Wednesday, January 18, 2012

How Penguin might have got its name पैंग्विन का नामकरण कैसे हुआ होगा




On today’s walk with our ancestors in hoary past, we met a new creature on the sea shore. We saw a bird.  But we were confused.  The bird was swimming in water; not only with its webbed feet as ducks do but also its flippers! We got closer. It was not afraid of us. In fact it comes out and walked toward us. On closer look we found that it had no wings. It looked like that nature had transformed the wings of this bird into flippers. Oh my God! A bird without wings! We asked the head ancestor: “What will you call it?” The answer was in Sanskrit:  “PANKH-HEEN पंखहीन (PANKH= wing + HEEN= without). We travelled back to our times. On the way the name PANKHAHEEN was undergoing a few mutations and had got changed to PENGUIN (one mutation in consonant Kh> G and other minor changes in vowels).
Original name
PANKHAHEEN
Sanskrit word.
= wingless
पंखहीन
P
A
N
KH
A
H
E
E
N
1st mutation
(A>E)
PENKHAHEEN
P
E
N
KH
A
H
E
E
N
2nd mutation
(KH>G)
PENGAHEEN
P
E
N
G
A
H
E
E
N
3rd mutation
(A>U)
PENGUHEEN
P
E
N
G
U
H
E
E
N
4TH mutation
(H>Y)
PENGUYEEN
P
E
N
G
U
Y
E
E
N
5th mutation
(Y>I)
PENGUIIIN
P
E
N
G
U
I
I
I
N
6TH mutation
(deletion of I at 2 places)
PENGUIN
पैंग्विन
p
E
N
G
U
I


N

Back home I opened the dictionary to check for etymology of penguin. It says:
“Word Origin & History

penguin
1578, originally used of the great auk of Newfoundland (now extinct), shift in meaning to the Antarctic bird (which looks something like it, found by Drake in Magellan's Straits in 1578) is from 1588. Of unknown origin, though often asserted to be from Welsh pen "head" + gwyn "white" (see

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
  
पुरखों के साथ प्राचीन काल की यात्रा में आज हमने समुद्र किनारे एक विचित्र जीव देखा। लगता तो पक्षी ही था, किन्तु कुछ शंका भी हो रही थी। पक्षी पानी में तैर रहा था, किन्तु बतख की तरह अपने झिल्ली वाले पैरो के साथ ही यह अपने पंखोटे भी चला रहा था। विचित्र! हम पास गए। वह डरा नहीं। पानी से बाहर निकल कर हमारे पास ही आ गया। हमने ध्यान से देखा कि इस पक्षी के पंख नहीं थे। प्रकृति ने इसके पंखों को मछली के चप्पू जैसे मीनपंखों में बादल दिया था। हे भगवान! पक्षी और पंख-विहीन! हमने मुखिया पूर्वज से पूछा: “इसका क्या नाम रखेंगे?” उन्होने तुरंत उत्तर दिया: “पंखहीन”।
हम वापस अपने काल में लौट चले। वापसी के रास्ते में पंखहीन शब्द में परिवर्तन हो रहा था: पंखहीन > पंगहीन > पंगयीन > पंगविन > पैंग्विन    
वापस आकार शब्दकोश में देखा कि पैंग्विन शब्द कहाँ से आया? शब्दकोश में लिखा था : “कुछ ठीक से नहीं पता, किन्तु माना जाता है कि पैंग्विन वेल्श भाषा का शब्द है जो दो वेल्श शब्दों को जोड़ कर बना है: पेन = सिर,  और ग्विन = श्वेत। हमें लगा कि अगर यही सच है तब तो सभी सफ़ेद सिर वाले पक्षियों का नाम पेंग्विन क्यों नहीं है?

7 comments:

  1. it is convincing when we move from sanskrit to english but since the bird is found in antarctica and no indian had gone there earlier .how do you explain its origin

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  2. Sir there is also an interesting story about the name of Calcutta now Kolkata...The name came into being when Job Charnock asked a farmer the name of the area around Hooghly River. The farmer misunderstood due to language problems and thought that he was referring as to when he harvested his paddy. He proudly replied "Kal Kaata" meaning "I cut it yesterday." Job Charnock thought that the name of the place is Calcutta .

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    Replies
    1. :-)
      Yes Vineet,it may be true.. But I am not sure. There are lot of such stories about tree names. I will discuss those in this series when i discuss tree names.

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  3. Replies
    1. We have all learned all these years that Antarctica was discovered in 1820. Obviously,no Sanskrit speaking Indians could not have gone there before that. However, there is now, evidence that an ancient civilization had visited Antarctica and the Americas 6000 years ago. A 1531-map, i.e. about 300 years before discovery of Antarctica, shows accurate outlint of Antarctica. Amazingly, it depicts Antarctic coastline as it would have been 6000 years ago!(see: http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm). So, who knows if we went there? All that today that I know is that the words 'navy' and 'navigation' are based on Skt. NAV = boat. I will show in this series that the word Antarctica (and words for other continents) are also related Sanskrit word that define their very nature.
      About Penguin: according to an etymology dictionary 'Etymonline', the word Penguin was "originally used of the great auk of Newfoundland (now extinct), shift in meaning to the Antarctic bird (which looks something like it, found by Drake in Magellan's Straits in 1578) is from 1588". When, auk became extinct in 1844, the name got shifted to penguin. We in India are finding in our own life time that as lion face extinction, word in Hindi SHER has shifted from lion to tiger. There is no reason to disbelieve right now that the penguin was originally used for South American bird. But I am going to show you in this series that South American words from Peru are related to their Sanskrit equivalents.

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  4. Dear Sir,
    Great to see you here!
    This is the only word that I remember you shared with us almost five years ago.
    Hoping your new venture would be satisfying and successful.
    Regards

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