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How did I not realize this earlier? “Nijlpaard” in Dutch literally means Nile horse, and the Nile is a river.
We got the word right from Latin. Also it looks like most Latin-based languages use some variation of that.
Meanwhile in English we just borrow things from other languages and forget what they mean. For example, porpoise, from old French porpois, from Latin porcus marinus, meaning… ah, yes: sea pig.
IIRC, most animal names in German end up being some kind of dog or some kind of pig.
“most” would be an exaggeration, but many are. Other animals commonly used in placeholder names are also horse, chicken and lion.
Pig was just the most common meat animal, so any unknown animal that you’d eat would he called an xyz pig. Apple was also used like this for all kinds of fruits and vegetables:
orange = Chinese apple
tomato = golden apple (?)
pomegranate = granate apple
potato = earth apple
jimsonweed = thorn apple
And so on
In Finnish we call poirpoises spinny things
What about sea lion? 🤔
