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u (Samoan) an enlarged land snail

u (Xeta, Brazil) to eat animal meat

u (Burmese) a male over forty-five (literally, uncle)

i (Korean) a tooth

m (Yakut, Siberia) a bear; an ancestral spirit

All Creatures Great and Small

meglio è esser capo di lucertola che coda di dragone (Italian)

better be the head of a lizard than the tail of a dragon

Animal crackers

‘Every dog has his day’; ‘you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’; ‘a cat may look at a king’. Animals crop up left, right and centre in English sayings and phrases, and in those of other languages too:

leben wie die Made im Speck (German) to live like a maggot in bacon (life of Riley)

van een kale kip kan je geen veren plukken (Dutch) you can’t pluck feathers from a bald hen (get blood out of a stone)

olla ketunhäntä kainalossa (Finnish) to have a foxtail under your armpits (ulterior motives)

estar durmiendo con la mona (Spanish) to be sleeping with the monkey (be drunk)

eine Kröte schlucken (German) to swallow a toad (make a concession grudgingly)

bhains ke age bansuri bajana (Hindi) to play a flute in front of a buffalo (cast pearls before swine)

vot gde sobaka zaryta (Russian) that’s where the dog is buried (the crux of the matter)

avaler des couleuvres (French) to swallow grass snakes (endure humiliation)

karincalanmak (Turkish) to be crawling with ants (have pins and needles)

Dragon’s head

The Japanese are particularly fond of animal metaphors:

itachigokko weasels’ play (a vicious circle)

gyuho an ox’s walk (a snail’s pace)

neko no hitai a cat’s forehead (a very small area)

yabuhebi ni naru to poke at a bush and get a snake (to backfire)

ryuto dabi ni owaru to start with a dragon’s head and end with a snake’s tail (to peter out)

dasoku snake legs (excessive or superfluous)

tora ni naru to become a tiger (to get roaring drunk)

unagi no nedoko an eel’s bed (a long narrow place)

mushi no idokoro ga warui the location of the worm is bad (in a bad mood)

kirinji a giraffe child (prodigy)

kumo no ko o chirasu yo ni like scattering baby spiders (in all directions)

inu to saru a dog and a monkey (to be on bad terms)

Ships of the desert

As you might expect, the more important an animal is to a particular culture, the more words there are for it. The cattle-herding Masai of Kenya and Tanzania, for example, have seventeen distinct words for cattle; the jungle-based Baniwa tribe of Brazil has twenty-nine for ant (with a range that includes the edible); while in Somali there are no fewer than forty-three words relating to camels of every possible variety. Here are a few:

qoorqab an uncastrated male camel

awradhale a stud camel that always breeds male camels

gurgurshaa a docile pack-camel suitable for carrying delicate items

sidig one of two female camels suckling the same baby camel

guran a herd of camels no longer producing milk that is kept away from dwelling areas

baatir a mature female camel that has had no offspring

gulguuluc the low bellow of a camel when it is sick or thirsty

cayuun camel spit

u maqaarsaar to put the skin of a dead baby camel on top of a living one in order to induce its mother to give milk

uusmiiro to extract drinking water from the stomach of a camel to drink during a period of drought

guree to make room for a person to sit on a loaded camel

tulud one’s one and only camel

Persian also has its own detailed camel vocabulary that suggests an even more recalcitrant beast:

nakhur a camel that will not give milk until her nostrils are tickled

wakhd a camel that throws out its feet in the manner of an ostrich

munqamih a camel that raises its head and refuses to drink any more

zirad a rope tied round a camel’s neck to prevent it from vomiting on its rider

Horses for courses

Many languages have very specific words to describe not only types of horse but also its activities and attributes. In the Quechuan language of Peru, tharmiy is a horse that stands on its hind legs and kicks out with its forelegs. The Bulgar lungur is an unfit horse, while the Malay kuda