4 ms·
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology : "Ape", from Old English apa, is a word of
by UncleSlacky 3y ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape#Name_and_terminology :
"Ape", from Old English apa, is a word of uncertain origin. The term has a history of rather imprecise usage—and of comedic or punning usage in the vernacular. Its earliest meaning was generally of any non-human anthropoid primate, as is still the case for its cognates in other Germanic languages.
- inglor_cz 3y agoCzech "opice" seems to have a common root with "ape". The older version thereof was "op", even closer to "ape". So the origin might actually be Indo-European.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoYou don't need to look back to Proto-Indo-European for a word like this. Like many other words in Slavic, this Czech word is more likely a borrowing from Germanic prior to the merger of short *a and *o to /o/ in Common Slavonic. Indeed, I just checked and it is listed on p. 200 of Pronk-Tiethoff’s The Germanic Loanwords in Proto-Slavic, the modern standard reference for these matters.