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The word hippopotamus comes from ancient Greek hippos, “horse”, and potamos, “river”: a “river horse”. The name is only a comparison. The hippo is not closely related to the horse; its closest living relatives are whales and dolphins.

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The Greeks knew the hippo from the Nile; in ancient times it lived along the Egyptian river all the way from Sudan to the Delta. The historian Herodotus described it in his Histories in the 5th century BC, and the Greek name reached English through Latin in the 16th century. Other peoples chose similar pictures: the Turkish name su aygırı means “water stallion”, and the Yoruba of West Africa call the animal erinmi, “elephant of the water”. Naturalists long grouped hippos with pigs, but blood proteins and later DNA showed that their closest living relatives are whales, dolphins and porpoises, from which they split about 55 million years ago. The two Greek roots live on elsewhere: hippos in hippodrome, a course for horse races, and potamos in Mesopotamia, “the land between the rivers”.

Türkçe oku
Hipopotam adı, eski Yunanca hippos (at) ve potamos (nehir) sözcüklerinden oluşur ve “nehir atı” demektir. Ama bu yalnızca bir benzetmedir: Hipopotam atla yakın akraba değildir; yaşayan en yakın akrabaları balinalar ve yunuslardır.

Eski Yunanlılar hipopotamı Nil'den tanıyordu; o çağlarda bu hayvan Mısır'da, Sudan sınırından Nil Deltası'na kadar nehrin her yerinde yaşardı. Tarihçi Herodot, MÖ 5. yüzyılda yazdığı Tarih adlı eserinde onu anlatır. Yunanca ad Latince üzerinden Avrupa dillerine geçti. Türkçedeki “su aygırı” adı da benzer bir benzetmedir; aygır, erkek at demektir. Batı Afrika'daki Yoruba halkı ise hayvana “suyun fili” anlamında erinmi der. Doğa bilimciler uzun süre hipopotamı domuzlarla bir tuttu. Önce kan proteinleri, ardından DNA incelemeleri, en yakın akrabalarının balinalar, yunuslar ve domuz balıkları olduğunu gösterdi; iki soy yaklaşık 55 milyon yıl önce ayrılmıştır. Yunanca kökler başka sözcüklerde de yaşıyor: hippos, at yarışı pisti demek olan hipodromda; potamos ise “nehirler arasındaki ülke” anlamına gelen Mezopotamya'da.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Hippopotamus
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