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Interesting, since the dutch word for rabbit is 'Konijn', pronounced like 'konen'.
by meko 7y ago
Interesting, since the dutch word for rabbit is 'Konijn', pronounced like 'konen'.
- dekhn 7y agoConey Island in NY is named for the Dutch, "Rabbit Island"
- pacaro 7y agoAs both Dutch and English are West Germanic languages, close cognates are pretty common
- ncmncm 7y agoSpain was named by the Phoenicians after the huge number of rabbits they saw there. But they had no word for rabbit, so they used their word for hyraxes. Which are, by the way, the closest extant taxon to the elephants. Which themselves are named just for their thick skin.
- twic 7y agoHyraxes, in turn, look rather like chunky ferrets. As you say, they aren't closely related, but i suppose if you're a mammal which lives in holes in the ground, there aren't many body shapes which work.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoIn scandinavian languages (including Finnish, which hints at the fact that they don't have a lot of rabbits there) it's very similar: "kanin", pronounced ka-neen. Apparently it traces via old French and German back to the Latin "cuniculus" which actually means rabbit. Meanwhile, "hare" (or "Hase" in German) remains also in English.
- discreteevent 7y agoCoinín in Irish.