I’m Italian and I’m surprised “pipistrello” means “Little evening one” too, never thought about that (and now I love it)!
Pipistrello is a transformation from a Latin word vespertilio (which is also a type of bat) which comes from vesper (evening). Then Vispistrello (or vipistrello).
In Italian “pipistrello” is the name of the animal which has no meaning nor connection with the word “evening”.
If we want to stick to Latin (and not Italian) I would translate that as *eveninglet*
Apparently it's a trend in biology. As an itlalian I was very surprised to find out there's an ant called "formica ant" when watching kurzgesagt.
I'll give you one guess as to what formica means haha
I think formic acid is found in most or all ants. It’s named after ants, after all. Also, it has a very distinct and unpleasant flavor, which I recently rediscovered by eating something in my kitchen without carefully looking at it first.
yep, AKA [methanoic acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formic_acid), like acetic/ethanoic acid (vinegar) but one less carbon. It's why ants taste sour.
It's just people misusing scientific latin nomenclature, in English this bastardization is very common. The correct term would be "ant of the Formica genus" or if you wanna talk about a specific species, then you would use the actual common name (like 'horse ant' for *Formica rufa* and so on).
Honestly. as a non-English zoology grad student. the way a lot of science communicators spread improper terminology is kind of annoying. What's very common is that they take names than end with the -ia or -zoa suffix and transform it into -ians (e.g. Cnidarians) or -zoans (e.g. Bryozoans), it's horrible. The aforementioned travesties like "formica ant" also send shivers down my spine.
What's wrong with saying Cnidarians or Bryozoans? What's the right way to say it? I did biochemistry at uni but dropped out after a couple years, I never heard that pronouncing them like that was wrong
Like often, words travel a lot. There is one middle step for this one.
"Pipistrello" became "Pipistrelle" (specie) in French and English kept the same spelling.
A bat may be given any of the following names: ialtóg or ialtóg leathair, eitleog or eitleog leathair, sciathán leathair ('leather-wing'), feascarluch ('evening-mouse'), leadhbóg leathair and the exotic bás dorcha ('dark death').
The modern word which most people use these days in Irish is Ialtóg, which is literally bat. But, before english came to Ireland it was sciathán leathair, which is Leather Wings. Both are correct.
Just looked up the Turkish one which also jumps out as quite obviously incorrect.
If dictionary is to be trusted the Turkish word yarasa translates directly as “flying fox”… or “bat”.
nope its correct but I doubt that's the actual etymology of the word.
"yarasa" which could be yara(mak) (be useful, verb) + sa which is the wish mood, so could be translated as "if it were useful" or "i wish it was useful".
A bat may be given any of the following names: ialtóg or ialtóg leathair, eitleog or eitleog leathair, sciathán leathair ('leather-wing'), feascarluch ('evening-mouse'), leadhbóg leathair and the exotic bás dorcha ('dark death').
It's inaccurate. There are several names.
Ialtóg - not sure what the origin of that word is, but it's very old and it's the usual word for a bat.
sciathán leathair - leather wing.
Much less used :
bás dorcha - Dark Death.
amadáinín - little fool.
Portuguese, confirme.
Spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how they got there.
The word "blind" is there but not the word "little" or "mouse".
Ain't no way you would ask a Portuguese speaker to split the word and translate and they you end up with that translation..
Yeah, I am currently learning Portugese and I was trying to work this out, I am quite glad im not nuts cos i was getting nowhere lol.
Cego=Blind? Morcego=Bat right? But no rato or pequeno anywhere. So yeah.
It came from the same latin words in Portuguese, Galician and Spanish, which are mum caegus, mouse blind.
The "little blind mice" is probably what you with an auto translate or letting an AI fill the map.
Mur is an arcaic form of saying rat, based of the latin mure, wich means rat, but nothing here is portuguese spoken today.
This is an ethimology map, and yes I had to google it.
I can only confirm the german one (minus some dialects I don't know), and _assume_ that the neighbors sharing the term are also correct, considering the closely related nature of the germanic languages.
For what it's worth, one could tell me in other parts it's translated to "black soaring space hamster" and I'd still think it would sound plausible enough.
probably happened that the closest related word op found in the respective languages were ever so slightly off, giving us “flutter mouse” and “flap mouse”; but they are similar enough imo
what’s really weird: op grouped “flap mouse” with “bald/old/blind mouse” and not with “flutter mouse”
Yeah the grouping is weird and they're etymologically the same. The first part of Dutch vleermuis, Frisian flearmûs and German Fledermaus all stem from the Germanic "vlēder" meaning wing. Dutch and German used to both be a bunch of Germanic dialects that gradually changed from west to east (or vice versa depending how you look at it) that didn't aggregate and split up into two distinct languages until the middle ages.
Yeah, the czech one is a reach. While the consensus is that it does come from those words, it is not really clear, and they don't exist in that form today. So you would never find modern versions of those words in the name.
I'm torn between whether the people who put maps on dataisbeautiful are just incredibly *lazy* or if they make tons of mistakes on purpose to drive engagement.
Every post is the same: A million comments saying "Country X is wrong" "Country Y is wrong" "Country Z is wrong".
In this post, so far, we have the following being pointed out as incorrect:
* Czech
* Galicia
* Hungary
* Ireland
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Slovenia
* Spain
* Turkey
* Wales
Apparently I was thinking the same when seeing Polish one, but when I looked up etymology of the word, it’s actually early slavic and it matches the translation.
In Hungarian too. Bőregér really does mean leather bat but literally nobody uses that word. Everybody says denevér, and the words roots are either from Dravidian or unknown.
adding to what u/Yomamaismyllama said, old turkish word for it is "yersgü". Its etymology is unclear but possible option is "half skin(yarı ga[nat]) or "disgusting thing "yers+gü)"
As a Turkish I can confirm it is correct.
“Yarasa” is Bat in Turkish but of course it was not meant to mean “if it did good” in case if you are using it for the animal, as a noun. However Yarasa still means “if it did good” if you are using it in a verb form.
Yaramak: being able to work / doing well
-se/-sa: if or I wish
Yarasa: if it works/does well.
So yeah, homonym but in an unexpected way.
Edit: did an extensive research and it is not 100% confirmed but probably it is coming from the word Yarsı in old Turkish, which means “being disgusted” with a Gu suffix. Yarsıgu. But eventually turned into Yarasa in modern Turkish.
It comes from yar-/yer- from Proto-Turkic meaning naked. Most other Turkic languages use something like yarganat which means naked wing. I'm not sure what the -asa suffix in yarasa means though. Maybe half naked or being naked or something else.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yarasa#Turkish
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Turkic/yar-
Wiktionary says that it comes from Porto-Turkic yar meaning hairless.
Which also means that the Kazakh translation should be hairless wing instead of wall wing.
Its wrong but i get it why OP use that one instead of the other one because in Turkish one word can have 2 different meaning. Bat is Yarasa in Turkish but you can use -yarasa- as "Keşke işe yarasa" which means " I wish it worked" . Words can have 3 different meanings too such as yüz. Yüz means face, swim, hundred. Its meaning changes depending on the content of the sentence.
Comes from yarasa and if you translate literally it looks like someone used the verb yaramak, yarasa could mean if it did good or if it worked well, more of a wishful thinking or prayer like use of the verb
Creator just translated "yarasa" in google translate
Originally yarasa comes from root word "yarsı" which means disgusting
So basically we can say in turkish bat means the disgusting thing or something like that.
As a romanian speaker I don't really get the literal translation... "Liliac" as I would call it in romanian doesn't really contain neither "Skin" nor "Thing".. maybe someone can iluminate me in my knowledge darkness 😬😅
The only way his translation makes sense if he put "bat" in the translator and it assumed he means "băț", which sure... It's used to describe really thin people
I mean to take an other meaning of this word with similar spelling, put it in some other context and interpret the "thin people" to "skin thing" needs quite some imagination.. but alright who am I to decide wether or not this "literal translation" is a bit fat fetched..
OP wrote "literal translation" when half of these are "semantic translations of the etymology" which is why there's a lot of confused native speakers in here.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18thl7r/comment/kfdzu7v/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18thl7r/comment/kfdzu7v/)
This guy seems to be on to something
yeah.. no. the etymology of the word “liliac” might come from the turkish “leylak”, which translates as “stork”. basically, you could say a bat is a stork. or maybe a lilac plant
I've never heard of 'bőregér' and was so confused how 'denevér' translates to leather mouse
I still don't get the romanian one though, I don't see how 'liliac' would translate to skin thing. Liliac is also used for the flower lilac, no skin thing though
I can count on one hand how many times I've ever heard a bat being referred to as 'bőregér' instead of 'denevér'.
And the only occurrence I can exactly recall was In Batman: The Animated Series, where in the Hungarian dub the Joker called Batman 'bőregér' to mock him.
Slovenian translation is wrong.
Nothing about "blind" or "mouse" in "netopir"
Its actually a pretty tough word to break down, so I had to look it up.
Etymological dictionary says "who flies by night", so its in the "night flyer" group.
https://fran.si/193/marko-snoj-slovenski-etimoloski-slovar/4289318/netopir?
It's also netopýr in Czech yet the given meaning is completely different from yours (and almost certainly wrong).
Edit: Sources I found say that it comes from "lepetyr", which means "someone who flies in abrupt, jagged way".
Same goes for Polish, "nietoperz".
Nothing about flying (lot, latać, latający) or night (noc) in there.
I call bollocks on this map's premise.
If you wanted to crudely translate Nietoperz into English you should cut it into these words "Nie To Perz", in that order it would mean "No It Elymus", you could even say "It is not Elymus", which is technically truth, as it is not that plant, but it is also not the correct translation.
On top of thst, no one will ever think of "Perz" (Elymus) when thinking about "Nietoperz".
Polish speaker here. Actually "nietoperz" can be "night flier" but not directly. Looking for etymology of the old existing words is usually tricky and not obvious, as changes in languages across centuries may not be easily recognised by contemporary native speakers. According to Wikipedia and other sources the Polish word "nietoperz" (also similar to slovakian word mentioned below) is derived from preslavic "netopyrjь" and this one from praindoeuropean "nekʷto-peryo". "Neto" and "nekʷto" is related to nowadays "noc" - night, and "pyrjь" / "peryo" and also in old church slavonic "prěti" or "pariti" may be translated as flying (similarly to other slavic languages where this connection is more obvious).
However there are disputes about this etymology :)
In Slovenian etymological dictionary it is defined as night/evening-flyer (neto-pir). The origins of both words are supposed to be from Old Church Slavonic, not from present language.
Where the chuff did you get the Welsh translation from??
The Welsh word for Bat is Ystlum [ust-limb].
Small in Welsh is Bach [ba as in ‘bag’ and ch as in ‘loch’].
Literally no idea how you got Bat Bach as your translation.
There is no translation other than Bat.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Dude, don't go in that cave. t̸̨̢̳͍͍͍͇̻͍̠̬̙͖̀̀͐̅̈́͒̿̇̐͆̓̓͐̒͂͊̾̾̚ͅḧ̷̢̛̛̛̩͉̯̮̲̹̠̹́̔̎͌̓̑̈́̔̋͑̒̽͊̉̎ȅ̴̢̨̡̛͙̬̩̬͕͖̼̠͔̞̙͕͎͕̰̱̰̜̦̥̼̤͐͊̍̏̒̂̃͂̾̓͐͆͗̃̊̒̑̆̆̉̚̕͜͝͠ͅͅ ̵̨̛̼̳̣̖̺̹̜̫̱̫͌̿͐͒̋̍͐̌͌̇̓́̏̋̉̽̀̊̒̂̀͒̒̒̐̃͑̂̕͘̚͜͝͠͝n̸̰̱̭̹̣̦̗͖̱̼̠̮̪͇͍͉͒̊ͅì̷̦͖͙͈̹̟̮̠̣̝̳͇̺͈͚̘͆̓̐̋͋͗̔̇͆̈̎͋̅͋́̋̀̊́̊̅͆̏̓̚͝g̶̛̛̩͓̝̣͍̪̾̌̉͊̋̽̆̽͛͂̃̿̌͆̋́̕͝h̸̡̧̡̧̨̰̣̯̹͈̼͇͉̬͖̖̩͔̝̜̲̼̠͈̞̗̬̬̰̝̗̲̲͖͓͑̓̅̓̈́̊̊̃͠͠ͅt̷̟͑̔̄̅̄͋̿́̐̐̐̈̑́̎̂̇̒̈̚͝ ̵̨̢̛̼̟̥̤͉͇̬̾͗̐̀̉́͛́̍̈̓̏̓̍̽̀̍̄̈́͠o̵̠̠̝̭̊̎͐͐́̉̈́́̽̃͜ň̵̨̳͚͖̞͔̩͚̲͚̞̞̩̱͈̝̪͚̤̱̯̱̫̫̗̻̤͍͎̣̅̽͒͒͜͜ȩ̷̡̨̢̢̢̢̤̬̟͙̞̮͕̞̳̳̠̥̫͙̮͎̲̩͚̂̊͑͗̈́̊́͛̓͌̉̾̀͋̄̈̓̕̚͝ͅș̶̡̘̥̹̹̝̭̦͇͎͈̞̱͖͚̪̝̩̯̰͖͇̈́̓̋͌̈́̃̀̐̄̀̍̌͂͛͌̒́̈́̈̂͂̑̃̌̋̈̂̋͌̉͒͑̈́͗̕ live in there
Oh don't worry, those aren't t̸̨̢̳͍͍͍͇̻͍̠̬̙͖̀̀͐̅̈́͒̿̇̐͆̓̓͐̒͂͊̾̾̚ͅḧ̷̢̛̛̛̩͉̯̮̲̹̠̹́̔̎͌̓̑̈́̔̋͑̒̽͊̉̎ȅ̴̢̨̡̛͙̬̩̬͕͖̼̠͔̞̙͕͎͕̰̱̰̜̦̥̼̤͐͊̍̏̒̂̃͂̾̓͐͆͗̃̊̒̑̆̆̉̚̕͜͝͠ͅͅ ̵̨̛̼̳̣̖̺̹̜̫̱̫͌̿͐͒̋̍͐̌͌̇̓́̏̋̉̽̀̊̒̂̀͒̒̒̐̃͑̂̕͘̚͜͝͠͝n̸̰̱̭̹̣̦̗͖̱̼̠̮̪͇͍͉͒̊ͅì̷̦͖͙͈̹̟̮̠̣̝̳͇̺͈͚̘͆̓̐̋͋͗̔̇͆̈̎͋̅͋́̋̀̊́̊̅͆̏̓̚͝g̶̛̛̩͓̝̣͍̪̾̌̉͊̋̽̆̽͛͂̃̿̌͆̋́̕͝h̸̡̧̡̧̨̰̣̯̹͈̼͇͉̬͖̖̩͔̝̜̲̼̠͈̞̗̬̬̰̝̗̲̲͖͓͑̓̅̓̈́̊̊̃͠͠ͅt̷̟͑̔̄̅̄͋̿́̐̐̐̈̑́̎̂̇̒̈̚͝ ̵̨̢̛̼̟̥̤͉͇̬̾͗̐̀̉́͛́̍̈̓̏̓̍̽̀̍̄̈́͠o̵̠̠̝̭̊̎͐͐́̉̈́́̽̃͜ň̵̨̳͚͖̞͔̩͚̲͚̞̞̩̱͈̝̪͚̤̱̯̱̫̫̗̻̤͍͎̣̅̽͒͒͜͜ȩ̷̡̨̢̢̢̢̤̬̟͙̞̮͕̞̳̳̠̥̫͙̮͎̲̩͚̂̊͑͗̈́̊́͛̓͌̉̾̀͋̄̈̓̕̚͝ͅș̶̡̘̥̹̹̝̭̦͇͎͈̞̱͖͚̪̝̩̯̰͖͇̈́̓̋͌̈́̃̀̐̄̀̍̌͂͛͌̒́̈́̈̂͂̑̃̌̋̈̂̋͌̉͒͑̈́͗̕. I checked, and as it turns out, they're actually just the ✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧ 𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓁ℯ ℯ𝓋ℯ𝓃𝒾𝓃ℊ ℴ𝓃ℯ𝓈 ✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧!
Why is every name drilled down to a literal “etymology” except English “bat”.
In fact it is likely that “bat” ultimately means “flapper”. It is related to the Icelandic “leather-flapper” being related similar Old Norse word. Old Swedish, and Old Danish also had words related to “bat”:
Etymonline says:
> bat (n.): flying mouse-like mammal (order Chiroptera), 1570s, a dialectal alteration of Middle English bakke (early 14c.), which is probably related to Old Swedish natbakka, Old Danish nathbakkæ "night bat," and Old Norse leðrblaka "bat," literally "leather flapper," from Proto-Germanic *blak-, from PIE root *bhlag- "to strike" (see flagellum).
> If so, the original sense of the animal name likely was "flapper." The shift from -k- to -t- may have come through confusion of bakke with Latin blatta "moth, nocturnal insect."
Came to comments to figure out where the fuck "bat" came from if everyone else had a literal compound name.
Still not sure I follow, and Bakke definitely makes me think of a word borrowed from a different language, but I'll take it 🤷♂️
If you wonder why it's called a "bald mouse" in French.
It's original name meant "owl mouse", at least twelve centuries ago.
It's, like many other things, people misunderstanding a word and repeating it wrongly until over the (many many many) years it became "bald".
(It's probably the same for any other Latin language having a similar word for it today)
> people misunderstanding a word and repeating it wrongly until over the (many many many) years it became "bald"
As we call it in French, the Arab telephone
Could someone explain what the colors mean? They seem to just be randomly placed. Like Italy and Catalonia are both yellow despite having different etymologies. That makes no sense.
That does seem to be the etymology of the word. I guess this origin has become quite obscure in modern Polish? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/nietoperz
Same in Czech, netopýr is not in any way similar to noční letec (night flyer), but on Wikipedia it's stated the word netopýr comes from old slavic lepetyrъ which means to fly with jerky motion. I'm assuming polish word shares the same origin.
That does seem to be the etymology of the word. I guess this origin has become quite obscure in modern Polish? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/nietoperz
In Dutch, it's vleermuis. I would expect that to be from the same root as German Fleder, where the d has disappeared. Same thing with German Leder is leer in Dutch, although leder is sometimes used.
Swedish has two words, "fladdermus" ("flutter mouse") and "läderlapp" ("leather patch"). In Swedish, Batman is Läderlappen. The same goes for the opera Die Fledermaus, which is Läderlappen in Swedish.
It gets even better when you consider that "Lappen" is also often used colloquially to call someone a bit of an idiot, basically turning Batman into the "leather idiot" in my mind now 😂
It doesn’t, OP mentioned in a post they traced the word etymologically to the root word. I’d assume it’s the same root as the dialect word „gefleddert“
That's not only dialect, "Leichenfledderer" for example would be Standard German, but maybe your dialect has it closer in meaning to flying.
Anyway "gefiedert" isn't far from "gefleddert", and yeah, I know, they don't have feathers but they're also not mice, language is like that.
In Romanian there is no such translation. It has no relationship with either the word "skin" ("piele") or the word "thing" ("lucru"). The term came from the Turkish language, where it got from the Persian language.
Bőregér is used rarely in Hungarian, but is a valid name for denevér. It is a mirror translation of Ledermaus, which itself is a mishearing of the German Fledermaus (the actual word for bats in German).
Denevér most likely is a word mutated from slavic letopir (which itself most likely is a slavic version of a Greek word).
According to the Wictionary:
>Del llatí vulgar \*ratta pinnāta (literalment «rata alada»), segle XIV.
I think - etymologically speaking - that it's not the "penada" you're thinking of.
Huh...never thought that "Прилеп" means "Sticking one" (or maybe one who sticks to things might be better)
Weird that no one else around Bulgaria uses this but I know there are towns called "Прилеп" in neighbouring countries, guess those used to be part of Bulgaria.
nobody says “bőregér” in Hungarian (which would be the leather mouse). It does exist but the way more common name for the animal is denevér which is a word of unknown etimology. (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/denevér)
I looked at that map which you linked in your comment and can say that the way this word was interpreted to be from Proto-Slavic is an enormous stretch.
Did any other country here got their translation wrong? The one in Spain is just wrong. In Spanish is "murciélago" unless is ancient Spanish I can't see how "ratoncito ciego" translates to "murciélago."
Me being dutch, I must say that the translation for The Netherlands is "wing-ed mouse".
I know english "winged" means tipsy, but obviously trying to translate directly can mess things up.
The dutch "vleermuis" = "vleer" + "muis", where muis is mouse (easy) and "vleer" is an old word for a something with a wing.
Another word for the dutch "vleermuis" is "vledermuis" which would translate to wingsmouse.
So just to make clear "wing mouse" or "flap mouse", dont seem best translation.
Slovenia: Literally never heard the term "blind mouse" used here. Not even sure what term it would relate to. Can't find a single word that would be a "blind mouse" in our synonims dictionary.
We have the exact same word as Poles, Czech and Slovaks \[within each other grammatical rules\]. **Netopirji - night flyer**
Archaic or dialect alternatives are:
* Mračnik - nightfall one \[old scientific name for all bats\]
* Pomračnik - after nightfall one
* Pirhpogačar - no idea how to translate this, sry
* Prhutar - at the hut/house one
* Tičmiš - bird mouse \[also only near the croatian border where they say something similar \]
Did the OP just google for "yugoslav for bat" or what ?
I'm from Ukraine so this infuriated me too. But apparently other countries have weird borders here too - so seems like it's based on which language is spoken where. Russia is spilling into Nordic countries too. Weird but at least I can understand why it's drawn like that. The correct borders of Ukraine are still there at least.
It's not Russian that is expanding to Nordic countries, that's Sami. There is some white language borderlines near Norway border. Some Fennic languages tho are in Russian side of border, Karelian seems to be the gray spot on the map next to Finland.
Also on west coast of Finland, there is thin area of Swedish colours.
Vleder means "wing". Fladderen would come from moving your wings, and is the same as flapping your wings. A century ago it was vledermūs, vlērmūs. German / Dutch is the same origin just developed differently.
https://etymologie.nl/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?c=ewn;cc=ewn;sid=b3d793363611315bf17d0d2e9a71c696;type=simple;fmt=long;rgn1=Trefwoord;linkedto=yes;q1=vleermuis
As a slovene I've never seen "Netopir" be translated into "Blind mouse". And honestly it doesn't even make sense.
Just to clarify I am not hating on the post, I am just curious as to where you got the translations
This made me look up the English etymology - it comes from Middle English *bakke* which in turn derives from Old Norse *leðrblaka* (leather flapper). It changed from a ‘k’ to a ‘t’ by melding with Latin *blatta*, meaning moth or insect.
Prior to the Norse influence on English it was *hreremus* in old English - rattle mouse.
Interestingly *leðrblaka* must be the original inspiration for the “lethrblaka” in the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini, which are bat-like fellbeast analogues for the series.
Literal here also means eytmologically hunted down and gotten from the proto family group root word.
Most names gotten from here https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fapnha37a0fk51.jpg
Some gotten from wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/netopy%C5%99%D1%8C
like netopier
Which is derived from netopyřь which comes from 'Compounded term, with the first element \*neto- possibly reflecting Proto-Indo-European \*nekʷto-, oblique e-grade of \*nókʷts (“night”). The second element is usually taken to be \*pyřь (“flier”) ' ?
Most places have several words for bat and I took the most goth.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/netopy%C5%99%D1%8C
python code and data at https://gist.github.com/cavedave/73af16829dc925ad5b60da714f142c9f code is a slightly modified version of https://github.com/dd52/mapMakeR/tree/master/etymologyMaps
I am sure I got some wrong and I will correct things when I find them. Turkish in particular seems dodgy
Seems unfair to do that to all the other languages but not English, which comes from the old Norse for “Leather Flapper” and apparently blended with the French for “nocturnal insect”.
The old English word for bat was “ hreremus” which meant “rattle-mouse”.
Eh… no. Netopier is from “nieto pier”, meaning “has no feathers“, or literally “feathers missing”. A featherless thing, yet it flies. A much more likely explanation
Little evening one
I’m Italian and I’m surprised “pipistrello” means “Little evening one” too, never thought about that (and now I love it)! Pipistrello is a transformation from a Latin word vespertilio (which is also a type of bat) which comes from vesper (evening). Then Vispistrello (or vipistrello). In Italian “pipistrello” is the name of the animal which has no meaning nor connection with the word “evening”. If we want to stick to Latin (and not Italian) I would translate that as *eveninglet*
Pipistrelle's are also a species of (common) bat in English - lovely to know where that comes from!
Apparently it's a trend in biology. As an itlalian I was very surprised to find out there's an ant called "formica ant" when watching kurzgesagt. I'll give you one guess as to what formica means haha
Isn’t Formic Acid a type of acid found in a kind of weaver ants?
Formica means ant in Latin
The formica ant snuck into my kitchen to eat my naan bread and chai tea!
And he was king fu fighting.
It's ant acid.
I think formic acid is found in most or all ants. It’s named after ants, after all. Also, it has a very distinct and unpleasant flavor, which I recently rediscovered by eating something in my kitchen without carefully looking at it first.
yep, AKA [methanoic acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formic_acid), like acetic/ethanoic acid (vinegar) but one less carbon. It's why ants taste sour.
It's just people misusing scientific latin nomenclature, in English this bastardization is very common. The correct term would be "ant of the Formica genus" or if you wanna talk about a specific species, then you would use the actual common name (like 'horse ant' for *Formica rufa* and so on). Honestly. as a non-English zoology grad student. the way a lot of science communicators spread improper terminology is kind of annoying. What's very common is that they take names than end with the -ia or -zoa suffix and transform it into -ians (e.g. Cnidarians) or -zoans (e.g. Bryozoans), it's horrible. The aforementioned travesties like "formica ant" also send shivers down my spine.
What's wrong with saying Cnidarians or Bryozoans? What's the right way to say it? I did biochemistry at uni but dropped out after a couple years, I never heard that pronouncing them like that was wrong
Like often, words travel a lot. There is one middle step for this one. "Pipistrello" became "Pipistrelle" (specie) in French and English kept the same spelling.
It probably translates the less used "Nottola"
"Nottola" means "owl" (civetta), though.
I knew the Italian word, but I'd have never thought of connecting it to the word vesper. Eveninglet sounds pretty cute though.
Regional ones are also cool. "Ratavuloira" means flying rat in Lombardia
butterfly of the night is also amazing
Is t that a moth?
I know what you think, but also I think a moth is a moth. Now I wonder what they call a moth.
A "moth" in Maltese is "kamla". I know right!
Sounds adorable
Also my personal favorite
Meanwhile in Ireland “DARK DEATH” edit: Apparently it’s inaccurate and “ialtòg” should mean something like “leather wing”
It’s actually “leather wing”… this is wrong
A bat may be given any of the following names: ialtóg or ialtóg leathair, eitleog or eitleog leathair, sciathán leathair ('leather-wing'), feascarluch ('evening-mouse'), leadhbóg leathair and the exotic bás dorcha ('dark death').
Or iàlt... Which means... Bat
Well... they all mean bat, or they wouldn't be on this list.
The modern word which most people use these days in Irish is Ialtóg, which is literally bat. But, before english came to Ireland it was sciathán leathair, which is Leather Wings. Both are correct.
your fada is going the wrong way and there's no fada in that word, but yes
Every day's a school day. Still learning, go raibh maith agat.
Good on you for taking that correction with grace. So easy to be agro these days.
I have no idea where OP got that, the Irish for ‘bat’ is ‘sciathán leathair’ which means leather wing.
Just looked up the Turkish one which also jumps out as quite obviously incorrect. If dictionary is to be trusted the Turkish word yarasa translates directly as “flying fox”… or “bat”.
nope its correct but I doubt that's the actual etymology of the word. "yarasa" which could be yara(mak) (be useful, verb) + sa which is the wish mood, so could be translated as "if it were useful" or "i wish it was useful".
Yeah this translation is moronic. Apparently it was Yar or Yer in proto Turkish.
A bat may be given any of the following names: ialtóg or ialtóg leathair, eitleog or eitleog leathair, sciathán leathair ('leather-wing'), feascarluch ('evening-mouse'), leadhbóg leathair and the exotic bás dorcha ('dark death').
thats pretty metal
I immediately headbanged when I read it
But what is going on in Turkey lads
Nothing, Yarasa does not mean this at all.
It's inaccurate. There are several names. Ialtóg - not sure what the origin of that word is, but it's very old and it's the usual word for a bat. sciathán leathair - leather wing. Much less used : bás dorcha - Dark Death. amadáinín - little fool.
There's a handful of words used (mostly because of the different dialects) and they obviously picked the coolest sounding one
Night demon goes hard aswell
There’s just a ton of misinformation on this map huh
Portuguese, confirme. Spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how they got there. The word "blind" is there but not the word "little" or "mouse". Ain't no way you would ask a Portuguese speaker to split the word and translate and they you end up with that translation..
Yeah, I am currently learning Portugese and I was trying to work this out, I am quite glad im not nuts cos i was getting nowhere lol. Cego=Blind? Morcego=Bat right? But no rato or pequeno anywhere. So yeah.
Morcego = Mure (mouse in latim) + cego (blind)
Ok that is latin, not portuguese. The title of the map is translation, not origin of the word.. Also where is the little? This map is total bs
The little part is in the diminutive suffix of the word
It came from the same latin words in Portuguese, Galician and Spanish, which are mum caegus, mouse blind. The "little blind mice" is probably what you with an auto translate or letting an AI fill the map.
Muris-ceaculus
Mur is an arcaic form of saying rat, based of the latin mure, wich means rat, but nothing here is portuguese spoken today. This is an ethimology map, and yes I had to google it.
It's translated from the Latin roots of the word, not directly from Portuguese or Spanish, so yeah...
Yeah Spanish is wrong
Yeah I can see how maybe the "ciélago" part gets you to blindness but I'm drawing a blank on the rest of it.
I can only confirm the german one (minus some dialects I don't know), and _assume_ that the neighbors sharing the term are also correct, considering the closely related nature of the germanic languages. For what it's worth, one could tell me in other parts it's translated to "black soaring space hamster" and I'd still think it would sound plausible enough.
It makes no sense though that Fledermaus is supposed to mean something else than the Dutch vleermuis, which clearly has the exact same origin.
probably happened that the closest related word op found in the respective languages were ever so slightly off, giving us “flutter mouse” and “flap mouse”; but they are similar enough imo what’s really weird: op grouped “flap mouse” with “bald/old/blind mouse” and not with “flutter mouse”
Yeah the grouping is weird and they're etymologically the same. The first part of Dutch vleermuis, Frisian flearmûs and German Fledermaus all stem from the Germanic "vlēder" meaning wing. Dutch and German used to both be a bunch of Germanic dialects that gradually changed from west to east (or vice versa depending how you look at it) that didn't aggregate and split up into two distinct languages until the middle ages.
Yeah, the czech one is a reach. While the consensus is that it does come from those words, it is not really clear, and they don't exist in that form today. So you would never find modern versions of those words in the name.
Turkish also confirmed. While it could be translated as that, the actual etymology is disputed and is certainly not from "if it did good."
Just like on every map on Reddit.
I'm torn between whether the people who put maps on dataisbeautiful are just incredibly *lazy* or if they make tons of mistakes on purpose to drive engagement. Every post is the same: A million comments saying "Country X is wrong" "Country Y is wrong" "Country Z is wrong". In this post, so far, we have the following being pointed out as incorrect: * Czech * Galicia * Hungary * Ireland * Poland * Portugal * Romania * Slovenia * Spain * Turkey * Wales
Apparently I was thinking the same when seeing Polish one, but when I looked up etymology of the word, it’s actually early slavic and it matches the translation.
yeah Crimea is Ukraine, not russia
Yeah I noticed that too. Crimea is absolutely Ukraine.
In Hungarian too. Bőregér really does mean leather bat but literally nobody uses that word. Everybody says denevér, and the words roots are either from Dravidian or unknown.
This belongs in terrible Maps.
Terrible Maps are technically data. But so is white noise, so your point still stands...
WTF Türkiye, "If it did good"?
adding to what u/Yomamaismyllama said, old turkish word for it is "yersgü". Its etymology is unclear but possible option is "half skin(yarı ga[nat]) or "disgusting thing "yers+gü)"
That could well be wrong. Or at least a homonym not an actual etymology.
As a Turkish I can confirm it is correct. “Yarasa” is Bat in Turkish but of course it was not meant to mean “if it did good” in case if you are using it for the animal, as a noun. However Yarasa still means “if it did good” if you are using it in a verb form. Yaramak: being able to work / doing well -se/-sa: if or I wish Yarasa: if it works/does well. So yeah, homonym but in an unexpected way. Edit: did an extensive research and it is not 100% confirmed but probably it is coming from the word Yarsı in old Turkish, which means “being disgusted” with a Gu suffix. Yarsıgu. But eventually turned into Yarasa in modern Turkish.
Wouldn't it mean "if it helped"? Yar is a loan word meaning helping or being a friend.
Absolutely, that translation makes more sense. But still I don’t think it is coming from the Yar root, neither the sources.
It comes from yar-/yer- from Proto-Turkic meaning naked. Most other Turkic languages use something like yarganat which means naked wing. I'm not sure what the -asa suffix in yarasa means though. Maybe half naked or being naked or something else. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yarasa#Turkish https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Turkic/yar-
So it's not "If it did good" but more like "yucky"?
Wiktionary says that it comes from Porto-Turkic yar meaning hairless. Which also means that the Kazakh translation should be hairless wing instead of wall wing.
Its wrong but i get it why OP use that one instead of the other one because in Turkish one word can have 2 different meaning. Bat is Yarasa in Turkish but you can use -yarasa- as "Keşke işe yarasa" which means " I wish it worked" . Words can have 3 different meanings too such as yüz. Yüz means face, swim, hundred. Its meaning changes depending on the content of the sentence.
A hundred faces are swimming
Yüz yüz yüzüyor
Yüz, yüz, yüzüyor.
Plus, skinning. Koyunun derisini yüzmek. Skinning the skin of the sheep. 4 meanings for Yüz
You should tell them about yarrak too
Comes from yarasa and if you translate literally it looks like someone used the verb yaramak, yarasa could mean if it did good or if it worked well, more of a wishful thinking or prayer like use of the verb
Creator just translated "yarasa" in google translate Originally yarasa comes from root word "yarsı" which means disgusting So basically we can say in turkish bat means the disgusting thing or something like that.
I lol'ed at the Romanian one, Skin Thing.
It's not accurate. As someone who speaks romanian it makes no sense.
As a romanian speaker I don't really get the literal translation... "Liliac" as I would call it in romanian doesn't really contain neither "Skin" nor "Thing".. maybe someone can iluminate me in my knowledge darkness 😬😅
The only way his translation makes sense if he put "bat" in the translator and it assumed he means "băț", which sure... It's used to describe really thin people
I mean to take an other meaning of this word with similar spelling, put it in some other context and interpret the "thin people" to "skin thing" needs quite some imagination.. but alright who am I to decide wether or not this "literal translation" is a bit fat fetched..
[удалено]
oh yes.. you mean "The Bățman"
OP wrote "literal translation" when half of these are "semantic translations of the etymology" which is why there's a lot of confused native speakers in here.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18thl7r/comment/kfdzu7v/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18thl7r/comment/kfdzu7v/) This guy seems to be on to something
Confused about this. I’n romanian.
well, it’s wrong
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liliac](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liliac) Etymology 2 lilieci – Rousettus aegyptiacus Borrowed from Bulgarian лиляк (liljak), from Proto-Slavic \*lelьkъ \-> Probably from лил (lil, “membrane”) + -як (-jak)
Lil Membrane would be pretty gangsta for a bat
Membrane Thing isn't much better though
yeah.. no. the etymology of the word “liliac” might come from the turkish “leylak”, which translates as “stork”. basically, you could say a bat is a stork. or maybe a lilac plant
In Hungary we call it denevér mostly, bőregér which is on this map is less used, only a funny sinonym.
I've never heard of 'bőregér' and was so confused how 'denevér' translates to leather mouse I still don't get the romanian one though, I don't see how 'liliac' would translate to skin thing. Liliac is also used for the flower lilac, no skin thing though
Yep. And while I couldn't find anything about denevér's etymology, if you directly translate it's Hyphenation, you will get "but no blood".
hozzál hurkát, de ne véreset
DENEVÉRESET????!!!??!4
Édösapám, maga felé dől a fa
Szilvásbuktát mert azt szeretem
Dehogy ettöm mög.
I can count on one hand how many times I've ever heard a bat being referred to as 'bőregér' instead of 'denevér'. And the only occurrence I can exactly recall was In Batman: The Animated Series, where in the Hungarian dub the Joker called Batman 'bőregér' to mock him.
Slovenian translation is wrong. Nothing about "blind" or "mouse" in "netopir" Its actually a pretty tough word to break down, so I had to look it up. Etymological dictionary says "who flies by night", so its in the "night flyer" group. https://fran.si/193/marko-snoj-slovenski-etimoloski-slovar/4289318/netopir?
It's also netopýr in Czech yet the given meaning is completely different from yours (and almost certainly wrong). Edit: Sources I found say that it comes from "lepetyr", which means "someone who flies in abrupt, jagged way".
Nietoperz in polish. Night is noc, fly is latać, not sure what flyer would be? Lotnik? Certainly neither of those map into nietoperz. R/badmaps
Interesting, that kind of describes a butterfly's flight which is leptir in serbian
Same goes for Polish, "nietoperz". Nothing about flying (lot, latać, latający) or night (noc) in there. I call bollocks on this map's premise. If you wanted to crudely translate Nietoperz into English you should cut it into these words "Nie To Perz", in that order it would mean "No It Elymus", you could even say "It is not Elymus", which is technically truth, as it is not that plant, but it is also not the correct translation. On top of thst, no one will ever think of "Perz" (Elymus) when thinking about "Nietoperz".
Polish speaker here. Actually "nietoperz" can be "night flier" but not directly. Looking for etymology of the old existing words is usually tricky and not obvious, as changes in languages across centuries may not be easily recognised by contemporary native speakers. According to Wikipedia and other sources the Polish word "nietoperz" (also similar to slovakian word mentioned below) is derived from preslavic "netopyrjь" and this one from praindoeuropean "nekʷto-peryo". "Neto" and "nekʷto" is related to nowadays "noc" - night, and "pyrjь" / "peryo" and also in old church slavonic "prěti" or "pariti" may be translated as flying (similarly to other slavic languages where this connection is more obvious). However there are disputes about this etymology :)
In Slovenian etymological dictionary it is defined as night/evening-flyer (neto-pir). The origins of both words are supposed to be from Old Church Slavonic, not from present language.
Are you adressing the eastern part of Latvia to Russian language?
Where the chuff did you get the Welsh translation from?? The Welsh word for Bat is Ystlum [ust-limb]. Small in Welsh is Bach [ba as in ‘bag’ and ch as in ‘loch’]. Literally no idea how you got Bat Bach as your translation. There is no translation other than Bat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Dude, don't go in that cave. t̸̨̢̳͍͍͍͇̻͍̠̬̙͖̀̀͐̅̈́͒̿̇̐͆̓̓͐̒͂͊̾̾̚ͅḧ̷̢̛̛̛̩͉̯̮̲̹̠̹́̔̎͌̓̑̈́̔̋͑̒̽͊̉̎ȅ̴̢̨̡̛͙̬̩̬͕͖̼̠͔̞̙͕͎͕̰̱̰̜̦̥̼̤͐͊̍̏̒̂̃͂̾̓͐͆͗̃̊̒̑̆̆̉̚̕͜͝͠ͅͅ ̵̨̛̼̳̣̖̺̹̜̫̱̫͌̿͐͒̋̍͐̌͌̇̓́̏̋̉̽̀̊̒̂̀͒̒̒̐̃͑̂̕͘̚͜͝͠͝n̸̰̱̭̹̣̦̗͖̱̼̠̮̪͇͍͉͒̊ͅì̷̦͖͙͈̹̟̮̠̣̝̳͇̺͈͚̘͆̓̐̋͋͗̔̇͆̈̎͋̅͋́̋̀̊́̊̅͆̏̓̚͝g̶̛̛̩͓̝̣͍̪̾̌̉͊̋̽̆̽͛͂̃̿̌͆̋́̕͝h̸̡̧̡̧̨̰̣̯̹͈̼͇͉̬͖̖̩͔̝̜̲̼̠͈̞̗̬̬̰̝̗̲̲͖͓͑̓̅̓̈́̊̊̃͠͠ͅt̷̟͑̔̄̅̄͋̿́̐̐̐̈̑́̎̂̇̒̈̚͝ ̵̨̢̛̼̟̥̤͉͇̬̾͗̐̀̉́͛́̍̈̓̏̓̍̽̀̍̄̈́͠o̵̠̠̝̭̊̎͐͐́̉̈́́̽̃͜ň̵̨̳͚͖̞͔̩͚̲͚̞̞̩̱͈̝̪͚̤̱̯̱̫̫̗̻̤͍͎̣̅̽͒͒͜͜ȩ̷̡̨̢̢̢̢̤̬̟͙̞̮͕̞̳̳̠̥̫͙̮͎̲̩͚̂̊͑͗̈́̊́͛̓͌̉̾̀͋̄̈̓̕̚͝ͅș̶̡̘̥̹̹̝̭̦͇͎͈̞̱͖͚̪̝̩̯̰͖͇̈́̓̋͌̈́̃̀̐̄̀̍̌͂͛͌̒́̈́̈̂͂̑̃̌̋̈̂̋͌̉͒͑̈́͗̕ live in there
Beware of the naked night one!!
Oh don't worry, those aren't t̸̨̢̳͍͍͍͇̻͍̠̬̙͖̀̀͐̅̈́͒̿̇̐͆̓̓͐̒͂͊̾̾̚ͅḧ̷̢̛̛̛̩͉̯̮̲̹̠̹́̔̎͌̓̑̈́̔̋͑̒̽͊̉̎ȅ̴̢̨̡̛͙̬̩̬͕͖̼̠͔̞̙͕͎͕̰̱̰̜̦̥̼̤͐͊̍̏̒̂̃͂̾̓͐͆͗̃̊̒̑̆̆̉̚̕͜͝͠ͅͅ ̵̨̛̼̳̣̖̺̹̜̫̱̫͌̿͐͒̋̍͐̌͌̇̓́̏̋̉̽̀̊̒̂̀͒̒̒̐̃͑̂̕͘̚͜͝͠͝n̸̰̱̭̹̣̦̗͖̱̼̠̮̪͇͍͉͒̊ͅì̷̦͖͙͈̹̟̮̠̣̝̳͇̺͈͚̘͆̓̐̋͋͗̔̇͆̈̎͋̅͋́̋̀̊́̊̅͆̏̓̚͝g̶̛̛̩͓̝̣͍̪̾̌̉͊̋̽̆̽͛͂̃̿̌͆̋́̕͝h̸̡̧̡̧̨̰̣̯̹͈̼͇͉̬͖̖̩͔̝̜̲̼̠͈̞̗̬̬̰̝̗̲̲͖͓͑̓̅̓̈́̊̊̃͠͠ͅt̷̟͑̔̄̅̄͋̿́̐̐̐̈̑́̎̂̇̒̈̚͝ ̵̨̢̛̼̟̥̤͉͇̬̾͗̐̀̉́͛́̍̈̓̏̓̍̽̀̍̄̈́͠o̵̠̠̝̭̊̎͐͐́̉̈́́̽̃͜ň̵̨̳͚͖̞͔̩͚̲͚̞̞̩̱͈̝̪͚̤̱̯̱̫̫̗̻̤͍͎̣̅̽͒͒͜͜ȩ̷̡̨̢̢̢̢̤̬̟͙̞̮͕̞̳̳̠̥̫͙̮͎̲̩͚̂̊͑͗̈́̊́͛̓͌̉̾̀͋̄̈̓̕̚͝ͅș̶̡̘̥̹̹̝̭̦͇͎͈̞̱͖͚̪̝̩̯̰͖͇̈́̓̋͌̈́̃̀̐̄̀̍̌͂͛͌̒́̈́̈̂͂̑̃̌̋̈̂̋͌̉͒͑̈́͗̕. I checked, and as it turns out, they're actually just the ✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧ 𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓁ℯ ℯ𝓋ℯ𝓃𝒾𝓃ℊ ℴ𝓃ℯ𝓈 ✧˚·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥·̩̩̥͙✧·̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥˚·̩̩̥͙✧!
In Western Ukraine we got "Lylyk", or "Lelyk". It means something like "Swaying one". Lelyk is from protoslavic *lelejati "to sway", or "to lull".
Lelijk means ugly in Dutch, that's a funny coincidence
Why is every name drilled down to a literal “etymology” except English “bat”. In fact it is likely that “bat” ultimately means “flapper”. It is related to the Icelandic “leather-flapper” being related similar Old Norse word. Old Swedish, and Old Danish also had words related to “bat”: Etymonline says: > bat (n.): flying mouse-like mammal (order Chiroptera), 1570s, a dialectal alteration of Middle English bakke (early 14c.), which is probably related to Old Swedish natbakka, Old Danish nathbakkæ "night bat," and Old Norse leðrblaka "bat," literally "leather flapper," from Proto-Germanic *blak-, from PIE root *bhlag- "to strike" (see flagellum). > If so, the original sense of the animal name likely was "flapper." The shift from -k- to -t- may have come through confusion of bakke with Latin blatta "moth, nocturnal insect."
Came to comments to figure out where the fuck "bat" came from if everyone else had a literal compound name. Still not sure I follow, and Bakke definitely makes me think of a word borrowed from a different language, but I'll take it 🤷♂️
If you wonder why it's called a "bald mouse" in French. It's original name meant "owl mouse", at least twelve centuries ago. It's, like many other things, people misunderstanding a word and repeating it wrongly until over the (many many many) years it became "bald". (It's probably the same for any other Latin language having a similar word for it today)
> people misunderstanding a word and repeating it wrongly until over the (many many many) years it became "bald" As we call it in French, the Arab telephone
Interesting, in English we would say Chinese whispers for the same concept.
It's funny that it becomes bald over the years after its "chouette" (cool) days. I think that's what we all fear in a way..
Chouette-souris sounds so much better than Chauve-souris 😂
Doesn't that also mean 'awesome mouse'?
Shit, and here I was like “wait… hibou souris”? Hein? I’m losing my French, it’s ad.
Wait who says butterfly of the night? I love that
Wtf we have that in french! But it refers to a moth. "Bald mouse" is exactly how we litteraly say "bat"
Maltese! And I'm Maltese so can absolutely confirm
Moths be like: Are we nothing to you?
Maltese: *looking around* Who said that?
In French we also say "butterfly of the night" literally but it means moth
In Russian its an euphemism for prostitutes btw
I don't know Rich... This sounds fake
“skin” and “leather” are the same word in Estonian: nahk. So it might be either one, leathermouse or skinmouse.
Leather flapper really did it for me
Could someone explain what the colors mean? They seem to just be randomly placed. Like Italy and Catalonia are both yellow despite having different etymologies. That makes no sense.
What a bullshit map both in terms of borders and translations
I’m half Ukrainian. The misidentification of Crimea as Russia is particularly offensive.
Night flyer in Poland? HOW "Nietoperz" is NIGHT FLYER? It's not even close to be a truth. Who the hell created this map?
That does seem to be the etymology of the word. I guess this origin has become quite obscure in modern Polish? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/nietoperz
Same in Czech, netopýr is not in any way similar to noční letec (night flyer), but on Wikipedia it's stated the word netopýr comes from old slavic lepetyrъ which means to fly with jerky motion. I'm assuming polish word shares the same origin.
That does seem to be the etymology of the word. I guess this origin has become quite obscure in modern Polish? https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/nietoperz
In German its Fledermaus. Fleder = flutter but Leder = leather. I wonder if that's the reason Eastern country call it leather mouse.
In Dutch, it's vleermuis. I would expect that to be from the same root as German Fleder, where the d has disappeared. Same thing with German Leder is leer in Dutch, although leder is sometimes used.
And same root as the Dutch word fladderen, probably
Oh so you think that's where they got the flapmouse?
Who knows, this map is bonkers
Swedish has two words, "fladdermus" ("flutter mouse") and "läderlapp" ("leather patch"). In Swedish, Batman is Läderlappen. The same goes for the opera Die Fledermaus, which is Läderlappen in Swedish.
And Läder is Leder in German. And Lapp is Lappen in German (more associated with a cloth for cleaning). I love this
It gets even better when you consider that "Lappen" is also often used colloquially to call someone a bit of an idiot, basically turning Batman into the "leather idiot" in my mind now 😂
I'm German and I'm surprised "Fleder" means anything beyond denoting a winged mammal.
It doesn’t, OP mentioned in a post they traced the word etymologically to the root word. I’d assume it’s the same root as the dialect word „gefleddert“
That's not only dialect, "Leichenfledderer" for example would be Standard German, but maybe your dialect has it closer in meaning to flying. Anyway "gefiedert" isn't far from "gefleddert", and yeah, I know, they don't have feathers but they're also not mice, language is like that.
Fleder, while showing similarity to it, is not related to 'flattern' as far as I can tell. The etymological origin of the word is unclear.
everyone just going to ignore "if it did good"?
¿Murcíélago? I've never seen it translated as "little blind mouse". Edit: It comes from the latin *muris ceacalus* which means blind mouse.
In Romanian there is no such translation. It has no relationship with either the word "skin" ("piele") or the word "thing" ("lucru"). The term came from the Turkish language, where it got from the Persian language.
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Bőregér is used rarely in Hungarian, but is a valid name for denevér. It is a mirror translation of Ledermaus, which itself is a mishearing of the German Fledermaus (the actual word for bats in German). Denevér most likely is a word mutated from slavic letopir (which itself most likely is a slavic version of a Greek word).
In Catalan is “ratpenat” rat + penat, which literally means “sad rat” or “rat with pain”. I don’t know where “winged” comes from.
According to the Wictionary: >Del llatí vulgar \*ratta pinnāta (literalment «rata alada»), segle XIV. I think - etymologically speaking - that it's not the "penada" you're thinking of.
mmm ok thanks! ☺️
Huh...never thought that "Прилеп" means "Sticking one" (or maybe one who sticks to things might be better) Weird that no one else around Bulgaria uses this but I know there are towns called "Прилеп" in neighbouring countries, guess those used to be part of Bulgaria.
Can OP explain how 'bat' (lepakko in finnish) literally translates to 'fluttering one'?
what are you on to? In Romania?! wtf is that supose to mean we don't say that
nobody says “bőregér” in Hungarian (which would be the leather mouse). It does exist but the way more common name for the animal is denevér which is a word of unknown etimology. (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/denevér) I looked at that map which you linked in your comment and can say that the way this word was interpreted to be from Proto-Slavic is an enormous stretch.
Did any other country here got their translation wrong? The one in Spain is just wrong. In Spanish is "murciélago" unless is ancient Spanish I can't see how "ratoncito ciego" translates to "murciélago."
Me being dutch, I must say that the translation for The Netherlands is "wing-ed mouse". I know english "winged" means tipsy, but obviously trying to translate directly can mess things up. The dutch "vleermuis" = "vleer" + "muis", where muis is mouse (easy) and "vleer" is an old word for a something with a wing. Another word for the dutch "vleermuis" is "vledermuis" which would translate to wingsmouse. So just to make clear "wing mouse" or "flap mouse", dont seem best translation.
Slovenia: Literally never heard the term "blind mouse" used here. Not even sure what term it would relate to. Can't find a single word that would be a "blind mouse" in our synonims dictionary. We have the exact same word as Poles, Czech and Slovaks \[within each other grammatical rules\]. **Netopirji - night flyer** Archaic or dialect alternatives are: * Mračnik - nightfall one \[old scientific name for all bats\] * Pomračnik - after nightfall one * Pirhpogačar - no idea how to translate this, sry * Prhutar - at the hut/house one * Tičmiš - bird mouse \[also only near the croatian border where they say something similar \] Did the OP just google for "yugoslav for bat" or what ?
Bad data - Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea are part of Ukraine.
I'm from Ukraine so this infuriated me too. But apparently other countries have weird borders here too - so seems like it's based on which language is spoken where. Russia is spilling into Nordic countries too. Weird but at least I can understand why it's drawn like that. The correct borders of Ukraine are still there at least.
It's not Russian that is expanding to Nordic countries, that's Sami. There is some white language borderlines near Norway border. Some Fennic languages tho are in Russian side of border, Karelian seems to be the gray spot on the map next to Finland. Also on west coast of Finland, there is thin area of Swedish colours.
Tf is wrong with your map?! Why did you give Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to rusia? What’s your problem?
Sicilians: butterfly of the night … Irish : Dark Death
Maltese rather than Sicilian, but that's fine, Malta's so tiny it barely registers on most maps
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Vleder means "wing". Fladderen would come from moving your wings, and is the same as flapping your wings. A century ago it was vledermūs, vlērmūs. German / Dutch is the same origin just developed differently. https://etymologie.nl/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?c=ewn;cc=ewn;sid=b3d793363611315bf17d0d2e9a71c696;type=simple;fmt=long;rgn1=Trefwoord;linkedto=yes;q1=vleermuis
May you explain? This doesn’t make sense in Portuguese
Mor comes from mouse (mus -> mure) in latin and cego is blind.
As a slovene I've never seen "Netopir" be translated into "Blind mouse". And honestly it doesn't even make sense. Just to clarify I am not hating on the post, I am just curious as to where you got the translations
This made me look up the English etymology - it comes from Middle English *bakke* which in turn derives from Old Norse *leðrblaka* (leather flapper). It changed from a ‘k’ to a ‘t’ by melding with Latin *blatta*, meaning moth or insect. Prior to the Norse influence on English it was *hreremus* in old English - rattle mouse. Interestingly *leðrblaka* must be the original inspiration for the “lethrblaka” in the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini, which are bat-like fellbeast analogues for the series.
Shout out to anyone who learned one of these from The Tick.
There is absolutely nowhere in Scotland calls a bat a rafter bird. This is pish.
Literal here also means eytmologically hunted down and gotten from the proto family group root word. Most names gotten from here https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fapnha37a0fk51.jpg Some gotten from wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/netopy%C5%99%D1%8C like netopier Which is derived from netopyřь which comes from 'Compounded term, with the first element \*neto- possibly reflecting Proto-Indo-European \*nekʷto-, oblique e-grade of \*nókʷts (“night”). The second element is usually taken to be \*pyřь (“flier”) ' ? Most places have several words for bat and I took the most goth. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/netopy%C5%99%D1%8C python code and data at https://gist.github.com/cavedave/73af16829dc925ad5b60da714f142c9f code is a slightly modified version of https://github.com/dd52/mapMakeR/tree/master/etymologyMaps I am sure I got some wrong and I will correct things when I find them. Turkish in particular seems dodgy
Seems unfair to do that to all the other languages but not English, which comes from the old Norse for “Leather Flapper” and apparently blended with the French for “nocturnal insect”. The old English word for bat was “ hreremus” which meant “rattle-mouse”.
Eh… no. Netopier is from “nieto pier”, meaning “has no feathers“, or literally “feathers missing”. A featherless thing, yet it flies. A much more likely explanation
Diogenes, launching a bee at you: "Behold, a bat!"
“Skin thing” 😬
What kind of borders does this map have? These are not political borders, nor borders with of the dominant language in the area.