All of this is correct, except that itâs not a âmistranslationâ, itâs a borrowing. Boundaries between words and morphemes are commonly lost in borrowing, and borrowed sounds commonly undergo adaptation as well.
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NielsBohron@lemmy.world â¨6⊠â¨months⊠agoFun fact about the etymology of âalligator:â When the Spanish first landed in what is now Florida, they found alligators and simply called them âel lagarto,â which literally translates to âthe lizard.â While there were many reptiles in the swamps and bayous, only one was enough of a problem to be called âTHE lizard,â and after several mistranslations into other languages, âel lagartoâ morphed into âalligatorâ
Or at least thatâs what I read somewhere once.
hakase@lemm.ee â¨6⊠â¨months⊠ago
NielsBohron@lemmy.world â¨6⊠â¨months⊠ago
Thank you. Linguistics is not my field, obviously
Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone â¨6⊠â¨months⊠ago
In the northern Territory of Australia we have no alligators. We are however famous for pur salt and fresh water crocodiles.
So whe.n Europens arrived and found this few massive rivers full of crocodiles they called them the West, South, and Aast alligator rivers.
Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca â¨6⊠â¨months⊠ago
We still colloquially call them lagartos, regardless if its a crocodile or alligator.
NielsBohron@lemmy.world â¨6⊠â¨months⊠ago
Good to know! I took years of Spanish classes and my kids are in a Spanish immersion school in California, but Iâve only ever heard lagarto for smaller lizards and cocodrilo for anything resembling crocodilians
Thanks for the info
Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca â¨6⊠â¨months⊠ago
Yeah lagarto literally means lizard, but we use it for pretty much any type of reptilian that looks like a lizard lol