▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl
camel;
camelopard, from Lat, from Grk
kámēlos, from a Sem source akin to Hbr
gāmāl, Aram
gamlā, and Ar
ǧamal ‘camel’.
▪ The Eur words for ‘camel’ go back to Grk
kámēlos which, according to Osman2002, is a direct loan from Ar
ǧamal; Huehnergard2011, however, is more reluctant, attributing the word’s appearance in Grk rather to some (unspecified) “Semitic source”, while
EtymOnline identifies Hbr or Phoen
gamal- as the origin. In any case, the borrowing is likely to have happened in Hellenistic times already, not as late as Byzantine times (as Osman assumes). From Grk the word was borrowed into Lat as
camēlus, and from there into the Rom and Germ languages where it replaced the earlier term for this animal,
olfend‑ ‘olifant’ (Goth
ulbandus, oHGe
olpentâ, mHGe
olbente, oEngl
olfend, “apparently based on confusion of camels with elephants in a place and time when both were known only from travelers’ vague descriptions” –
EtymOnline). oEngl
camel, perhaps via oNFr
camel (oFr
chamel, modFr
chameau). In modern standard Ge,
Kamḗl is attested from
C16 onwards. Stress on the 2nd syllable seems to be a learned adaptation after Lat
camēlus, while the mHGe forms (
kembel,
kemmel,
kémel,
kamel), when appearing in
C13 texts, had first shown signs of Germanization (stress on first syllable) (Kluge2002).