May 7, 7:29 being very speculative, here, but would it make sense that Christian authors at the time "Allah" was borrowed would be very unwilling to use the same word for the Islamic and the Christian god? Most European languages also use a different name for the god of Judaism. (I guess I'm being hindi-centric here, and perhaps we've taken it from the pashto) Is soowar really pashto? Soowar is pig in hindu/urdu - I would have thought that a word so basic would have it's own word in pashto. On a similar note, I've always wondered why the God of Islam is rendered in English as "Allah", as if it were some distinctive name, when in reality it's just the Arabic word for "God", used by Arab Muslims and Christians alike. One should not forget Stephan Pastis's comic strip Pearls Before Swine, featuring a pig named Pig, a rat named Rat, a goat named Goat, a zebra named Zebra, and crocodiles named Bob and Larry. Historically, it actually became a consonant (yippal), but modern Hebrew (probably under Yiddish influence) no longer has geminates. You can see it synchronically in n-initial verbs – nafal "he fell" > yipol "he will fall". Since Pashto is an Iranian relative, and thus Indo-European, something like soowar seems to my layman's mind to make sense, related to swine, and the genus name Sus?Īccording to the Amazon's preview of a Pashto-English Phrasebook, pig in Pashto is "khuk".ĪCW: Proto-Semitic n regularly disappears in Hebrew before a consonant.
But maybe the name was given by the recipients rather than the donors. I'm not a Semiticist does anyone know any comparable etyma?Īnd why only one pig, a male, at that. Interesting … pig is chazer in Hebrew the words are probably cognates, but I haven't noticed any other cases of Arabic n disappearing in Hebrew cognates until now. The same article informs us that Khanzir has been donated by China. I forgot Shere Khan, though technically he wasn't a zoo animal. I'm also reminded of the children's book Babe where the farmer entered Babe (the pig) into a sheepdog contest under the name "Pig." I call my cat "Cat" it wouldn't surprise me if that was the pig's name given that he's the only one in the country.
#Sooey pig spelling how to#
Update: A propos of How to Say It In Pashto, with a side order of edible animal, this is today's Doonesbury: Or perhap, when things settle down enough for the companion to arrive, she'll simply be named (the equivalent of) 'Miss Piggy'.
However, he says, because of swine flu, "it is a dangerous and difficult time to get a new pig for our pig". In any case, the Kabul zookeepers will need some onomastic advice before long:Īcknowledging that being Afghanistan's only pig is a lonely existence, Mr Saqib says he hopes to find Khanzir a female companion soon. I believe I've heard of other zoo animals whose names are the associated common noun in some other language, but I can't call one to mind at the moment. Perhaps some reader will be able to fill us in on this. Well, there's only one of them in the whole country so he's hardly likely to suffer from identity theft, but you'd think the BBC correspondent would have picked up on the fact that 'khanzir' means pig in Arabic (what it is in Pashto I don't have the least idea).
Stephen Jones, who sent in the link, comments: The director of the zoo, Aziz Gul Saqib, says the pig, whose name is Khanzir, is strong and healthy. According to the BBC News (" Quarantine for lonely Afghan pig", )Īfghanistan's only known pig has been quarantined because of fears over swine flu, officials from Kabul Zoo say.
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