Animals on a geographical map

Any geographical map, especially a large-scale one, is "inhabited" by all kinds of animals, fish, birds, reptiles, mollusks, insects.

However, for the first, most general acquaintance with this phenomenon, it is not even necessary to unfold the map.

It is enough just to take a closer look around to remember a familiar hill near your place of residence, a gully, a stream, a village, a lake, and there will certainly be at least one "animal" among their names.

Almost in every administrative region, not to mention a region or a territory, there are the villages of Zaitsevo and Volkovo, Zhabino and Losevo, Shmelevo and Solov'i; Sokolov or Voronya mountains; lakes Bobrovoe or Shchuchye; rivers Lebyazhya or Uzhikha. Such place names have become familiar.

In historical documents, there are not so many (in comparison with the total mass, of course) exactly fixed at the time of birth of toponyms: who named and when, for what reason, reason, occasion. Therefore, the method of analogy remains the most reliable assistant to the researcher. At the same time, the possible ways of origin of this or that geographical name are being clarified.

Place names such as Bobrovoe, Lebyazhye, Selezen, Vydrino, Zmeino, Volchye, Yastrebovo, Rakino, Somino, Lunevo, Ukleikino, Sorochino (all these are the names of lakes in the Pskov region) are explained quite simply. For example, our distant ancestors came to a reservoir and were amazed at the abundance of swans on it, so they called it Lebyazhy. In another lake, crayfish were found in an extraordinary amount - what could he be, if not Rakin? The name could also be influenced by an accidental find not far from the shore of a wolf's den, for example, or a bear den.

Precisely these considerations were guided by the pioneers, in the 9th century, who began the development of the previously uninhabited Iceland. We learn about this from the Icelandic sagas:

There, a small bay cuts into the coast nearby. They saw many ducks in it and named it An-dakil (Duck Bay), and the river that flowed into the sea there - Andakilsa (Duck Bay river);

... they went to a small promontory and killed several swans there. This cape was named Alftanes (Swan Cape);

Not far from the coast there were islands near which whales were found. They were named Khvalseyar (Whale Islands).

And here is what we read in the book of the famous researcher of Central Asia G. E. Grumm-Grzhimailo "Description of the journey to Western China":

“... We, having crossed a low ridge, which serves here as a continuation of the Tyuge-tau ridge, and being drawn into the valley of the meridional direction, soon reached a key that had no name yet, and therefore was called by Rakhmet Urus-kiik-urdy-bulak, which means the key on which the Russians beat kiiks, that is, jay-early, v. The motive for this name was the following circumstance.

We had hardly had time to get settled in the place we had chosen for the bivouac when Komarov noticed a herd of gazelles making their way to the water. A shot followed, and one of the last fell victim to his excessive trust in man, and in the evening I also managed to kill the second male antelope here. "

It is more difficult with the names of settlements. The village of Volkovo could, for example, get its name not necessarily because of the abundance of predators in the surrounding forests, but also by the name of the first settler - Volk, and by the name of the landowner - Volkov.

Close attention to toponymy can sometimes be of service to scientists. So, the toponyms of the basin
the Bolshoi Kas rivers in Eastern Siberia - Bobrovoe lake, Bobrovaya river, Bobrovoe village - have helped in our time to determine the best place for the beaver sanctuary. Only a few of the old-timers could remember that once a valuable fur-bearing animal was found in this area.Indeed, according to statistics, the last beaver was caught here in the last century. Predatory hunting led to the complete extermination of beaver colonies, the existence of which was undoubtedly evidenced by the characteristic toponyms. And this means that on the rivers flowing into the Bolshoi Kas, there have long been especially favorable conditions for the life of a valuable animal ... Now in the Bolshekasiysky reserve there are numerous offspring from the first families of migrant beavers, brought here only two decades ago.

By the way, fluffy new settlers arrived in Siberia, from Belarus and the Voronezh region: it was there that by the beginning of this century there were still individual specimens of the beaver, knocked out everywhere, and the first beaver reserves in the country were created after the revolution. The toponymy of Belarus has preserved to this day the memory of the former abundance of the mercilessly exterminated beast: Beaver, Bobrik, Bobrovitskoye - many villages, rivers, lakes bear these and similar names. Bobru also owes its name to the large city of Bobruisk.

"Animal" toponyms are generally not uncommon among settlements, which are awarded the rank of a city. As of July 1, 1968, among those in the Russian Federation we find: Volchansk and Voronezh, Gusev and Gusinoozersk, Gus-Khrustalny and Ershov, Zhukovka, Zmeinogorsk, Kozelsk, Kozlovka, Kotovo, Lebedyan, Medvezhyegorsk, Oryol, Olenegorsk, Osu, Osu, , Petushki, Rybinsk, Rybnoe, Rybno-Slobodsky, Sokolniki, Shchuchye.

Very often the names of our cities go back to more ancient natural toponyms: Voronezh (stands on the Voronezh River, the left tributary of the Don), Orel (the Orlik River flowing into the Oka was called Orel until 1784), Gusinoozersk, Olenegorsk, Gus-Khrustalny (from the Gus River; the second part of the name is associated with the construction of a crystal factory in the middle of the 18th century). However, Lviv, a city in Western Ukraine, first mentioned in the chronicle under 1256, has no direct relation to the king of animals - there were no “lion” natural place names here. The riddle is solved simply: the Galician-Volyn prince Daniil Romanovich who founded the city gave him the name of his son Leo.

It is quite natural that foreign language toponyms are much more difficult to decipher.

There are Bolshaya Okhta and Malaya Okhta in Leningrad. Both of these place names are associated with the name of the river flowing into the Neva - Okhta. But what does this word itself mean? There are different versions. One of them - the name was given to the river by the people of the Estonian tribe Chud, who lived on the territory of the modern Leningrad region. "Okht" is ancient Estonian "bear", therefore, the exact meaning of the name of the river is Medvezhya.

The Kottas - the people who once inhabited Southern Siberia - have long ceased to exist, however, the Kott "Wolf River" continues to live in the place names of the river and the city of Barnaul.

The Crimean city of Balaklava is very ancient, and the current name was given to it by the Turks who seized the city in 1475 and means "Nest of fishes" in translation.

Another Crimean toponym was of "fish" origin. We are talking about the predecessor of modern Kerch - the ancient city of Panticapaeum, founded in the 6th century BC. The Iranian version of its name is considered the most probable: panti - kara, that is, "fish way". Indeed, the Kerch Strait not only now, but since ancient times was known for the abundance of fish, in ancient times the most expensive varieties of it were even exported from here.

Another Greek colony city on the territory of Crimea - Mirmekiy (Anthill) had a curious name.

There is no consensus among scientists about other toponyms to this day. The name of the Moskva River, for example, which has passed to the capital of our Motherland, is being explained by both the Mari “maska ​​ava” (bear) and the Komi “mos (k) va” (cow water). There are other versions, but it is unclear which one should be preferred.

Toponyms are not always simple in form, unambiguous; some of them can be spreading like a big tree.Anyone who has read the notes of John Tenner "Thirty Years Among the Indians" will probably recall the description of the rocky area, which the people of the Ojibwe tribe called Ke-nyu-kau-neshe-wai-byunt ("Where they drop the gray eagle"). One can only guess that this intricate name is associated with some legend of the Indians.

Comprehensiveness, spaciousness is generally characteristic of Indian toponyms. In modern Mexico, we find such geographical names in the languages ​​of the Maya, Nahua, Zapotecs and others (there are up to 125 Indian languages ​​and dialects in this country!): "Snake resting place", "Badger watering place", "The river along which hummingbirds live" , "On the mountain of ravens", "Big snake", "The mountain of ants", "Among the owls", "In the house of snakes", "On the mountain of mosquitoes", "Near the water, where there are flies", etc. It is believed that one of the longest place names in the world has a lake in Massachusetts (USA). It consists of 44 letters and in translation literally means the following: "You fish on your side, we fish on our side, no one is fishing in the middle."

On a geographical map, we can easily find cities whose names come from the names of animals.

The name of the large industrial center of the United States, Buffalo, is an echo of the time when millions of herds of bison grazed on the site of the present city and in the entire district: the German Buffel means "bison", "buffalo".

Oxford (England), famous for its University for the ancient Angles, was just a "Cow ford". In the olden days, this place was used to drive cattle across the ford of the Cherwell River.

Thousands of kilometers from one another are the cities of Stuttgart (FRG) and Isfahan (Iran). However, if you translate their names into Russian, then they will turn out to be namesakes: "Horse farm", "Horse yard".

Our Melitopol, a city in Ukraine, called so in its time in the Greek manner - "Bee City", or "City of Bees".

The city of Tigre (or otherwise Rio Tigre), Argentine Venice, famous for its fifteen rowing clubs, and two large oil regions of Venezuela, El Tigre and El Tigrito (Tigrenok), are named after the striped predator, the thunderstorm of the jungle.

Imperialist Japan began the war against the United States of America with a pirate attack on the port of Pearl Harbor, translated from English this name means "Pearl Harbor".

The capital of Sudan, Khartoum, stands at the confluence of the White and Blue Nile, and the arrow shape remarkably resembles the trunk of an elephant. In Arabic "Khartoum" means "trunk".

But experts differ on the origins of the name of the main city of the African state of Uganda. Some believe that Kampala is directly related to "impala" (antelope), while others raise this name to the word "empala", which means "leopard" in the ancient language of the Basoga people.

The name of the capital of another African country - Mauritania - sounds flowery in translation: Nouakchott means "Kingdom of seashells". The capital was built quite recently (the first stone was laid in March 1958), and we must pay tribute to the resourcefulness and wit of the authors of the young toponym: all courtyards and many streets are literally strewn with shells in Nouakchott. In a city of 50,000, they serve as a natural substitute for asphalt or concrete, covering quicksand.

On the coat of arms of the main city of the Republic of Mali - Bamako, located on the banks of the Niger River, it is not by chance that the images of three crocodiles are placed: the very name of the capital sounds in translation as "City on the Crocodile River" (bamba - crocodile, "o - river).

Equally meaningful is the bear on the current em (blem of the city of Bern - the capital of Switzerland. According to legend, the city was founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold, after killing a bear on this very place. The Duke gave the name to the future city - Bern (Vage - bear).

Here are some more examples: Buzuluk means "veal", Vorkuta - "bear", Konotop - from "horse", Bugulma and Buguruslan - from "bull", Alupka - "fox" (USSR); Brindisi - from "deer" (Italy); Fuenteovejuna - "Sheep's Spring" (Spain); Sialkot - "place of jackals" (Pakistan); Ivry - from "boar, boar" (France); Mysore - "the place of buffaloes" (India); Cheyenne - "snake", Chicago - "skunk" (USA).

The names of various representatives of the animal kingdom are borne by many bays, straits, islands, and entire archipelagos.

The Azores, which lie off the northwestern coast of Africa, in the Middle Ages were called Avian by the Arabs.Having rediscovered these deserted islands in 1431, the Portuguese concretized the name - since that time the archipelago has been called "Hawk" (asor - in Portuguese "hawk"). The Portuguese sailors were most impressed by the unprecedented multitude of hawks on the islands.

Other seafarers - the Spanish - considered large dogs of the local breed (canis - Latin for "dog") to be the greatest attraction of the Canary Islands.

Almost equidistant from Scotland and Iceland are the Faroe ("Sheep" in translation) islands, which owe their name to sheep brought here by Scottish hermit monks.

If dogs and hawks have not been ignored

The grumblers are the discoverers of new lands, then what can we say then about the miracle of the Galapagos Islands - a huge elephant turtle (galapago in Spanish)! The dimensions of her shell are about one centimeters long and 60 centimeters high. Some of the giants reach an enormous weight - 400 kilograms!

The Spaniards discovered the islands in the 17th century; elephant turtles roamed there at that time in countless herds. Later, whalers and pirates willingly used them as readily available and practically non-perishable food. Hundreds of turtles were thrown into the ship's holds. Hardy animals could exist without food and drink for up to a year or even more, and the sailors all this time did not transfer to the menu a fresh and tasty turtle. In the end, these amazing animals, personal observations of which the great Darwin used to substantiate the theory of the origin of species, were on the verge of extinction. Only in 1965, yielding to the pressure of world public opinion, the government of Ecuador (the islands belong to this country) declared the Galapagos a national park, that is, a nature reserve.

A hawk, a dog, a sheep, a turtle - this is by no means a complete list, we will also mention an elephant (Elephant Island in the Bombay Bay), a jellyfish (Iturup is one of the Kuril Islands), wild boars (Nassi Dumbo - this is how the local population calls Madagascar), a beaver (Bobrovy Island in the Bering Sea), kangaroos (Kangaroo Island off the coast of Australia), flying dogs (Kapandina, near Zanzibar), lemurs (Nosy Komba, near Madagascar), caiman (Cayman Islands in the West Indies) and many other names of smaller and smaller islands famous.

Why are there islands, whole countries have names associated with the names of animals.

One of these countries is Singapore - in translation from Sanskrit "Lion City". A city-country is only an apparent absurdity, because this state is dwarf, it consists, in essence, of one city of Singapore. It is noteworthy that the image of a lion towering on the city tower is still the emblem of Singapore.

The name of the Central American Republic of Panama may seem even weirder in translation: "A place where fish is well caught." It should be clarified here that although this republic is incomparably more extensive than Singapore, it is called in the same way by its capital, the city of Panama. And the city inherited the name from the eponymous Indian village.

Interestingly, one of the largest Phoenician cities - Sidon ("Fishing Place") can rightfully be considered the namesake of Panama: fishing played an important role in the life of the Phoenicians.

But back to countries and states. The word “Uruguay” (from the name of the river of the same name) in the Charrua language meant either “River of colorful birds” or “River of snails”. Alas, it is no longer possible to check the accuracy of the translation, and the colonialists must be blamed for this: the Indian tribe of Charrua was completely exterminated ...

Also along the river, the African state of Cameroon was named. The first Europeans to visit this territory of Africa were the sailors of the Portuguese expedition Lopo Gonzales (15th century). They found a huge number of shrimp (camaroes in Portuguese) at the mouth of the Vuri River and gave it the name of this crustacean. Later, Europeans began to call the entire coast "the River of Shrimps" - Cameroon.

Albanians call their country Shqiperi (from shqipe - eagle).Presumably, the name of the African state of the Republic of Mali is based on a word from the Mandingo language mali, meaning "hippopotamus".

Serra Lean (Lion Mountains) - this is how the Portuguese Pedro di Sintra, who landed here in 1462, called one of the sections of the western coast of Africa: the outlines of the local mountains seemed to him like the regal profile of a lion. The present Republic of Sierra Leone (the Spanish version of the Portuguese Serra Lean) owes its name to this optical illusion.

Having discovered a new land for themselves - the Iberian Peninsula, the Phoenicians gave it the name "I-Shapan", which means "Daman Island". Two delusions at once. First, not an island, but a peninsula. Secondly, the Phoenicians confused the Spanish wild rabbits with the hyraxes, familiar to them - the smallest ungulates, in appearance, however, very similar to hares and rabbits. In Latin this Phoenician name was transformed into "Hispania", and in Russian - into "Spain".

Until now, Shor was talking about the modern "animal" names of countries and states. It is logical to assume that the further into the depths of the centuries, the more such names should be. Historical data can serve as confirmation.

The emergence of statehood in Egypt dates back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. It was then that over forty small kingdoms appeared in the Nile Valley, which were often called by the name of the patron god (in the form of an animal): "Hare Region", "White Antelope Region", etc. Moreover, the ancient political division turned out to be so stable that much later, these kingdoms in the form of regions ("nomes" in Greek) continued to be part of the united Egypt.

Remnants of totemism can be clearly traced in the socio-political life of the ancient peoples of the Andes region, which occupied the territories of present-day Peru and Colombia. In the Inca state, the communities bore the names of animals: Pumamarca (Puma communities), Condor-marka (Condor communities), Huamanmarka (Hawk communities), etc.

The ancient name of Laos was Lansan - "Country of millions of elephants."

Many have heard of Arcadia, an ancient Greek state located in the central part of the Peloponnese. This is the “fault” of this literary tradition dating back to the 17th century, following which Arcadia was portrayed as a country where farmers and shepherds lived happily and carelessly. This explains the well-known catch phrase "Arcadian idyll".

The word "Arcadia" in fact turns out to be the same root as "Arctic" (see the chapter "The oldest inhabitants of space"), and means, translated from Greek, "Country of Bears". Can there be any doubt that the name characterized this mountainous country much more reliably than the subsequent accidental literary tradition.

"Serika" - "Country of Silk People" - this is how the Greeks and Romans called China in ancient times.

The legendary bird phoenix, which burned itself a thousand years later, in order to then be reborn from the ashes, owes its name to the Syrian coast, known from history as Phenicia (more correctly - Phoenician). According to legend, it was here that the rejuvenation of the phoenix bird took place.

In the 15th century, on the territory of modern Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iraq and Western Iran, there were two state associations of nomadic tribes - the Turks. These states were called Kara-Koyunlu ("Black ram") and Ak-Koyunlu ("White ram") - according to the corresponding images on the banners. In 1467-1468, the "White Sheep" defeated the "Black Sheep" and became the sole master of all these territories.

And finally, about the so-called "horse latitudes" in the Atlantic Ocean. This is the 30th latitude of the northern hemisphere. Calm prevails in these latitudes. After the discovery of America, horses were imported to the New World in large numbers. Getting into the 30th latitude, sailboats often froze in the ocean for a long time due to calm weather. And the horses, left without food and fresh water, died in masses, 4 and they had to be thrown out to be eaten by sharks.It was from that time that the name "horse latitudes" was fixed in maritime use.

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