(continued)
by Heraclius Astudillo Pombo. DMACS-UdL.
3 - The common names of fossils pools can be completely "opaque" outside the language field.
Some common names to be incomprehensible to people from linguistically distant cultures, denominations might seem quite arbitrary, lacking any meaning. Moreover, by not being able to establish relationships based pnemotécnicas on morphological characteristics, or to partner with known facts or legendary characters, such category of vulgar names would be difficult to memorize and remember. These names, to be devoid of any meaning outside their original language, may seem "useless", why invest some effort into your memory might be hard to justify, for travelers outsiders could occasionally come into contact with such popular names. Meaningless names, have tended to not be learned properly and be forgotten easily, circumstances that have favored their territorial expansion and would have remained stationed in their original language areas and their immediate geographical periphery.
This situation would have occurred to some of the vulgar names of fossils, created in some of the minority Iberian languages \u200b\u200band especially for non-Latin root name, such as euskara or similar names in foreign languages \u200b\u200blike English German. Only in some cases it might be somewhat problematic some common names, created using minority Iberian Romance languages \u200b\u200band dialects (Aragon, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Catalan, Galician, Leonese, Portuguese, Valencian, etc..), Because in these cases, being more or less related to the Castilian, the majority or dominant language, in most cases, the degree of opacity would be much less or no to the first mentioned.
The first group of names completely opaque, outside the territories Basque speakers in Spain and France, known as "Euskal Herria", would apply to all common names of fossils generated in Euskera. A good example of this would be the multiple names used to refer to the common sea urchin fossils of the species Micraster coranginum in Guipúzcoa Basques and in parts of Navarre.
We have already discussed in first part of this article on the great variability of the popular nomenclature has been used in the two areas mentioned Basques to refer to the same class of fossils, so we will not repeat here what has already been treated there.
A copy of Micraster coranginum with his characteristic heart-shaped and its cross-shaped mark, both characteristics have contributed to generate the popular mind, past, various legends and popular beliefs and ascribe names consistent with them.
Image: http://www.primigenius.com/shop/index.php?p=object.php&table=echinoids&id=358
The only thing I repeat here again is that the analysis of onomastic motivation of many of those vulgar names, it is clear that there was a clear motivation mythical, religious and legendary, because in many cases it appears that for some unknown reason, today only intuited or inferred, had established a link between this type of fossil echinoids and some superior beings capable of being in the clouds, whether they were supernatural beings: God, Jesus Christ, various saints, or at least superhuman beings, witches.
A second example of popular names belonging to this group completely opaque language outside its territory, would be the case of " Hirutasun Santuaren arriak (cast." stones of the Holy Trinity ") from Aguinaga Iza (Navarra), also mentioned above, since it applied equally to fossil specimens of two different types of brachiopods, to the species Rhynchonellida decorata , and Upper Jurassic of Zeilleria (Cincta) numismalis , Middle Jurassic. Both types of fossils were collected in close proximity, in outcrops located along the path
since Aguinaga amounts to the chapel of the Trinity, near the summit of Mount Erga (Navarra). Six copies of Rhynchonellida decorata , one of the types of fossils Erga sacred mountain, they receive in Euskera the name "Hirutasun Santuaren arriak "
If, in this particular case, we analyze the possible onomastic reasons, we see that the first two words, the common name tricompuesto allude to their relationship with the sacred, whether a triple divine being (the Trinity) or point to the sacred place of origin (the land of the mountain which is located the chapel). Linking physical proximity with an entity or sacred space, according to the popular magical thinking, these stones would have given special virtues of certain individuals, specifically the power to repel the lightning in the area. The third word of tricompuesto common name, refers to a property relatively unusual and wonderful for a shell, the fact of being "petrified" in nature or stone (stones).
The second group completely opaque names, common use, but without meaning or meaning "clear" for linguistic opacity, would be the case of some names, from the popularization of certain generic name, type or scholar scientist. It would be some common names derived from their respective religions and scientific names that, initially, had been created for the exclusive use of students of paleontology, but then would have been "infected" the indigenous population of some towns rich in fossils by paleontologists themselves who visited regularly and contacts and talking with local people. Another route of entry of such names, vulgar language, have been published by the newspaper articles written from earlier times in this medium.
This type of Hellenized or Latinized names, necessarily, had to be absolutely unintelligible to the common people, by the mere fact that religion and scientific names of living things or their fossilized remains, it was agreed that should be generated in Latin or be Latinized, but also many They have Greek roots. Since the classical languages, Greek and Latin, in modern times were already "dead languages" because long ago that his vocabulary had been outside the scope of normal natural language use of the current population. As the names of this type, often lack any meaning for ordinary people or "vulgar."
In the same way most scientific names often become completely incomprehensible and lacking in meaning for ordinary people, so with most modern paleontologists, for his total ignorance of Greek and Latin. However, paleontologists are the only social group that today is still motivated to create and memorize these names. Paleontologists are the only people able to use properly, the scientific names of fossils, both to identify certain individuals as to refer to certain species.
Examples of this kind of opaque popular names in most cases, it seems more be vulgarized variety of names, names derived from the corresponding biological gender, could be: nummulites , nummulites and nummulites, scientific name derived Nummulites, similarly, ammonites, ammonites, ammonites and ammonites, have resulted from Ammonites, this would also be the case belemites, belemitas, belemitos, belenitas and belenites , Belemnite derivatives.
Appearance, external, internal mold of a shell of an ammonite large, the Jurassic.
image: http://www.minas.upm.es/inicio/Museo% 20Historico/paleonto.htm
Third and finally, present an example of opaque names, names some of foreign origin, as we have heard rumors and well-funded but not yet confirmed, that in certain areas of Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Catalonia and the Basque, have supported characterized by intense mining activity initiated with foreign capital in the seventeenth century and maintained until the early twentieth century, the miners had used, some weird popular names that derive from the common names used by mining engineers, English or German who led the work of those mines. Apparently foreign names, as more or less with English, had been assimilated by the indigenous people of the mining towns, such as common name, since there is at this historical moment and locality no common name in the English language as a local alternative.
Although we have not been able to locate, or recover any specific examples of such popular names "exogenous", we imagine that the names of this type result from the sound of the original foreign word, Castilianized by miners who used them. The names of this group could be of a type similar to some that we have invented to illustrate a linguistic fact that, unfortunately, still do not have any "proof" and concrete feaciente .... but "we're at it." One of these names could be imagined zandarboul, derived from English "Thunderbolt", another might be esneiquestoun, derived from English "snakestone" or "snake-stone", the German derivatives could be something like judenestein, derived from German "Judenstein" bonifaciosfenig derived from German "Bonifatiuspfennige" or esteresteine \u200b\u200b , derived from German "Sternstein" etc. .. (Warning: We remember and we insist that all previous names, supposedly created by English miners, are pure invention, imagined a purely exemplary and illustrative only)
External appearance of five copies of faces fossilized belemnites, a very common fossil in Jurassic land English, to those in various parts of the United Kingdom which also abound, have been named "Thunderbolt" (cast. "points of thunder").
Image: http://www.geocities.com/jurfossil/bel6.jpg
