken word, but rather a written copy of a word recorded in another language where the letter z indicates an affricate ts or dz as suggested by the Ladak form dsomo. It is doubtful that the recording was very accurate as concerns the vowels either.
I wonder if anyone has tried to look for an Arabic etymology. If there were one, I think it could be more plausible than a Tibetan one. After all, for Buffon the zebus he saw were (North) African animals, rather than Indian.
This is what Buffon himself writes about his first encounter with a “zébu” in his 1754 version of Histoire naturelle:
“Ce petit bœuf de Belon, b’est q’une varieté dans l’espèce du bœuf; … ; nous l’avons vû vivant: son conducteur nous dit qu’il venoit d’Afrique, qu’on l’appeloit zébu, qu’il étoit domestique, & qu’on s’en servoit pour monture; c’est en effet un animal très-doux & même fort caressant, d’une figure agréable, quoique massive & un peut trop carrée; cependant, il est en tout si semblable à un bœuf, que je ne puis en donner une idée plus juste, qu’en disant que si l’on regardoit un taureau de la plus belle forme & de plus beau poil avec un verre qui diminuât les objets de plus de moitié, cette figure rapetissée servoit celle du zébu.” (p.299)
As the footnote on p. 302 explains, the “petit bœuf de Belon” (Belon’s small cattle) which serves as the reference point of Buffon’s story is the creature Pierre Belon had seen in Cairo, and which had been brought to Cairo from “Azamie” (=Azania = Somalia?), which is described, however, as “province d’Asie” (“an Asian province”). The handler of the creature seen by Buffon told him that it comes from Africa, too – and is called “zébu” (alas, he did not say in which language – and Buffon did not care to say whether the handler was French or Arab or what…).
Moreover, Buffon describes the appearance of this “original zebu” (probably, seen at a fair in 1752) as being that of a good [European] bull reduced in size more than by half. No mention of the characteristic hump of the Indian zebu known to us!
However, when in 1763 he got to describe and measure another zebu, now at the Royal Menagerie in Versailles (brought there in August 1761; pp. 439 sq.), he had it drawn with a characteristic hump (plate XLII, after p. 448). There, he also identifies is with some cattle (called “Dant” or “Lant”) historically known from the Roman Numidia (north Africa).
According to Google Translate, the common Arabic word for “cattle” is written ثور , and sounds something like “thuwura”. I guess not too much like “zebu”…
I agree with your verdict “nobody knows” and with Hobson-Jobson’s judgement that the closest resemblant forms he could find, zobo and Ze’-ba, are just coincidences. Apparently, there was never any particular reason to suspect a Tibetan word origin other than a Webster dictionary maker’s guess that the word must come from some Indian language!
The sniffy reference to a coincidence seems to ignore that possibility rather off-handedly.
No, the reference to coincidence is an acknowledgment that there is no link joining the words. Laymen always underrate the prevalence of coincidence, but I am surprised to see marie-lucie falling for the “semi-Tibetan” origin. I’m pretty sure if there were anything to it, linguists and lexicographers would have pinned it down in the last couple of centuries.
зебу
нескл., м., ж., одуш. (фр. zébu
(фр. zébu от тибет. mdzopo).
Doesn’t anyone want to discuss the pronunciation? According to Hilaire Belloc, in the last poem of A Moral Alphabet, it may be accented on either syllable:
“Z
for this Zébu, who (like all Zebús)*
Is held divine by scrupulous Hindoos.
MORAL
Idolatry, as you are aware,
Is highly reprehensible. But there,
We needn’t bother — when we get to Z
Our interest in the Alphabet is dead.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
*Von Kettner writes it ‘Zébu’; Wurst ‘Zebú’:
I split the difference and use the two.”
For a formatted version and more Belloc, see my blogpost of almost ten years ago.
Hmmm. Let me try again on that link:
http://www.drweevil.org/archives/000456.html
I say ZEE-boo myself. (Fixed your link, by the way.)
…I am surprised to see marie-lucie falling for the “semi-Tibetan” origin. I’m pretty sure if there were anything to it, linguists and lexicographers would have pinned it down in the last couple of centuries.
Unless they were all of the “coindicence” school 🙂 More seriously, why doesn’t m-l’s argument stand up ?
Paul writes: More seriously, why doesn’t m-l’s argument stand up ?
m-l writes: It is doubtful that the recording was very accurate as concerns the vowels either.
This is an argument? The vowels in the proposed source word may differ ad lib and so may the consonants?
SFR: (фр. zébu от тибет. mdzopo).
SFR, I don’t know enough Russian to understand your longer comment, but do you have more on the above? or are you taking it from the H-J article?
Perhaps I did not express myself very clearly: I don’t mean that the origin of word has to be Tibetan or a neighbouring language – this type of word could wander along with the spread of the animal. I could also be reshaped according to false etymology (eg the Tibetan forms seem to be bimorphemic, with each part meaning something).
I don’t see a reason to doubt an origin on the Indian subcontinent since the animal seems to be originally Asian. According to WiPe (I know, it is not always reliable) zebus were exported from India to Africa for centuries. In such a case, names often travel along with the animals.
Is the “zebras” report from 1898 findable? the quote does not give any clues about the region where the word (which could be “zebwa” or “zibwa”) was heard by the writer, but it seems to be definitely a part of India.
As for Philippine Cebu, the older native name of this island was Sugbo.
LH: if there were anything to it, linguists and lexicographers would have pinned it down in the last couple of centuries.
Not necessarily! there are still many mysteries in linguistics.
m-l writes: It is doubtful that the recording was very accurate as concerns the vowels either.
GLee: – This is an argument? The vowels in the proposed source word may differ ad lib and so may the consonants?
The “proposed source word” (if correct) is given in several forms, notably with different (though related) consonants according to different dialects.
Unfamiliar sounds are very difficult to transcribe by an untrained person, and the transcription often varies greatly from one person to another, especially if the transcribers are from different language backgrounds: witness how the name of the Libyan dictator was written in different newspapers, even in the same country. Unfamiliar vowels are especially difficult because there is nothing in their pronunciation to “anchor” them to a specific part of the vocal tract. For instance, “Tamil” in French is “tamoul”, “Kalmyk” is “kalmouk”, etc. The difference in the transcriptions does not come from “ad lib” variation within the languages in question, but from the limited number of vowel letters or letter combinations available to untrained transcribers for writing sounds which are similar but not identical to the ones the transcribers are used to.
Dr. Weevil writes: Doesn’t anyone want to discuss the pronunciation? According to Hilaire Belloc, in the last poem of A Moral Alphabet, it may be accented on either syllable: …
You mean, regardless of origins, how is the word said in English, or should it be said, given its spelling?
We have menu with initial stress, and Peru with final stress, so it seems both initial and final stress are possible. However, menu is a dubious precedent, since the n has a palatal off-glide, due to the origin of the [u] from a diphthongization in the recent history of English, and the [b] of zebu is not followed by this off-glide.
Another possible model is tutu, but this might not be good, either, because the last syllable has a secondary stress, which you can tell is there even if you can’t hear it directly, since the second t of tutu doesn’t flap, as it would if the following vowel had no stress.
So I’d be inclined to vote for zebu with stress on the final, if it didn’t sound so funny.
It’s gonna sound funny no matter what you do. It looks funny. It is funny.
There are a island in Philippines named “Cebu”. It is the same world used to designate the Zebu cattle in Spanish. The site of the Cebu City (http://www.cebucity.gov.ph/history) stated that: “The name Cebu came from the word “SEBU” meaning animal fat.” Perhaps you can find something in this way. By the way, in Portuguese, the word for animal fat, specially for bovine fat is “Sebo”.
which had been brought to Cairo from “Azamie” (=Azania = Somalia?), which is described, however, as “province d’Asie” (“an Asian province”)
‘Ajami’ is an Arabic word (per Wiki, Arabic: حي العجمي, Hebrew: עג’מי) that means ‘Persian.’ This fits with an Asian province, if not quite Tibet.
Latin sebum = tallow, reflected in English sebaceous.
عجمي (ʕajamiyy) often means Persian, but really just means ‘not Arabic’, and it is also applied to non-Arabic languages in Africa written in Arabic script.
We discussed it a bit here.
Zebu was updated by the OED in 2018, but nope, no news: “< French zébu (Buffon Hist. nat. (1754) vol. XI. 288), of unknown origin. … A Tibetan origin is sometimes suggested for the French word, but this cannot be substantiated.”
Hobson-Jobson said:
Only in the 1864 edition; by 1930 Merriam-Webster had replaced that with the Tibetan speculation, which was eventually dropped, as noted in the post.
marie-lucie said:
It’s from Notes & Queries:
So that’s just an Englishman who seems to have heard the word in English. No help. (More satisfyingly, gayal is from Bengali, and the ga- part is probably cognate with cow, per OED and AHD.)
Wiktionary credulously repeats the Tibetan etymology with no citation. More interestingly, among the translations is Yoruba màlúù, with an etymological comment:
Is that plausible?
We await the judgment of DE and Lameen.
Here is Buffon’s book (1768 edition). He specifically says that the specimen he saw was from Africa, and thinks it is the same as that called lant / lampt / dant / dante in earlier sources, referring to an animal of “Numidia” (p. 183).
The 1754 edition is sparse. In the table of contents (here) is noted that the description of the zebu is by Daubenton.
likely borrowed from a now extinct language
Looks like pure fantasy to me. Certainly neither confirmable nor falsifiable, anyway.
“Cow” in Fulfulde is nagge, and similar forms are found right across West Africa.
The proto-Oti-Volta form was *nâg-wʊ́ (cf Kusaal naaf pl niigi, Nawdm náàg̈b́ pl náágí, Waama nako pl nanyi); Kassem has nāa, Miyobe ì-náà, the Adamawa language Samba Leko nà, Kulango naà, and the proto-Eastern Grassfields form was *nàkˊ.
Although these all look like straighforward cognates, there is the difficulty that precious little in the way of other vocabulary links Fulfulde with Volta-Congo, and I suspect that there has been a lot of borrowing. “Cow” words certainly do get borrowed: the Swahili ng’ombe, for example, is supposed to reflect an old borrowing into proto-Bantu itself from some non-Niger-Congo language IIRC.
The Fulɓe are the cattle-herders par excellence in West Africa, and some groups may have borrowed their “cow” word from Fulfulde, but I don’t think that the timescale can be made to work in e,g, Oti-Volta. However, some of the supposed protolanguage forms might be chimeras (like the supposed proto-Oti-Volta amaa “but” that I have seen reconstructed in one work: the “reflexes” in the modern languages are in reality all independent borrowings from Hausa.)
The proto-Chadic form was something like *ɬa (cf Hausa saniya.)
Dendi has hàẃ, with evident cognates elsewhere; so Songhay is not responsible for the Yoruba word either.
Kanuri has fê.
(Various Dogon languages have nàŋà; borrowing from Fulfulde seems quite possible in that case, anyway. The evidence that Dogon is related to Volta-Congo is pretty thin too.)
BTW the sources for dant / lamt are Marmol (here, pdf, p. 67 of the file, ch. 23), and Leo Africanus. Marmol mentions another animal, the “guahex” or “vaca brava”. The recent English translation of Leo Africanus thranslates lamt as ‘oryx’.
Berber? Lameen will know …
Athabaskan *ɬi “dog” (Navajo “horse”). Scandi-Congo is not alone!
Actually, Yoruba maluu seems to be a by-form of màálù, which reminds me of the Arabic مَال “property”; for the semantic link, cf Latin pecunia and English “fee” and “chattel/cattle.”
It’s a pretty natural association if you’re a cattle-herder.
The Wiktionary page on maluu mentions similar Edo and Urhobo words, but calls them “descendants” rather than cognates. Mind you, the whole page looks pretty fanciful.
Like: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mali#Etymology_2?
Then similar meanings (“cattle”) in neighbouring langauges or “property” in Yoruba would not harm.
“guahex” is evidently Arabic waḥš “wild beast”. lamṭ seems to be a back-formation from Lamṭah, the name of a Saharan Berber tribe who made high-quality shields made from this beast’s skin.
@drasvi:
Hausa would be the most likely immediate source for a loan of Arabic مَال into Yoruba, but as far as I can see there is no such actual loan in Hausa itself, even in the “property” sense. On the other hand, Hausa speakers are not usually cattle-herders either, so my hypothesised semantic shift wouldn’t happen in Hausa anyway.
I can’t find the etymon in Fulfulde either, but I haven’t got any very good dictionaries of that language.
The Arabic word itself is familiar enough. I actually remember seeing it on an advertising billboard in Nigeria, though I unfortunately forget the context.
I’m by no means committed to this origin theory (though I reckon it does beat invoking imaginary extinct source languages, at least.)
@Lameen:
Thanks!
Thanks, Lameen. Given that Leo Africanus was a native Arabic speaker, who knew North Africa well, that implies that lamṭ was indeed a local term for the animal, no? And that would indeed be the oryx, not the zebu or some other species of Bos?
Marmol’s dante (“que los Affricanos llaman Lamt”) presumably comes from lamṭ. I wonder where the l > d occured.
And zebu doesn’t ring a bell, I presume.
Dante does put me in mind of the virtually pan-African *nam/*ɲam “meat”, which turns up even in families that only the Ruhlens of this world think are related.
However, although the form does quite often appear in the sense “animal”, that seems to be pretty consistently “wild game animal.” Not cows.
Might zébu < something like “les ébus”? And, the [y] can’t be African; so why not *zébou?
I should mention that māl actually does mean “cattle” in Arabic dialects. Wealth par excellence…
Malagasy omby “zebu” must be a borrowing from Swahili or some similar Bantu language.
Lamṭ could not be a zebu; the Lamṭa lived deep in the desert, and hunted rather than farmed the animal in question.
It’s interesting that a 16th century European would think of an oryx or any antelope as a kind of a fast, long-legged cow with long horns. In my own taxonomy they are very distinct animals, except for the hooves.
A Krazy Idea™: Somewhere, at some past time, los bueyes was reinterpreted by someone as los sbueyes ~ los zebueyes > […?]
(It’s a pretty fable. Of course that does not make it true.)
I can’t find the etymon in Fulfulde either, but I haven’t got any very good dictionaries of that language.
Wealth par excellence…
Donald W. Osborn et al. (1993) A Fulfulde (Maasina)–English–French Lexicon has the following entry on p. 213:
This lemma appears straightforwardly to be from Arabic مال māl ‘property, possessions, chattels, wealth’.
(Abbreviations, etc., for general LH readers to interpret this: Ar indicates Arabic origin. The o and ɗi are class markers. Apparently the class o is typically human singular, but it is also used with various loanwords, as from Arabic, denoting nonhumans. (I was initially wondering whether the wealth was originally human slaves.) The class ɗi is apparently typically nonhuman plurals. Seydou is Christiane Seydou (1976) La geste de Ham-Bodêdio ou Hama le Rouge, apparently presenting texts collected in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Z is G. V. Zubko (1980) Dictionnaire peul (fula)–russe–français. FT is the Fouta Toro dialect (of Senegal and Mauritania?).)
And on p. 216, the following entry is placed under a lemma MAL- with Malaaɗo (a woman’s name), malal ‘happiness, bliss’, maleede ‘to be lucky’, etc. It is noted Ar.
This lemma appears to be from Arabic مال māl, too. (But I wonder, in some of these derivatives gathered under MAL-, has there been influence from or crossing with Arabic words derived from ملأ malaʾa ‘fill up, satisfy’, like ملئ maliʾ ‘rich’?)
(Abbreviations, etc.: The class ngu contains singulars of various nouns. D is the Lexique fulfulde–français (Konngi Fulfulde–Maanda Majji e Faransi) produced by the Minister of Education of Mali, and F is Sonja Fagerberg-Diallo (1984) A Practical Guide and Reference Grammar to the Fulfulde of Mâssina. Malal is ‘happiness, bliss’; arsike is ‘luck, fortune’ (derivative of arsi ‘sky, heavens’ < Arabic عرش ʿarš ‘the Throne of God’), ngalu is ‘luck; wealth, possession, inheritance, metal, mineral’, apparently related to galo ‘rich person’; njaɓu is ‘luck’.)
“I was initially wondering whether the wealth was originally human slaves”
Old Irish cumal was explained to Old Irish students in Moscow (16 y.o. me among them) as “a currency unit worth one slave woman”
(Wiktionary: “1. female servant or slave, 2. a unit of measurement generally worth three milking cows”)
@drasvi
The cows back then must have given a lot less milk. Also, did Fionn’s father accept him when Fionn became famous?
Azamie
From a reference work contemporary with Buffon, there is this entry on Azamie in the Dictionnaire encyclopédique d’histoire (1789), vol. 1, p. 509. An article on the Iraque-Agemie there referred to can be found in the Wikipedia here. Note also this quaint article
Azamie, p. 90, from Le grand Dictionnaire françoise-latin (1593).
arsike is ‘luck, fortune’ (derivative of arsi ‘sky, heavens’ < Arabic عرش ʿarš ‘the Throne of God’),
Given its meaning, “arsike” has to be from ar-rizq, like Songhay arzaka “fortune, goods, livelihood, livestock”.
It’s interesting that a 16th century European would think of an oryx or any antelope as a kind of a fast, long-legged cow with long horns.
It wasn’t a European thing. I’ve never encountered lamṭ for “oryx” in Arabic, but I have encountered forms of baqar al-waḥš “wild cow” in the Sahara for it. Through some such translation-mediated misunderstanding, Cancel 1908 (the earliest source on Korandje) glosses “vache” as lemha, Classical al-mahā “oryx”. (There are no cows as such in Tabelbala – too dry – though the Songhay word hawi has survived nonetheless.)
Given its meaning, “arsike” has to be from ar-rizq, like Songhay arzaka “fortune, goods, livelihood, livestock”
Kusaal arazak “riches”, likewise; usually seen as the formed-by-analogy plural araza’as (like maliak “angel”, plural malia’as.)
Probably from Mooré àrzɛ́ká pl àrzɛ́gsé “property, riches” in the first instance. Hausa has arziki “riches” too.
The Kusaal word looks rather like the Arabic plural أَرْزَاق, but I think that is just coincidence.
Wiktionary claims that the Arabic word is itself actually a loan from Middle Persian:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D8%B2%D9%82#Arabic
“arsike” has to be from ar-rizq
That is excellent. Do Osborn et al. put arsi and arsike together because Fulfulde speakers feel a folk-etymological connection between the two?
the Arabic word is itself actually a loan from Middle Persian
That would make it cognate with Persian ruz “day”, with the derivative having started as “daily” [wage.]
Songhay arzaka “fortune, goods, livelihood, livestock”
Interesting to see the property/livestock polysemy once again. I’m beginning to find my proposal for the origin of Yoruba maluu/maalu quite plausible (though it would be nice to have an actual instance of maalu meaning “cattle” in some potential donor language.)
““guahex” is evidently Arabic waḥš “wild beast”. lamṭ seems to be a back-formation from Lamṭah, the name of a Saharan Berber tribe who made high-quality shields made from this beast’s skin.”
Lameen, what beast? Or it is uncertain?
“Through some such translation-mediated misunderstanding … glosses “vache” as lemha”
“I have encountered forms of baqar al-waḥš “wild cow” in the Sahara for it.”
For a long time I thought that mahā is one more word for “cow” becasue someone explained the female name Maha* as “cow” (with a further explanation: because of beautiful cow’s eyes).
Also cows and antelopes in Arabic wiktionary مَهَاة
المها: بَقَر الوحش (mouseover text for the photo)
البَقَرَة الوحشية شبهت بالبلورة لبياضها. (def 2)
المَرْأة الحَسْنَاء على المجَاز، إذا شبهت بالدرة فلبياضها أو شبهت بالبقرة (def 3)
I have been wondering to what extent these two are same/similar to Arabic speakers and why.
____
* there is a youtuber Maha, a celebrity of the world fo teaching Arabic. Learners totally love her, because almost all learning materials are excessively formal even when they are not intended for those who want to read the Quran. She’s basically the only option for those who need a bit more informal course (rather than a stick up the arse) – and was invited for the role of an Arabic teacher in some Italian film. And as I’m not into youtube language lessons, I heard about her even more frequetnly from Arabic teachers (including my friend) who totally hate her (as a literary Arabic rather than dialect teacher) because she makes errors (she is Palestinian and Christian, if these two facts have anything to do with her errors).
(the niche “an author of Arabic learning materials without a stick up her arse who does not make errors all the time” is still empty. And of course dialect learners similarly suffer of lack of formality, of books to read and so on)
guahex
I also wonder how regular is wa- > gua- (reminiscent of Breton and Welsh where w-gw is a regular mutation, gwenn/wenn and gwyn/wyn (Irish fi(o)nn) “white” as in Jennifer/Guinevere or my friends’ friend Nolwen)
(and after all those speeches of beautiful eyes of the maha, “beast” is unexpected: At least Russian зверь which informally can mean just any mammal and formally theria is associated with something more predatory)