Day 10/30: The international butterfly

When I first realized that many Indo-European languages had completely different words for butterfly, I thought it was really cute. Of course, it’s not surprising at all, since that’s what different languages are all about, having different words for different things – but on the other hand, when closely related languages, like the Germanic and Romance ones, have words that differ from each other to such a great extent, it’s intriguing to say the least. It seems that those words have evolved separately, instead of having developed from a common source, like many other words within closely related branches.

 

A quick Google search confirmed that I wasn’t the first one to get intrigued by that. For example, this message on the Linguist List suggests an interesting approach:

The word for butterfly is a transfer of a gestural mimicking. The different words in the various languages are the result of a motor transfer from the gestural motor program to a structurally corresponding articulatory motor program, a manifestation of what neurologists have termed ‘motor equivalence’. The words all derive from visual perception of the characteristic pattern of flight of the butterfly; the words are not arbitrary but reflect the structure of what is seen. […] In the case of words listed for ‘butterfly’, the associated bodily gesture generated by the sound-structure of each word is a flapping movement of the arms and hands which represents the flight of the butterfly.

So, what that message says is that what’s behind many of the butterfly words is motor equivalence; the words were actually shaped so that their sound mimicks the flapping movement associated with the butterfly. Indeed, some of the words do show such kind of sound pattern, such as the Italian farfalla and the Portuguese borboleta. I have compiled a small list of words for butterfly in Indo-European languages, and a more comprehensive one can be found here.

Afrikaans: skoenlapper

Czech: motýl

Danish: sommerfugl

Dutch: vlinder

English: butterfly

Faroese: firvaldur

French: papillon

German: Schmetterling

Icelandic: fiðrildi

Italian: farfalla

Latvian: tauriņš

Lithuanian: drugys

Luxembourgish: Päiperlék

Modern Greek: πεταλούδα

Norwegian: sommerfugl

Portuguese: borboleta

Russian: бабочка

Spanish: mariposa

Swedish: fjäril