He scratches with the hands, perfection.

"Penguin" was originally used to refer to the extinct group of flightless sea birds known as auks. It was applied to the birds we are familiar with now when they were first encountered by Europeans because to them they resembled auks, although the two groups are not related other than being birds.

The word for spider is derived from the Proto-Germanic: spin-þron which means ‘spinner’ (a reference to how spiders make their webs), from the Proto-Indo-European root word: (s)pen, which means ‘to draw, stretch, spin’

The Spanish word for platypus is "ornitorrinco", which is derived from Greek, meaning "bird-like beak".

I found out that the IndoEuropean original name for "bee" was *wobzha (obviously also means wasp) and I had a stoke of inspiration that the original form might well have been "buzz-buzz"

honestly i like the interpretation of narwhal as "corpse whale". sounds more mysterious, eerie and atmosperic. adds a layer of mystery

The similarities between the Native American names and languages compared to those from the old world never ceases to fascinate and amaze me.

Walrus-They were used as walls in Russia Owl-When named it was thought that we had now discovered “Owl” (old way to spell all) of the birds Dolphin-Thought to look like a doll with fins

In German, Platypus is called "Schnabeltier" which can be translated as "Bill Animal". Because it has a bill... and it is an animal.

Finding out that one of my favorite animals (armadillo) is called a word that means a combination of two of my other favorite animals, just made my whole day! I’m unreasonably happy right now

Could you please make a video about animal's babies names? Like kitten, gosling, cygnet, lamb, etc.

I like the origin of Raccoon. "he scratches with the hands". Spanish also adopted the indigenous word, using "mapache" from Nahuatl's "mapatzin". The word roots bieng MA meaning hand, PA meaning wash, and Tzin- a diminutive suffix that expreses smallness or endearment like Spanish "ito". So Mapache means little one who washes their hands, or little hand washer.

I've heard butterflies might actually be named for their buttery poop, hence their Dutch name being boterschijte, which literally means "butter-pooper". Though that might also be the origin of the butter-stealing myth as well. Also, dolphins may not be called merepigs now, but there are still some cetaceans named after pigs, namely the porpoise, whose name is derived from the Latin "porcopiscis", literally "pig fish".

Thumbnail looking like a Skyrim puzzle

Thank you so much for this, and all your videos. You make learning fun and interesting. Give my best to Peanut. I'm sure he helped you best as he could with all the research.☺

It is fascinating to see how different languages have such similar sounding words. In my language, Urdu, a cow is called gaa-ay (گائے). Similarly, a bull is called bael (بیل). An owl is called ullu (اُلُّو). And a giraffe is called zaraffa (زرافہ). And also, many animal names have the same meanings as in English. The hippopotamus is called Daryaai Ghora (دریائی گھوڑا) which literally translates to river horse. Porcupines are called Khaar pusht (خار پُشت) which translates to spiny back. Thousands of years of isolation and still these two languages have many things in common due to their ancient Indo-European roots.

Good to hear Peanut is still doing well

8:18 I learned about etymology of giraffe few months ago, glad to see someone else is talking about it because no one really does that.

8:47 The name of chamaeleons is a Sumerian calque, Sumerians used "lion" as a generic word for any predator, so they called lizards "earth/creeping lions".

Just fantastic sense of humor .. delivery & timing. 💋

More videos about Capybaras please

been mourning the loss of my dog and two videos uploaded by you in such a short time is so helpful for me ✨✨

I LOVE your videos. Also, awesome job on these pronunciations!

"He strips off" for Moose---might also refer to all those bloody shreds of "velvet" that come off so dramatically in their annual antler growth

In my spanish dialect (rioplatense), we usually call ladybugs "Little cow of Saint Anthony". In neutral spanish its called, mostly, "mariquita" (because of Saint Mary).

Very insightful video. Thank your research and dedication to this particular topic!💯

You know why you never see crows hit on the road? They always have a buddy up in the trees yelling car. Car. Car.

The word for _Raccoon_ in German is _Waschbär,_ which means "wash bear" or "washing bear". I am told this is the case in several languages, the reason being that they wash their food before eating it, and they kind of resemble bears, I guess? Maybe nobody could figure out which animal family they belonged to and just settled on "bear." Anyways. Yeah.

I always wondered why so many birds are "named after their call" when I have yet to ever hear one that sounds anything like it. At best you can see the relation to the call and the number of syllables in the word.

Midges is still used in Scotland to describe the tiny mosquito type insect, that have been know to drive people insane. Canada Geese are called Wawa by Canadian native tribes because of the noise they make when flying.

Each instalment gets better. Good work AGAIN! Very humourous at the end again. 😅

Very interesting! Thank you!

Thanks, I enjoyed this a lot!

Interesting how in my language we seem to have quite a few animals named after the almost literal translation of the Latin origins. 0:40 River Horse for hippopotamus, which in Dutch is nijlpaard, or Nile Horse when translated back to English. 05:18 Horned Nose for Rhinoceros, is neushoorn in Dutch, or Nose Horn when translated back to English.

According to National Geographies the DoDo was originally discovered by a Dutch scientist and it is Commonly called DoDo because the British were incapable of pronouncing it's Dutch name of Doya Adarius!!! 🤠👍

Please do more I love this!

I love your videos so much! I watch them a lot especially your Cryptids of America and such! Thank you so much for what you do every time I watch your video I learn so much and I feel so awesome!❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

This was a great video, thank you

*Finishes inscribing on ancient parchment with quill and ink well* "Is Blue and Whale." Fascinating.

Cool video, love the funfacts :)

This was great! ❤

In Spanish, guinea pigs have two names, the most generalized one that is "conejillo de Indias" (Little rabbit of the Indies) and the one used mostly in Andean Southamerican countries, which is "cuy" (pronounced coo-ee), from the quichwa "quwi" which is an onomatopeyic etymology of the sounds the little rodents make.

Thank you for sharing

:) i so enjoyed this. thank you.

Thank you, i enjoyed it!

This video is just... so good.

Wonderful video!

I can't wait to use these facts to sound really smart at the next tea party. Thanks!

Dry wit appreciated.

'Be sure to enunciate' 😂 I caught that. 😂😂

The audio in the giraffe section 8:18 cuts off before explaining where it comes from

I read somewhere long ago that “ButterFLy” was a play on the phrase “FLutter By” which they do.

Great video 👍

Pardus, if I’m not mistaken, could also mean spotted or mottled, so the name leopard might mean “spotted lion”

I love you, funny history man

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? ... I don't know." The way he said it made me lose it. 😂

I waited for this video all my life

My favourite is the hairy screaming armadillo, for it is a hairy armadillo that screams

just “discovered” your channel and thoroughly enjoyed this vid. your voice is cool and your little asides are more cool. :) i grinned a lot. a lot of this was new to me. i especially was so surprised and very glad to finally learn why goose are geese and moose are moose. (maybe also why deer are deer / and fish are fish). thanks much. i’m subscribing. and have a great day :) 🌷🪻🌱

I love etymology. This is some amazing content that I will share. Thanks Justin. Also, butterfly is a corruption of flutterby. They would literally flutter by and, as old English humor went, they swapped the first letters around and it stuck.

The question is why Elk in North America are called Moose, and why the Watapi is called "Elk" in North America. Also, the America Buffalo his named after the Eurasian Buffalo, but it should be the American bison, named after the Eurasian bison. The English speakers naming American species didn't even know all the species in Europe

Very interesting video, "Fire of Learning." I, myself, am an 'amateur' linguist: I am uncertified and have no degree or training. I have never even taken any kind of a "linguistics course"...all of my knowledge is 'hands-on' experience with little or no research in linguistics via online sources or otherwise... I have been studying Native American languages since 1990. I 'branched out' and began studying ALL Native American languages of the entire Western Hemisphere in 2009 to the present date. I do claim to be the world's foremost expert in Native American languages...in respect to their Old World origins... Researching Native American languages has been quite interesting to me for many many reasons. Many Native American words are derived from 'onomopoteia' (the sound something makes, such as an animal). Many many Native American words, such as "animal nouns" are based on 'behavioural characteristics' hence the word for any given animal can have quite a long, descriptive, colourful, or poetic translation. In the words of many Native American languages, seemingly semantically dissimilar words such as "bone" and "tree" often derive from the same root. Words such as cloud, sky, sun, rain, etc. may all derive from one root. Many or all "earth-like" terms (sand, clay, stone, dirt, mountain) may derive from one root. I have learned that to be successful in 'deciphering' Native American words and languages...you really really have to 'think' like an Amerindian, placing yourself in his animate world and his specific biome.......and really have to 'think outside the box'...

Forgive me if you've already done it but I think a fascinating topic for a video would be the history of Hygiene/Bathing. From Rome through the Victorian era it would be interesting to explore the differences between nobility and peasantry and how often they cleaned or changed clothes.

In Vietnamese Dolphin is also literally translated as sea pig

Imagine how excited Barn Owls were when humans invented barns!

"The Bob in bobcat is not short for Robert cat, it means 'short hair'..." My disappointment is immeasurable.

I heard years ago that butterflies used to be called flutterbyes in England, I also have the balls to comment before I do an online search....old school.

Thank you Dr. Evil

"Pen-guin" from "pen" meaning "head" and "guin" meaning "white", as in the Arthurian tales, where the name of Uther Pen-dragon means Uther "Dragon's head" and the name of Guin-evere means "White Phantom" or "White Faery".

Etymology lover here, very interesting to hear how some animals ended up with names they would very much consider offensive.😅 If only we could ask them what they would like to be called... EG: the dutch word for leopard is "luipaard" As if it wasn't bad enough to call them spotted lion(leo pardus), it morphed into "lui"(lazy)-"paard"(horse) in dutch... 🐆Look, a lazy horse!😂

another good one is "Right Whales", because of how slowly they moved and the fact that they float when killed, whalers would go "awe yeah, thats the right Whale you wanna go for, hey?" and Sperm Whale, because they thought the white, oily/waxy substance in their head, called spermaceti, looking, to whalers atleast, like seman.

Was that teddy Roosevelt riding a moose??? 😂😂😂

Mountain lions and sea lions are the same animal, with just a couple thousand feet elevation difference.

The ending cracked me up

Hippopotamus has to be one of my favourites, partly because I'm proud I even know the etymology.

this was a fun video

Yes walrus is seemingly coming from a germanic background - In modern day german it is called "Walross". The Wal (ger) = Whale (eng) and Ross (ger - which is an outdated expession for a Horse) = steed or hoss (but i would guess as a german native speaker that steed fits better). And also the explanation for the Hippo does fit to german as it is called in german "Nilpferd" (literally eng: Nilehorse) or "Flusspferd" (literally english: Riverhorse). Also the ladybug fits to german as it is called "Marienkäfer" (literally english: Mary's bug/beetle).

8:19 "The word for Giraffe come-"

The bull's name reminds me of how the first cat breed, the Egyptian mau's name sounds like a meow

4:59 : Leo! Highly underrated pets.

5:36 Dodo isn't the proper portuguese word itself though, the name "Dodo" was likely a corruption of the Portuguese word "Bobo", which does mean "fool", but it's generally used in a more cheeky way. A better English translation for the word "Bobo" would be "Silly". Another fun thing is that the Booby birds were also named after the Portuguese "Bobo", which means that Dodos and Boobies have the same ethymological origin and share the same meaning, but were corrupted in different ways!

I always thought butterflies were called that because when you catch them by the wings the wing scales come off and have a smooth texture like butter in your hands

ferret ("little theif") is a cool one, because in English you can also speak of "ferreting (something) out" that is, searching out with a lot of effort. Ferrets get things they want to find, clearly.

I would think moose (moz or monz) would be refering to them shedding the velvet from their antlers, its quite the sight

5:14 That ain’t no Cuckoo; that’s a Road Runner, Baby!

Chucking wood is the act of manually transferring recently processed wood products from the staging area to the transport vehicle.

Thank you for this. I have wondered what cameleopards were but never bothered to look them up. Now I know!

I speak an Algonquian language, Ojibwe specifically, in my dialect we call skunk Zhigaag, it’s funny because I initially thought it was related to the porcupine in some way because we call them Gaag

''Owl'' - Be sure to enunciate . XD hahaha hilarious. 7:50 Teddy reclining against his pet Moose, what a man. haha

Small children: call animals from how they sounds Grown ups: call animals from how they sounds

Im laughing out loud so they just sat all day with koalas until they found out that they don't drink water, and then they named them, "no water"? This means that the scientific community grew up watching koalas in its free time, as if they were getting paid to do it

I love how in Texas German Skunks are called 'Stinkkatze'. LOL

When orangutan actually doesn't come orange

Is is amazing that old greek "platupous" meant flat foot. In Swedish flat is "platt" ( but also "flat")

Geckos in Australia make kissing noises, and nothing like the sound of their name

I also heard that people didn't really hunt the dodo all that much, since they thought its meat was too tough and bitter to be enjoyable.

4:39 Tony Soprano approved name origin

6:34 Wtf.. That explains why we call Ladybugs "Marihøne" in Norwegian (Mari = Mary, høne = female bird, as in hen, so basically "Maryhen" ). Thanks : )

I know a woodchuck and he told me this. "how much wood would us woodchucks chuck? Woodchucks would chuck all the wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood."

The Geico, commercial when they actually had them chucking wood, and a guy came and said hey quit chucking my wood