Got one to add?
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me
Here are some of the interesting comments
& feedback we have received on this subject:
February 2008, from Mary S
Although it is thought that the pygmy hippopotamus went extinct 1,000 years
ago in Madagascar, in one of the more remote parts of the country, the
kilopilopitsofy ("floppy ears") was reportedly seen near Belo-sur-Mer as
recently as 1976. The descriptions of the kilopilopitsofy sound remarkably like
the pygmy hippo. So the Malagasy word for hippo, well pygmy hippo, would be
kilopilopitsofy.
Also, in the Egyptian dialog of Arabic, hippos are referred to as both Kalb
el nil (dog of the Nile) and Sayyid ishta which literally means Mr. Cream,
although ishta is slang for cool, so Mr. Cool.
November 2007, from Jen Z
I have a language to add - Breton,
which is the local language here in Brittany in western France.
douvarc'h (plural: dourvarc'hed)
It is a celtic language and its nearest
relative is Welsh but the word for hippo doesn't seem to bear any
resemblance.
In January 2007, I rec'd this email from Dr. Harry Wilson:
the zulu word for hippos is Mvubu, or Imvubu, as correctly pointed out by
daphne years ago. the word Boma does exist in zulu, and it is another beastie
entirely! it is a common word in many southern african languages, like xhosa,
shona, matabele, etc.
it is a fence or barrier, constructed often around a
village or a small camp from thorn trees and earthen ramparts (in more permanent
installations), that is designed to keep lions and, more importantly, hippos out
of the village at night. sometimes also includes the enclosed area surrounded by
the fence.
Dr Harry Wilson
Scientific Editor
Institute of Molecular Biology, and the Agricultural Biotechnology Research
Centre
Academia Sinica
Taipei, Taiwan
In April 2005, I received this email from Carol So:
Hi, I am a chinese and i have just visited your page on saying
hippopotamus in different language. I just wonder whether the english
characters above the chinese characters of ªe°¨ are the pronunciations (the
Pinyin). If it is so, i think there're some mistakes. That pronunciation,
Shi Nio, actually refers to rhinoceros, but not hippopotamus, and the
correct pronunciation for hippo in mandarin should be "He Ma", and in
Cantonese should be "Ho Ma".
I enjoy your page very much, it's fantastic!
Sincerely,
Carol
A new hippo fan
In February 2005, I rec'd this email:
Let me add a couple of words re. the word бегемот (begemot) that means
Hippopotamus in Russian. This word comes directly from Hebrew (I guess via the
Old Testament) and fully matches to the original Hebrew word בהמות
(behemoth) for Hippo. The sound "h" has moved to "g" simply because there is
no "h" in Russian. So, there is nothing to do with Ukrainian.
Sincerely,
Alexander (Sasha) Morozov,
Software engineer,
IsraelIn May 2004, this email came in:
Subject:Hippo in Zulu
From:daphna - wine <daphna@xxx.co.il>
Date:Sun, 30 May 2004
To:xxx@hippos.com
The word for hippo in Zulu is actually "Imvubu", not boma!
In March 2003, I rec'd this email from:
Prof. Dr. Alexander Gelbukh (Alexandre Guelboukh Kahn),
Research Professor, head of NLP Lab,
Centro de Investigacion en Computacion (CIC),
Instituto Politecnico Nacional (IPN).
a Russian native speaker
gippopotam and begemot are (the only) correct transliterations
in writing.
Pronunciation: [bigim'ot], [gipapat'am]. [gi] as in "gift," not as in
"giant."
[Ed. notes: Prof Gelbukh wrote an interesting paper on using the Internet to
help with translations. See this
link; we are footnote reference #15]
Bill May April 2001
As a holder of degrees in Slavic languages and the experience of living some 10 years in Eastern Europe, I think I can shed some light on a few of the words for Hippo in Slavic tongues. Either
"Beg(e)mot" or "Gippopotam" (accent on last syllable for both) means Hippo in Russian. The latter is the more scientific term. My
guess is that "Behemot" is the Ukrainian rendition of the Russian "Begemot", since that language does not have a "g" sound and
usually substitutes an "h" for it in foreign words (and since Russian was widely spoken there up until the early '90s, it probably
found its way into general usage). I see someone has provided the Czech word "Hroch"
That word is also used in Slovak (although "Hippopotamus" might be understood). In Bulgarian the name is "Khipopotam" (accent on last syllable).
Another contributor to this page has been Danielle , from The
Collector's Addition. She has contributed many of the more obscure
languages; Persian, Gaelic, etc. She has a wonderful site full of collectibles,
with a hippo stuck here & there <g>.
(thanks Danielle)
(thanks Danielle)
