Figure 1.1 One of several types of specimens of the Usambara three-horned chameleon (Chamaeleon deremensis, today part of the genus Trioceros), described in 1896 by Georg Friedrich Paul Matschie, then curator of the mammal collection. Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, M. Ohl photo.
On March 3, 1942, a brief item with a rather peculiar headline appeared tucked away in the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. “Fledermaus No Longer!” the bold letters proclaimed. The following short text was printed underneath:
At its 15th General Assembly, the German Society for Mammalogy passed a resolution to change the zoologically misleading names “Spitzmaus” [shrew] and “Fledermaus” [bat] to “Spitzer” and “Fleder.” Fleder is an old form for Flatterer [one that flutters]. The Spitzmaus, as it happens, has borne a variety of names: Spitzer [one that is pointed], Spitzlein, Spitzwicht, Spitzling. Over the course of the conference, several important lectures were held in the auditorium of the Zoologisches Museum […].
To this day, despite the problems announced by Germany’s leading specialists on mammals on the pages of one of the capital’s daily papers, Fledermaus and Spitzmaus remain the common German names for bats and shrews. Neither dictionaries nor specialized nature guides contain entries for Fleder or Spitzer (provided one disregards the primary definition of Spitzer, which is a “small implement used for the sharpening of pencils”).
Indeed, a swift response to the item in question arrived from an unexpected source. Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s private secretary, sent a message on March 4, 1942, to Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery. The missive contained remarkably unambiguous instructions from Hitler:
In yesterday’s newspapers, the Führer read an item regarding the changes of name ratified by the German Society for Mammalogy on the occasion of its 15th General Assembly. The Führer subsequently instructed me to communicate to the responsible parties, in no uncertain terms, that these changes of name are to be reversed immediately. Should members of the Society for Mammalogy have nothing more essential to the war effort or smarter to do, perhaps an extended stint in the construction battalion on the Russian front could be arranged. Should such asinine renamings occur once more, the Führer will unquestionably take appropriate measures; under no circumstance should terms that have become established over the course of many years be altered in this fashion.
There’s no question that the “responsible parties” understood and responded to the injunction, which could hardly have been misinterpreted. On July 1, 1942, at least, a notice was printed in the Zoologischer Anzeiger—at that time, the “organ of the German Zoological Society”—that comprised a scant five lines. The notice has no byline and can most likely be attributed to the journal’s publishers:
Regarding the discussion [in earlier issues of the Zoologischer Anzeiger] about potential changes to the names “Fledermaus” and “Spitzmaus,” the Editors wish to make public that terms that have become established over the course of many years are not to be altered, following an announcement by the Reich Minister of Science, Education, and National Culture, as per the Führer’s directive.
It’s conceivable that Lammers forwarded Hitler’s instructions (which had reached him by way of Bormann) to Bernhard Rust, the Reich Minister of Science, Education, and National Culture. Rust will then likely have ordered one of the “parties responsible” for the unpopular initiative to publish the retraction in the appropriate platform. The Zoologischer Anzeiger fit the bill, considering the fact that by 1941 it had already featured two articles debating whether the name Spitzmaus should be changed.
What is the problem, though, that veteran scientists have with Spitzmaus and Fledermaus, those innocuous terms for the shrew and the bat? And how could it come to pass that Adolf Hitler—preoccupied as he was in 1942—should personally join in the campaign for the correct classification of these small mammals?
Figure 1.2 North American Insectivora. Four shrew species and the shrew mole (bottom) in an engraving from 1859. Baird, S. F., Mammals of North America, Plate XXVIII (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859). Library of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
The common thread in these two unremarkable and familiar terms is of course the second word component, Maus, or “mouse.” This part of a compound word—or a word formed by joining substantives—is known in German grammar as the base or determinatum. The base, which is always located at the end of the word, determines both the denotation and grammatical gender of the compound. The word to the left of the base, the determinative or determinant (which can also be multiple words), defines the base more precisely. Thus, an armchair is first and foremost a chair with the more specific attribute of possessing arms. As far as our mice are concerned, the Gelbhalsmaus (yellow-necked mouse) is first and foremost a mouse. Many species of mice exist, therefore the name specific to each requires an element that limits or modifies the base. Because this species has yellowish neck coloring, the general term “mouse” is narrowed by means of the preceding word element, thus generating a clear term—the yellow-necked mouse—for a specific species of rodent.
The process is much the same for the Fledermaus and Spitzmaus, which are (linguistically) first and foremost mice. By referencing certain characteristics in these compound words (Fleder comes from flattern, “to flap”; Spitz, or “point,” refers to the shrew’s pointy nose or rather head shape), it becomes possible to provide a clear name—or almost clear, at least, because there are many bat and shrew species, but more on that later. Both names, of course, imply affiliation with mice, and that’s the sticking point. In zoological terms, mice are a group of rodents known at the higher level of classification as Muroidea, “muroids” or the “mouse-like.” The group includes quite the mix of animal groups, with occasionally curious names like zokor, blind mole-rat, spiny tree mouse, and Chinese pygmy dormouse, not to mention our pet hamsters and those domestic but unwelcome mice and rats. Common to all muroids are sundry and complex structural features in the skull, coupled of course with the oversized, continually growing incisors typical of rodents. Beyond that, although endless evolutionary gimmickry can revolve around this mouse theme (long or short legs, different fur colors and tail lengths, and much more), and even without biological expertise, most muroids tend to be identifiable as mice, if only vaguely.
Zoologically speaking, a mere mouse-like appearance is insufficient to denote a muroid. Instead, the specific anatomical features of the skull must be in evidence. The underlying idea of systematic biology is fairly simple and obvious. Over the course of evolution, plants and animals have developed new characteristics and passed them on to their descendants. Thus, parallels between species living today might indicate ties back to a common ancestor, from which each adopted these traits. The similarity between such species is therefore the result of an evolutionary event that occurred so far in the past that it remains accessible only by means of scientific hypothesis. Groups of species are described as “natural” when evidence exists of an ancestor common only to them; systems of organisms comprised solely of such groups are designated in the same way. These stand in contrast to artificial groups and artificial systems, in which the species’ linkage is based on congruities that can be shown not to have emerged from a unique evolutionary change in the most recent common ancestor. A natural system of organisms thus represents the most plausible course of evolution, whereas an artificial classification illustrates humans’ arbitrary notions of what makes sense in grouping. Systematic biology today tends to prefer the reconstruction of natural systems of organisms.
Reconstructing these systems is complicated by the fact that not infrequently evolution will unexpectedly quit the beaten path. There have been instances in which a trait gained by one species will disappear in later species or reappear in new form. This means that the identifying characteristics of a species today will not necessarily be there tomorrow. The high art of systematic biology consists of using all of these traits to formulate well-founded hypotheses of lineage and bring clarity to the “tree of life.”
But back to mice and the specific anatomical features of their skulls. Because these characteristics are present in nearly all muroids but absent in their relatives, phylogenetic researchers have concluded that they have originated as an evolutionary trait in the common ancestor of the muroids, the “ur-mouse.” Therefore, these features of the skull allow systematic biologists to identify a natural grouping among the muroids. The ancestor of all muroids that inherited these features represents the starting point, the root of the mouse’s rather complicated phylogenetic tree, which ultimately encompasses about 1,500 species—which happens to be a quarter of all mammals on earth. To say that a certain rodent belongs to this group amounts to little more than saying it is one of the many descendants of the last common ancestor of the whole mouse superfamily. Field, house, and deer mice are familiar to many North Americans, although they typically live hidden away, and we don’t often encounter them. These animals with the “mouse” base in their name are truly mice in the zoological sense.
The same cannot exactly be said for the bat and shrew—the Fledermaus and Spitzmaus—despite their names. Neither of them is even a rodent or, consequently, a muroid. Then what are they? In the classification of mammals, a whole series of groupings is traditionally distinguished, usually assigned the rank of order within the class of mammals. Depending on scientific opinion, there are twenty-five to thirty of these orders of mammals. Rodents comprise one of these orders, to which muroids and several other groups of mammals belong. Bats, meanwhile, are typical representatives of the order of flying mammals. Their scientific name is Chiroptera, from the Greek words chiros (hand) and pteros (wings). Chiroptera, then, means “hand-flier,” which is a fitting name for bats and their closest relatives, flying foxes. Both have wings formed by the typical membrane spanned between elongated digits. They are the only mammals to have developed the faculty for active flight. Other mammals that seem capable of flight, such as flying squirrels, are passive gliders. With more than 1,000 species known to date, Chiroptera is the second largest group of mammals after rodents. However, bats are missing the features particular to muroid skulls, and they also possess the traits unique to Chiroptera, such as the “hand wings.” Bats undoubtedly belong to Chiroptera.
Figure 1.3 The pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus, LeConte, 1856) and the California leaf-nosed bat (Macrotus californicus, Baird, 1858) in an engraving from 1859. Baird, S. F., Mammals of North America, Plate LXI. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859). Library of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
The systematic placement of the shrew, or Spitzmaus, is determined in much the same way. They, too, fail to possess the mouse characteristics in question, although they do share traits with moles and hedgehogs, as well as with the solenodon (meaning “slotted tooth”), which is a venomous critter native exclusively to the Caribbean islands. They are now situated under the wondrous designation Eulipotyphla, but only since 1999. How they are related—along with ties to an array of other mammal families, such as tenrecs, desmans, and golden moles—has not been conclusively explained, however, and an overwhelming glut of designations is assigned to various combinations of these animal groups. Dating back to Carl Linnaeus’s 1758 coinage, the most widely used term for shrews, hedgehogs, moles, and all manner of more or less exotic animals is Insectivora, or insect eater. The idea that they can be traced to a common ancestor—that is to say, the idea that Insectivora comprises a natural, evolutionarily justifiable unit—is viewed today as improbable. Unquestionably, however (and this is what’s of greatest interest to us here), shrews are not connected to either rodents (even muroids) or bats.
And now, a short excursion following the tracks of Eulipotyphla. The prefix eu- is used frequently in scientific names, and the meaning in Greek is “normal or typical,” as opposed to sickly or deviant. Eu- is usually prepended to a name to express that a group has united the actual or real (in this instance) Lipotyphla. Lipo- does not derive from lipos, meaning fat or oil, but from the verb leipo, which means “to be missing or abandoned.” Finally, the Greek term typhlos means blind or dark, represented in medicine by the term “typhlon,” for appendix or “blind gut.” Lipotyphla are thus distinguished by the absence of the appendix, and it follows that the Eulipotyphla are those “truly without appendix.” Unsurprisingly, perhaps, they have close relatives called Menotyphla (from meno, meaning to stay or abide), which have an appendix, whereas the division of insectivores into those with and without the appendix dates back to Ernst Haeckel in 1866.
Within the context of phylogenetic research today, the prefix eu- plays a big role in the creation of new names because many systematic biologists have a tendency to name all—or at least many—of the numerous interlacing branches of complex phylogenetic trees. Spiders, insects, crabs, and their kin are customarily designated as Arthropoda—jointed animals or, literally, jointed feet. The arthropods, with their rigid exoskeleton and eponymous multijointed appendages, are closely related to velvet worms (Onychophora, or “claw bearer”) and water bears (Tardigrada, or “slow stepper”), two groups of soft-skinned organisms with simple, inarticulate legs that don’t seem arthropodic in nature. Most systematic biologists would argue that in the animal system, this central relationship between velvet worms and water bears, on the one hand, and articulated arthropods, on the other hand, should also be reflected in appropriate names. There are two ways in which this can be accomplished. Solution 1: Velvet worms and water bears are thrown in with the arthropods, thus expanding the semantic field of Arthropoda. The price paid: the erstwhile arthropods—that is to say, those with “real” jointed appendages—will require a different, new name. Solution 2: The old arthropods stay arthropods but acquire a new superordinate name, along with the velvet worms and water bears.
In the systematic biology community, the majority opted for Solution 1. Arthropoda will henceforth include velvet worms and water bears, those soft-skinned relations. The true jointed animals, once known as arthropods, will get a new name formed by placing eu- in front of the old Arthropoda: Euarthropoda. As stated earlier, the eu- means normal and typical (with the connotation of good and beautiful), suggesting that, as a newly named subgroup of Arthropoda, Euarthropoda could be viewed as the “good” arthropods—that is, those that distinguish themselves through their possession of the “proper” characteristics of articulate animals. The Greek language actually requires that the prefix eu- be pronounced as ev- when preceding a vowel, meaning that when speaking about the subgroup out loud, the name should sound like Ev-arthropoda, instead of You-arthropoda—a rule only followed by a small handful of linguistic purists. In the meantime, the you-arthropods scuttle blithely around talks and lectures with or without the nod of Attic approval.
Experts have known for a long time—since Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae at the latest—that neither bats nor shrews are related to mice, to which common parlance pays no heed. The Fledermaus and Spitzmaus comfortably maintain their spots in the lexicon. The superficial similarities in appearance are astonishing, however unspecific, which happens to apply to other animals that also have the word “mouse” in their name but aren’t mice. The sea mouse, an unusual marine bristleworm the size of a mouse, with a shimmering mantle of bristles, just barely resembles a mouse and doesn’t have a tail. The titmouse, a small woodland bird whose name can be traced back to the Middle English “mose,” cognates with the German Meise.1 Although the original etymology of “mose” is unclear, the bird’s small size and quick, mouse-like movements either gave rise to the word or aided in its corruption. The tendency to call something a mouse can thus be triggered by rough structural likenesses or linguistic derivations, whereas the reasons behind the Fledermaus and Spitzmaus are perfectly obvious.
Scientists are assuredly willing to acknowledge that shrews resemble mice superficially, but their life’s work as systematic biologists is aimed at being scientifically exact and unequivocal. Not only in their scientific work—that goes without saying—but especially in the scientific designations they employ for organisms. Comprehensive guidelines such as the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, often known simply as “the Code”—a complex system of conventions that the zoological community has agreed on—serve the single purpose of determining clear names that everyone can understand.2 The rules are edited by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, a board of about thirty members from different countries who represent a range of disciplines within zoological taxonomy. The Code is about as riveting to read as a piece of legislation, but for zoologists it serves as the framework within which all of zoological taxonomy is housed. Keeping this background in mind, it’s understandable that some systematic biologists would like to broaden the reach of these strict standards to apply to nonscientific, common names. This certainly plays a special role with regard to well-known animal groups, such as Central European mammals and birds, which all have German names.
Figure 1.4 Hermann Pohle with his assistant Inge Pasemann in front of a cabinet with genet skulls in 1939. Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Historische Bild- u. Schriftgutsammlungen (MfN, HBSB), Bestand: Zool. Mus., Signatur: B III/1260.
One of the first mammal biologists to campaign for the standardization of German mammal names was Hermann Pohle. Born in Berlin in 1892, Pohle remained faithful to the city until his death and spent a large part of his life working at the natural history museum there. His career as a mammal biologist started early, when as a university student he worked as an unpaid hireling in the museum’s famed mammal collection. Through diligence, endurance, and scientific acumen, he worked his way up to head curator of mammals. He thus held one of the most influential positions, of both national and international significance, in the field of systematic mammal research. In 1926, Pohle—along with Ludwig Heck, the former director of the Berlin Zoo, and a number of other colleagues—founded the German Society for Mammalogy, of which he was the first head. Pohle thus had his finger on the pulse of mammal research, as it were, and he followed the history of the society over the next five decades “with keen interest,” as one biographer noted.
In addition to his work as a researcher and curator of the mammal collection at Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History), Pohle’s interests also lay with German mammal names. Not only did he push for standardization of names, Pohle also campaigned to have existing names assessed for scientific plausibility and changed, should they not pass (his) zoological muster.
In 1942, Pohle published a summary article addressing the question, “How many species of mammals live in Germany?” He appended a comprehensive list of all German mammals, each with its correct “technical name,” as Pohle called it, as well as its corresponding German name. When it came to the various species of Spitzmaus (of which the Germans have eight, incidentally, despite the long-standing impression that there is “the” one and only shrew) and the sixteen species of bats that have the base word “Fledermaus” in their name, Pohle consistently uses alternative terms. The eight shrew species thus became Waldspitzer, Zwergspitzer, Alpenspitzer, Wasserspitzer, Mittelspitzer, Feldspitzer, Gartenspitzer, and Hausspitzer.3 For the bats, the base of their compound name was changed to Fleder: Teichfleder, Langfußfleder, Wasserfleder, and so on, all the way to a term of particular elegance, Wimperfleder.4
Pohle’s article, which predates the society’s 15th General Assembly and Hitler’s emotional veto by more than a year, is a particularly interesting source because he also shares his actual motivations for the suggested changes. His emphatic objective is to see “the term ‘Maus’ disappear, responsible as it is for laypersons’ wont to lump the animals together with actual mice.” In the estimation of these laypersons, mice are something “ugly and destructive that must be fought, or ideally exterminated.” Shrews and bats, harmless as they are to humans, are thus subject to the same brutal fate. Pohle hopes for a “shift in perspective” to occur, once the endangered animals are no longer referred to as mice. What to do, then? Pohle would prefer the term Spitz for Spitzmaus, but it’s already been assigned to a dog breed. Rüssler could also work, only it already applies to some other insectivore. That leaves Spitzer, a name that emphasizes the pointy head as a distinguishing characteristic and is still available. Pohle wants a name for bats without “Maus” but happily with a nod to the animals’ flying ability. Most names of this kind are already employed for birds, and “Flatterer” or “flutterer” could only logically be used for a certain population of bats, namely, those bad at flying. “Flieger” or “flyer,” another hot candidate, is also in use by various other animal groups. But why, Pohle asks the reader, would one even need to say “Fledermaus,” when “Fleder” actually makes perfect sense? Pohle mentions that the original meaning of “Fleder” was different, but few people were aware of this fact anymore. On the off chance that he was correct in this assessment, let it be noted that Fledermaus can be traced back to the tenth century, to the Old High German “vledern” or “flattern” (the infinitive form of “Flatterer”). The image of the bat as a “fluttering mouse” has existed since this time in many languages, including “flittermouse” in English. A number of other German terms exist for bats. In some regions of Germany, such as Rhineland-Palatinate and Southern Hesse, the Old High German “fledarmus” is said to have been used to describe nocturnal creatures, such as moths. There, bats were apparently called “Speckmaus,” instead of Fledermaus, because while hibernating, they could be seen hanging like pieces of bacon (Speck) in the smoke.
Pohle’s dedication to promoting the protection of bats and shrews through a bold name change reached its temporary culmination a year later, when—at the 15th General Assembly of the German Society for Mammalogy in Berlin—a resolution was passed on a universal and binding adoption of the Spitzer- and Fleder-based names Pohle had suggested. The results are known: Hitler was not amused.
At this juncture, it should not go unmentioned that a few years after the described events, in 1956, Pohle—together with a number of notable German mammal researchers—published a fundamental and summary proposal for “The German Names of Mammals.” Any talk of “Spitzer” or “Fleder” had long since vanished. As from time immemorial, all shrew species were named Spitzmaus, all bat species, Fledermaus.
It is unlikely that Hitler’s furious intervention in favor of the Spitzmaus and Fledermaus had wide-reaching impact on the names’ actual usage. The scientists responsible can’t have spent much time deliberating between abandoning Spitzer and Fleder and being elsewhere “employed.” At the same time, it cannot be assumed that a notice in the Zoologischer Anzeiger—or similar appeals in other outlets or on the occasion of later conferences on mammal biology—would have any far-reaching influence on the usage of common names.
In contrast to the names in all the following chapters, in which scientific nomenclature is explored, Spitzmaus and Fledermaus are elements of German vernacular or everyday language. The formal nomenclature of scientific names was instituted at a distinct point in time—in the case of animal names, almost exactly 250 years ago. Nomenclature rules can change, and in fact they do, in a strictly formalized process of reformulating (or formulating anew) various components of the guidelines, comprehensible only to those who find it interesting. In many cases, this involves adapting or amending legal texts. Moreover, a feature of scientific names is the fact that their individual moment of emergence can be ascertained precisely. They only begin to exist once they’ve been published.
Everyday speech and its linguistic elements are subject to thoroughly different influences and have their own history of emergence, which by its nature is not formalized. The origins of the German spoken today—which is known in linguistic terms as New High German—can be traced back to 1600, but the customs and words used now have changed drastically since then. The same applies to Modern English, which developed from Early Modern English in the seventeenth century. Changes to words, formation of words, loss of words, and the adoption of words from other languages (loanwords) have occurred throughout history, although today’s fast, worldwide communication channels have seen new words seep into German, English, and other languages faster than ever before. Thus, compared with scientific nomenclature, colloquial terms are not borne of a dateable act of linguistic creation. Rather, over the course of time, they’ve been influenced on many sides as they pass through a complex linguistic process to arrive at their current form.
For the most part, animal names used in everyday speech aren’t simple words—or simplicia, as linguists say—but rather combinations of multiple expressive elements. These compounds can either be “closed,” in which the component parts are combined without spaces or hyphenation, or “open,” in which the parts are written as separate but associated words. Upon dismantling compound words into their component parts, one can often see their linguistic origins immediately, as well as their meaning. In a typical example, a specific word element will be appended to a general, simple base word such as mouse, duck, or clam, which allows for necessary precision in the labeling of a given animal: house mouse, ring-necked duck, razor clam. Through the addition of further word elements or even adjectives, otherwise similar species can be linguistically distinguished: red-bellied woodpecker, great blue skimmer, golden silk orb-weaver. If one wonders why the Feldhase (brown hare or “field hare”) is called by that name, the answer seems fairly intuitive. It’s a hare—zoologically speaking, too, as it happens—that, as a denizen of open spaces, prefers spending its time in agricultural areas, surviving off the crops planted there.
Considerably more challenging, however, is the linguistic derivation of the individual elements that comprise such compound animal names. The derivation of a term such as Feldhase is as intuitive as the words Feld or Hase are opaque. Admittedly, these questions aren’t easy, and even with the tools of a biologist with a penchant for languages, they’re impossible to answer. The problem at hand is a change in the meaning or usage of a word that occurred a long time ago, a change that is inaccessible before the backdrop of our current vocabulary—at least without some extra effort. Hase, or hare, serves now as little more than the label for a certain type of mammal characterized by long ears, big eyes, and powerful hind legs. One must always assume that in its original usage, a word such as Hase may have had a different meaning or been carried over from a different language or context and applied to these creatures. New creations of words—that is, the total invention of a new sound sequence—do occur, but they are extremely rare. The reconstruction of words’ complex provenance and historical development constitutes the research domain of etymology, the oldest of linguistic disciplines.
The Feld in Feldhase is drawn from a different context than zoology and serves here as a special designation for a particular hare. This information is nowhere near adequate, even for amateur linguists, and we therefore turn to the Etymological Lexicon of the German Language by Friedrich Kluge (respectfully and endearingly also known as “der Kluge,” or “the brainiac”) to learn that Feld originally meant “of an outspread quality, or plain,” and was already in use in the Old High German of the eighth century. Evidence of the word Hase also exists in eighth-century Old High German, and its original meaning was “the gray one.”
The meaning of the animal name Maus, however, isn’t as easy to trace. In the form of “mus” or similar, the mouse appears to be evident in all Indo-Germanic languages. It also reaches at least as far back as the Old High German of the eighth century. Of further interest is the fact that in Latin, mouse is also mus, which can still be seen today in scientific names such as Mus musculus. Therefore, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the Indo-Germanic mus originated as a loanword from Latin. Thus, the linguistic derivation. What, then, is the original meaning of mus?
Kluge, ever true to his name, tells us that while the details of the meaning and origin of mus are contested, an “appealing” explanation must exist. To that end, he writes that mus must be traceable to the Old Indo-Germanic mŭs, which means “to steal,” and could refer to mice’s pesky habit of helping themselves to our food. However, a connection to the Old High German chreo-mosido, which signifies the “robbing of a corpse,” cannot be ruled out.5 As if this explanation were not “appealing” enough already, the story grows more complicated. According to Kluge, one must not ignore the fact that the other past connotation for the word “muscle” points to a different context altogether. Many Indo-Germanic languages feature words derived from mus that refer to muscles, whether in general or specific terms. Therefore, it is conceivable that the animal name can be traced back to the according definition of “that which moves.” In this scenario, the Latin verb movere (known to us today in the English terms “to move” and “movement”) is also related to mus. Kluge concludes that a decision as to whether the content of “mouse” is derived from “to steal” or “to move” cannot be made. At least it shows us—through the example of “mouse,” a simple word learned so quickly in early childhood—just how complicated etymological derivations can be.
Despite the many general etymological dictionaries that exist, no summary scientific study of the origins of German animal names exists. Helmut Carl’s German Plant and Animal Names: Explanation and Linguistic Order, which is considered a rather popular work and has appeared in multiple editions since 1957, presents a wonderful overview of the diversity of names for organisms in German. Carl groups the names primarily by word content, that is, by the meaning derived from the component words in compound names. As a result, the chapters bear names such as “Nature Spirits, Innocuous and Noxious,” “Holidays of the Year,” and “Dying and Death.” An enormous collection of names, their derivation and meaning.
The etymological reconstruction of the German bird and mammal names, at least, can be traced back—in both Carl and Kluge, as well as in other etymological dictionaries—to two interesting books. In 1899, the Finnish philologist Hugo Palander released part of his dissertation with a Darmstadt-based publishing house. The work is titled Old High German Animal Names, Volume I: The Names of Mammals and was supported—if not formally supervised—by Friedrich Kluge. Palander was born in 1874 in the southern Finnish city of Hämeenlinna, which happens to be the birthplace of probably the most famous Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius, who saw the light of day just five years before Palander. Little is known about Palander. Upon completing his undergraduate and master’s studies in 1896 at the University of Helsinki, he obtained his doctorate from the same institution in 1901. The topic of his dissertation was the etymology of German animal names, and his occupation with German philology led first to a stint as docent and later to full professorship at the University of Helsinki. He held that position until three years before his death in 1944. As a seeker of buried knowledge, he could not even be stopped by his own surname, which had been Latinized in the seventeenth century. From 1906 onward, he published under the surname Suolahti, his family’s original Finnish name.
For this reason, the books of greatest interest to our topic were published under two different names. Especially Palander’s book from 1899, which was slated as Volume I of what would have been at least a two-part series, has not been reprinted since and has largely faded into obscurity. This fact is regrettable because the work provides an engaging and informative foundation for discovering the origins of old German names for mammals. A nice example, which Palander expands on, is the word Pferd, or horse. The word is said to derive from the Late Old High German pfarifit, which corresponds to the Middle High German pferfrit, phärit, and pfert. In this historical usage, it actually means a “courier’s horse” specifically, and it wasn’t used in general terms until later. It is highly likely, however, that these German names were plucked from Medieval Latin at a much earlier point in time and can probably be traced back to paraveredus. The word for mail pony in Latin, however, is veredus, and a paraveredus, with the prefix para- (meaning “beside”), is a reserve horse kept beside the actual courier’s horse during mail delivery. Paraveredus ultimately gained acceptance and morphed into Pferd in early German, most likely because it was a simple dialectal shortening of the word. However, the path into the history of Pferd continues: the Latin term veredus can be traced back to an older Celtic word. The Welsh word for horse is gorwydd, which is evidently a combination of the sounds wo or we (meaning “under” or “by”) and the Celtic word reda (“chariot”), which has an Old High German equivalent in rida, meaning “to ride, drive, or move.” In addition to pfarifrit, paraveredus, veredus, and gorwydd, the word Pferd is thus also related to reda and rida.
Palander’s second book, German Bird Names: A Linguistic Study, appeared in 1909 under his Finnish name Suolahti but also in German. The book—which relies on historical sources to trace the usage of all bird names and their changes over the course of time back to the Middle Ages—is much more extensive, which comes as no surprise because there are far more species of birds than mammals in the German-speaking realm (and worldwide). As such, it is no less delightful to read.
As fascinating as the etymology of Old High German animal names is, the Pferd example makes one thing clear: even for those who have a good command of Latin and Greek vocabulary, the art of name derivation remains largely inaccessible. This pertains in particular to animal names that are no more than German base terms, themselves old, not compounds, and whose original meaning cannot easily be derived from our current understanding of language. Many examples are available: Aal, Adler, Ameise, Egel, Forelle, Geier, Hamster, Kröte, Schnecke, Storch, Unke, and Wespe,6 to name just a few of these “simplicia.” Interestingly, although many of the English counterparts of these words are of Old English origin, they ultimately derive from Old High German, such as eel, ant, hamster, snail, stork, and wasp.
What’s more, these simple, noncompound words all entered our language at different times. The prevailing practice in historical linguistics is to search for old written sources in which a certain term appeared for the first time. Scientific works about the historical origins of words, like Hugo Suolahti’s study of German bird names, often consist largely of references to historical literature and the names found there. One of the oldest and most important sources regarding the origins of bird names are the Leviticus Apostils, which probably date from the eighth century. In linguistic history, an apostil is an annotation or explanation of a word or difficult section of text. The Leviticus Apostils elucidate the translated words included in an appendix to chapter 11 of the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, as the Third Book of Moses is also known. This book addresses ritual purity requirements, in particular rules regarding the consumption of permitted animals and avoidance of those prohibited. The author of the apostils is Theodore of Canterbury—also known as Theodore of Tarsus, named after his place of birth in what is now Turkey—who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the latter half of the seventh century and is recognized as one of the founding fathers of the Church of England. Theodor was called to Canterbury, accompanied by Hadrian, a native of North Africa and abbot of a monastery near Naples. The Leviticus Apostils, which present a compilation of Latin and Old English bird names, were most likely penned by the pair. The reason behind the collection was a practical one: Christians voyaging to Palestine, who were unfamiliar with the local cuisine, needed to know which birds they could eat with confidence and which were to be declined. Given their North African-Byzantine origins, Theodore and his trusted associate Hadrian were believed to be familiar with the biblical animal world of Asia Minor. Thanks to this culinary dictionary, we thus have access to one of the earliest enumerations of a great many bird names.
The sources that linguistic historians use extend back to the eighth century, their numbers increasing from older to more recent eras. The invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century revolutionized the production of books from the ground up, and with the increasing number of publications appearing in subsequent centuries, researching animal names has also become much easier over time. Finally, the Internet provides access to digitized printed works through its global network, as well as lists of names, catalogs, and directories, making even recent changes in word usage easy to research.
In this way, it becomes possible to establish a chronology mapping the latest possible points at which certain animal names could have appeared in the German language. For instance, it’s known that the name Kabeljau (“cod”) was already in use in the twelfth century, whereas Delphin and Antilope aren’t traceable until the nineteenth century. Similarly, the literature will sometimes reveal the circumstances under which a name found its way into our vocabulary. Numerous significant events in the history of our cultural realm have led to the immense enrichment of our store of biological names, simply as previously unknown biodiversity gradually became accessible. From the Migration Period to the deepest Middle Ages, traders and travelers transported medicinal plants and spices from southern Europe to Germany. The Crusades and knighthood opened the plant and animal worlds of the Orient to exploration and exploitation, and many animal names, such as Giraffe, Papagei (parrot), and Dromedar, originated during this time. In the Age of Discovery, starting around the sixteenth century, exotic animals and plants finally made their way to Europe, quickly gaining entry into occidental cuisine. The explorers brought back many new names used by the indigenous peoples in the areas in which the animals were found. Other names, meanwhile, were new creations.
We can see, then, that over a period of more than a thousand years, animal names from countless sources have entered the German language and undergone their own changes. The question remains, however, as to how the linguistic creations were reached for the animal names in use today. In this regard, linguists outline a series of possibilities. The creation of a truly new name—that is, an entirely new invention of a certain sound sequence, without building on existing words—is rare. The only animal names that have good reason to be considered real new creations are imitative or, in linguistic parlance, onomatopoeic words. The mimicry of sounds plays the biggest role in the animal names that have arisen this way. The cuckoo is doubtless the best-known example, but several others exist: chickadee, towhee, bobwhite, bobolink, whip-poor-will, and the Chuck-will’s-widow. Interestingly, Möwe (seagull) is believed to derive from the Middle High German verb mawen and the Modern Dutch mauwen, both of which signify the meowing of a cat, meaning that an onomatopoeic term has been transferred from one animal to another. There do not seem to be any onomatopoeic mammal names, and even for birds, there are few further examples than those listed here.
Figure 1.5 Eggs of the brown-hooded gull (Larus maculipennis, Lichtenstein, 1823, today in the genus Chroicocephalus) and other gull species. Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, M. Ohl photo.
Birdsong and birdcalls, in particular, are so characteristic that beyond the real onomatopoeic words, names exist that may not mimic the birdcall but describe it. Examples include the warbler, as well as the mourning dove, mockingbird, and song sparrow, which are easy to understand when broken into their word components.
More common are the loanwords and foreign terms that have usually been brought from the animal’s place of origin and introduced to the English language. The axolotl (also known by this name in Mexico), jaguar (from the South American indigenous Tupí-Guaraní language family), jackal (Indian), impala (Zulu), iguana (Arawak), and salamander (Persian) are some of the many animal names that originate from other languages. Some have entered English unaltered and are therefore considered foreign words, whereas many others have been adapted in various ways to conform to English sound conventions (e.g., the cassowary, a large, flightless bird from the Malay name kasuari).
The simplest and most common way to arrive at new words, however, consists of combining old—that is, already existing—words to create new ones. While English names include barn owl, moon jelly, water spider, mountain quail, or digger wasp, in German—a language known for its plasticity in compound word formation—there must be several thousand compound names, such as Rotkehlchen, Trompetentierchen, Kompassqualle, Wasserspitzmaus, Flohkrebs, Azurjungfer, and Grabwespe.7 The list could continue almost infinitely because the general linguistic rule regarding word formation also applies to animal names, and their appeal lies in the way we are able to understand both their literal sense and definition through defining their word components—the base word and determinative.
In creating new terms, the possibilities for combinations are nearly boundless because the word components may originate from any number of sources. Given the erratic history of the German language, the components that comprise compound words can change to become so unrecognizable over time that they are nearly impossible to comprehend within the context of today’s vocabulary. When new German names are created these days, they are almost always compound words, in which the base word is qualified through the inclusion of certain features, such as geographical origin or special physical traits. Only a few years ago, two new dolphin species were discovered off the coast of Australia, and in both cases the authors of the species descriptions immediately suggested common names (in English, to start) in addition to the scientific names. Orcaella heinsohni, described in 2005, is called the Australian snubfin dolphin, while Tursiops australis, described in 2011, is known as the Burrunan dolphin. The first name includes a nod to both its geographic origin and small dorsal fin, while the Burrunan dolphin was named after a local Aboriginal term for dolphin. Most animal names today are created in this or a similar fashion. Further examples anon.
It is interesting to consider animal names that have changed so significantly over the course of their history that our Sprachgefühl suggests a meaning that has nothing to do with the original. This is because foreign or unfamiliar words are sometimes treated along the lines of known, similar words to make them more understandable in a way. This form of “clarification” will not infrequently yield semantic reversals and new word formations. The linguistic term for this is folk etymology or reanalysis. A good example of a folk etymological change in meaning is the crawfish.8 Old English first borrowed the Old French term crevise (or écrevisse in Modern French) for these freshwater crustaceans, mispronouncing it “cray-VIS.” Before long, the bastardized crevise morphed into “crayfish.” In Louisiana, where both crayfish and French are found in abundance, folks couldn’t help but notice that these “fish” don’t swim but crawl. Thus, the craw(l)fish was born.
Vernacular names are used especially for the representation of animals in popular science, which finds its widest reach in the form of field guides and animal encyclopedias. The National Audubon Society Field Guides—which cover far more than birds, documenting all manner of animal groups as well as trees, fossils, mushrooms, and the night sky—are hugely popular among amateurs and pros alike. In reference to vertebrates, or at least to mammals, it is best practice to provide a common name for every species. A wide range of Internet-based articles on animal species exists these days, the best known including the individual entries on Wikipedia or Wikispecies, which is currently under construction. The range of Wikipedia pages on animal species is growing constantly, and theoretically, at least, Wikispecies would like to provide a page per species in the distant future.
One of the most important and comprehensive animal encyclopedias ever published is Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, which appeared in thirteen volumes between 1967 and 1972 and has been translated into many languages, including English. (The updated and expanded second edition, which encompasses seventeen volumes and more than 9,000 pages, is now available online by subscription.) With its descriptions of more than 8,000 animal species, Animal Life still represents an impressive work of collaboration among numerous specialists from around the world. The encyclopedia was conceived by Bernhard Grzimek. As zoo director, documentary filmmaker, and television host, “Animal Uncle” Bernhard was one of Germany’s best-known animal rights advocates for years. Ein Platz für Tiere (A Place for Animals), the documentary series he hosted on public television from 1956 onward—producing 175 episodes over thirty years—reached millions of viewers in Germany and made Grzimek a TV star. His trademark was putting live animals such as monkeys and cheetahs on camera, providing viewers with firsthand exposure. His old-fashioned, stiff grandfatherly charm, nasally voice, and standard greeting, “Good evening, dear friends,” were unmistakable. Grzimek was particularly fond of the African megafauna, and he advocated intensely for preserving Serengeti National Park. His biggest documentary films, Bambuti (also known as No Place for Wild Animals, 1956) and Serengeti Shall Not Die (1959), were filmed in Africa and present a moving image of both the beauty and endangerment of the big animals of the Serengeti. After he surprisingly won the Oscar for Serengeti Shall Not Die, Grzimek became internationally recognized and deftly used his popularity for countless conservation initiatives. As director of the Frankfurt Zoo from 1945 to 1974, he contributed significantly to implementing modern, species-appropriate living conditions for animals in captivity.
Figure 1.6 Bernhard Grzimek with a living cheetah during the German television show “Ein Platz für Tiere” in 1977. Courtesy of Hessischer Rundfunk/Pressestelle/Kurt Bethke.
Grzimek knew how to use television—still a new, unexplored medium in the 1950s and 1960s—to his advantage, but he also wrote a series of popular books. To this day, Animal Life has seen the most sustained success of all Grzimek’s book publications. It also became well known because of its style, which is both scientifically correct and rendered as popular science. In doing so, Grzimek wanted to distinguish himself—respectfully but decisively—from Brehm’s Animal Life, in which descriptions that now seem naïve, judgmental, and not seldom vilifying were standard issue. Grzimek’s modern work would be as unlikely to describe the “unspeakably dumb-looking head atop the ostrich’s long neck” as it would be to portray creatures as dull, stupid, smart, tender, or chivalrous. These descriptions were judgmental from the human perspective, which did not align with Grzimek’s efforts to establish a new objectivity.
As it was, the popular presentation of scientific content stood at the forefront of Grzimek’s characteristic style: scientifically precise and up to date but also easily understood by the nonscientifically trained reader. For this reason, Grzimek issued three important linguistic directives. First, all foreign or technical expressions were to be avoided or, if there were absolutely no other way, reworded using more familiar terms. Second, words that Grzimek felt carried a negative or pejorative connotation, such as “Maul,” “saufen,” “fressen,” and “verenden,” were to be replaced by the corresponding terms used for humans: “Mund,” “trinken,” “essen,” and “sterben.”9 Finally, of the many animals included in Animal Life, all the vertebrates, at least, were to have a vernacular name. He was such a thorough “animal uncle” that at the end of each volume, he included an “animal dictionary,” where in addition to the German he recorded the English, French, and Russian animal names. This move put pressure on the authors, who were responsible for the individual chapters on assigned animal groups. Not only did they now have to research the everyday names for their species in four languages, they were often confronted with the problem that no common names were to be found in the existing literature—or at least not in every language. In these instances, they were obligated to invent fitting names.
The “animal dictionaries” attached to every volume thus became a wonderful catalog of intricate compound animal names, composed of elements describing traits, origins, and other features. The large-toothed bandicoot, curl-crested manucode, little five-toed jerboa, and chestnut-bellied sandgrouse10 are just a few of the gems in Grzimek’s Animal Life.
A number of years ago, the authors of the monumental monograph Mammals of Africa faced a similar problem. In six volumes and more than 3,500 pages, Mammals of Africa was intended to collect everything known up to 2012 about the 1,160 species of African mammals. From the species name to drawings of the skull, from distribution to behavior patterns, Mammals of Africa is an impressive example of an encyclopedia for every single mammal group, with an emphasis on detail if not completeness. Because mammals are so popular, common names for many species already exist in many languages, and a number of them were supposed to be used in the six-volume opus, at least in species lists. The chapter authors’ task consisted, in part, of compiling the English, French, and German colloquial names for all African mammals. A group of specialists took care of the shrews alone, among them Rainer Hutterer from Germany, who also researched and published the first study on Hitler’s intervention regarding the common German names for shrews and bats. The result of their work was sobering: 150 shrew species live in Africa, which is enormous, compared with the 15 European species, and they all deserved a unique English name. Some shrews had long-established names, whereas others had no vernacular name at all. In these cases, Hutterer and his team usually translated the scientific name. If the same name had already been used for another species, then they invented a new one. The shrew specialists resolutely saw the project to completion, and thanks to them, through a combination of English and Latin translations and adjustments made to homonyms, we now have the first complete and—what’s more—beautiful list of English names for African shrews. Their list is a joy to read, and for that reason it should be honored in full here:
And those are just the shrews. Compound names such as these exist for each of the 1,160 known animal species in Africa, as outlined in Mammals of Africa. Popular African megafauna, such as the giraffe and its many subspecies (including the reticulated giraffe and the Nubian giraffe), have long had widely established vernacular names. The many smaller, lesser known mammals, however, were long neglected and had to make do without proper names.
But what is a “proper” common name anyway? The authors of Mammals of Africa doubtless wanted to ensure that at the very least, the base word of the compound name would indicate the zoologically correct animal group. The person using the name should be able to rely on the fact that a Climbing Forest Musk Shrew is truly a shrew. The rest is at the discretion of the respective specialists, who—beyond borrowing from existing scientific and English names—will often be swayed by their own gut feeling. For example, about fifteen species within the mouse genus Praomys are known as “soft-furred mice” in English. The name “woodrat” is also used for several species within this genus, which some specialists consider more fitting. The control committee that ultimately decides what is a good and fitting name—and what isn’t—is the editorial team of Mammals. Beyond that, no truly binding rules exist, and the authors enjoy almost unlimited freedom.
Figure 1.7 A little red flying fox (Pteropus scapulatus, Peters, 1862) in a plastic bag in the mammal collection. Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, M. Ohl photo.
It is interesting, too, to question the purpose of creating standard colloquial names for African mammals. Who even uses them? It’s worth distinguishing whether the names have already become an established part of the vernacular. English-speaking researchers, zoogoers, and tourists in Africa will surely refer to Panthera leo as “lion.” The same applies to any number of the well-known and popular large mammals of Africa. It can be helpful to review a list of these common English names in Mammals to confirm certain names in moments of doubt. But what about the overwhelming number of African small mammals known and recognized by specialists alone? Furthermore, it’s doubtful that such word monstrosities as “Geoffroy’s Trident Leaf-nosed Bat” and “Hayman’s Lesser Epauletted Fruit Bat” play an important role in African research projects. Scientists will instead refer to Asellia tridens and Micropteropus intermedius. Who knows, perhaps the rapidly growing and universally used online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, Wikispecies, and the Encyclopedia of Life—which draw on the knowledge of competent sources—will ensure that in the future the Hayman’s Lesser Epauletted Fruit Bat finds its way onto a tablet or smartphone, finally crossing the lips of many a nature-loving tourist in Africa.
The creation of common names for African mammals is thus not governed by any central rulebook. Instead, scientists may carry it out according to their own whim. Whether a name gains acceptance or is ousted by another option is determined by the authors or editors of standard works, along with the wider “scientific community”—the network of scientists interested in African mammals—who will ultimately use (or not use) the name. Naturally, this applies to African mammals as well as animals worldwide.
Birds, however, are the exception, having long enjoyed popular standing with scientists and amateurs alike. With more than 10,000 worldwide and more than 900 in North America, the number of known species is relatively manageable, at least compared with the global figure of more than one million known animal species. It’s safe to assume that these numbers come close to the true count of existing bird species. The study of birds has a long history in our culture, and humans have always paid special attention to them, whether as a source of food, a feature for aesthetic improvement in the home, or a research topic. Birds are closely followed by amateur ornithologists worldwide, and for many European bird species, distribution reports exist that often date back to antiquity or at least the Middle Ages. Scarcely any other animal group has been so widely represented, whether in colorful monographs or long species lists that exist for nearly every region on earth, and the number of books published on birds—let alone scientific articles—is utterly unfathomable. Furthermore, the ornithologists of the world are impressively well organized in global and regional societies that vigilantly track developments in their areas.
It therefore comes as no surprise that bird taxonomy is considered well established and encompasses a long tradition of widely used common names. The linguistic origins and development of bird names are also well known in many languages. The world’s ornithologists have established various independent commissions on colloquial bird names. Since 1990, the Standing Committee on English Names has been working on an official list of the world’s English bird names. This complex and time-consuming project resulted in the 2006 volume Birds of the World: Recommended English Names, published by ornithologists Frank Gill and Minturn Wright for the International Ornithological Congress (IOC). Given the many future changes that can still be expected, the online IOC World Bird List provides a regularly updated catalog of standard English names (www.worldbirdnames.org). In both printed and digital editions, the list is prefaced by the various rules the authors followed. The IOC appears prudent in its deliberation here, and it also considers wider usage because it will accept well-established—albeit zoologically unfitting—names. For example, common names such as warbler, which is occasionally applied to species in totally unrelated bird families, such as the Parulidae (New World Warblers), Sylviidae (Old World Warblers), Phylloscopidae (another branch of the Old World Warblers), and others, are accepted for the list when their long-time usage can be established, even though they’re zoologically inaccurate.
These examples demonstrate that the emergence and development over time of English animal names can be researched and often reconstructed retrospectively, but that the actual creation of names—the actual act of naming—is not governed by any objective set of rules. This arbitrariness, particularly with regard to common names, doesn’t present any issues in everyday life and is strengthened by a further phenomenon. At the heart of the argument is the way that animal names in modern English are used, particularly in written English. Across the English-speaking world, many common and well-known animal species have different names in the regional dialect. Yet again, even when it comes to regional names, ornithologists are pioneers in comprehensive cataloging. In an unbelievable feat of diligence, the Swiss ornithologist Michel Desfayes gathered the common names of European bird species in the European languages and dialects available to him. The result was a two-volume work, each about 1,200 pages long, titled A Thesaurus of Bird Names: Etymology of European Lexis Through Paradigms, published in 1998. The first volume addresses the bird names. For each species, under its scientific name, the common names are given in a variety of languages. Within languages, Defayes lists regional names and usages, indicating the respective region. An example would be the Great Titmouse, known by its scientific name as Parus major. The Great Titmouse is common in Europe and has been known to humans since time immemorial because the birds are common garden visitors. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Great Titmouse has many unique regional names. Desfayes starts by listing names in forty-one different languages, from English, German, and Spanish to Kurdish and Georgian. Many languages include a wide range of regional names, and in the English-speaking world alone, Desfayes tallies sixty names that are at least partly deducible from one another. Regional names are followed by a note on the area or city to which the name can be traced. This list of English names for the Great Titmouse, in alphabetical order and without reference to geographical origins, follows:
If a linguistically minded ornithologist wants to know the Basque name for the Great Titmouse before going on vacation, he or she need look no further than Desfayes: the standard Basque term is Kaskabeltz auni, although more than fifty other regional names exist within the language.
The second volume of the Thesaurus of Bird Names is possibly more unusual. In this section, Desfayes analyzes the structure, origins, and meaning of names and name elements according to a range of criteria. There are long lists of historical bird names in Sumerian, Persian, Greek, and other classical languages, and the list of Sanskrit names alone comes in at around 1,100 entries; a Spanish-French lexicon of falconry terminology is included, along with an extensive catalog of French and Spanish names of non-European origin. The Thesaurus is a wonderful book, provided one has a penchant (if not an outright obsession) for encyclopedic lists and catalogs. Beyond that, however, it’s unclear who the readers of this monumental opus might be. That doesn’t matter because Desfayes makes at least one point abundantly clear: standard animal names in everyday English represent a single facet of common names. These names are typically tied to a great many regional names; in many cases, there are few who know these names anymore, if they haven’t already disappeared from the active lexicon.
Figure 1.8 Mandible fragment of a fossil woolly mammoth. Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, M. Ohl photo.
Let’s come back just one more time to the Fledermaus-Spitzmaus dispute between Hermann Pohle and Adolf Hitler. We can only guess at what Hitler’s actual motive was in issuing such drastic threats to prevent the name alterations proposed by the German Society for Mammalogy. It could have been his outrage that in 1942—hard times because of the war—leading German intellectuals were concerned with something so unimportant and banal as the appropriateness of animal names. Perhaps this anecdote is just a further example of Hitler’s hostility toward intellectuals. It is ultimately unclear, even, to what extent Hitler was the driving force behind this directive or whether this is a case of subordinates “working towards the Führer,” as historian Ian Kershaw describes it. Conceivably, after reading the Berliner Morgenpost, Hitler may have remarked negatively regarding the zoologists’ plans. His circle—in this case, Bormann—may have immediately interpreted this as “the Führer’s will” and sprung to action accordingly. As for Pohle and his colleagues, it can’t have mattered much whether the “invitation” to the Eastern Front came directly from Hitler or was communicated in an act of premature obedience.
Whatever the case may be, Pohle’s suggested name changes did not fail because of Hitler’s intervention, which presumably resonated as little with the German-speaking public as the original notice. Pohle failed because he wanted to take the basic idea of a standardized naming system out of the scientific context and transfer it into the realm of vernacular. Everyday German is not formally and officially regulated, and like every other vernacular, it follows different rules than scientific speech. It is shaped by a multitude of factors and influences that have their own unpredictable dynamic, which leads to some word usages changing while others stabilize. In kindergarten, we learn that small, furry four-legged animals with a tail are “mice.” This act of naming fulfills the exact function expected of it. It “tags” specific linguistic content—a meaning—that is generally understood. The difference between muroids and insectivores, which is important to zoologists, has no application in everyday confrontations with “mouse-like” animals and makes no difference to most people. A mouse is a mouse, whether a striped field mouse or a shrew.
Perhaps Pohle was well aware of the problem with everyday speech and anticipated the creeping process of scientific language bleeding slowly into the vernacular. Had this been the case, Pohle could have ventured a first step toward standardization among his science colleagues, allowing Spitzer and Fleder to find application in scientific works—maybe sparingly at the outset but with growing frequency. Had these names first made their way into science, it’s entirely possible that they would soon be found in popular publications such as field guides or other animal books. Had they secured their place in a new edition of Grzimek, who knows, maybe there would be talk today of Spitzer and Fleder. The fact that this will never move beyond speculation, and that changes of this sort cannot be planned or predicted, is an essential trait of vernacular. And for this reason, everyday speech is ruled out as a source for the definitive and universal naming of animal and plant species.