Tam. MUGkA/Germ. Mungo

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

>At the AOS meeting in Baltimore (1999), Joshua Katz gave a paper on "How the
>Mole Got his Name" [...]    Reading his handout, I see that he emphasizes
>that we are dealing indeed with Mongooses, NOT ichneumons. As for mongooses
>in India, he says that "we find a number of kinds of mongoose (the word
>mongoose [and other spellings; cf. Germ. Mungo] is a borrowing from
Dravidian),
>including two species in the north: Herpestes edwardsi (Common or Indian
>Grey Mongoose) and Herpestes auropunctatus (Golden or Small Indian Mongoose).
> Katz refers to:
>- Encyclopedia of Indian natural History 97; R.F. Ewer, The Carnivores
>(Ithaca, NY 1973), 402f.; Walker's Mammals of the World (II.), 1043f.

  Mongooses occur in Tolkaappiyam, said to be the earliest extant work.
  "mUGkA" is the tamil for mongoose.

   "mUGkA veruku eli mUvari aNiloTu
    AGku avai nA_nkum kuTTikku uriya" -tol.


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