Scientific
Let us make a scientific approach to the"guinea pigs".
Linguistic
Coming soon: Evolution
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Why is guinea pig called guinea pig?
They does not even come from Guinea! Let us take a look at the translations of the word "guinea pig".
- Guinea Pig - English
- One of the explanation of this name is the price of the cavies that used to be 1 guinea.
- Cochon d'Inde - French
- Pig of Inde (India?). OK, Marco Polo
thought he came to India when he came to America. The cute little animal from
South America was mistaken as cute little animals from India.
- Marsvin - Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
- Marsvin means "pig from the
ocean". I think "marsvin" means dolphin in Danish too. Well, the cuties came by boat
from South America to Europe, across the ocean.
- Meerschweinchen - German
- Same as above. My german teacher told us that
the suffix "chen" was used to "small" things. So does it mean "small-ocean-pigs?"
- Morumotto - Japanese
- Comes from the word "marmot". But, Marmots
does not have anything to do with guinea pigs! (but they are cute too...)
- Tenjiku-mezumi - Japanese
- Another Japanese try to call guinea pigs.
This time they are related to rats. Does anybody know what "tenjiku" means?
Evolution
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