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Meaning / origin / etymology of wels catfish name?
Posted: 21 Apr 2018, 03:26
by Viktor Jarikov
Does anyone know how "wels" came about?
Re: Meaning / origin / etymology of wels catfish name?
Posted: 21 Apr 2018, 06:53
by Silurus
This was discussed when Planet Catfish was very, very young:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=456
Re: Meaning / origin / etymology of wels catfish name?
Posted: 22 Apr 2018, 20:57
by Viktor Jarikov
Thank you much, HH. As the thread is more concerned with the etymology of Silurus and even there it is not clear, I understood even less about wels.
It appears to me that we don't know where the name "wels" came from... which would be fine; I just would like to know with more surety that this is where things are at with wels.
Re: Meaning / origin / etymology of wels catfish name?
Posted: 23 Apr 2018, 07:35
by Bas Pels
Wels is the German word for catfish. Obviously, it fits both the species (Siluris glanis) and the order Siluriformes of Catfishes.
Where the German word comes from? I have no clue. I did try explaining the Dutch word in the earlier reference
Re: Meaning / origin / etymology of wels catfish name?
Posted: 23 Apr 2018, 08:31
by torusle
Found a reference about the german etymologie lexicon here:
https://www.dwds.de/wb/Wels. Link is in german as well.
Their take on the name is, that it has evolved from the whale. E.g. a wels is a whale that moves up the rivers. That makes a bit of sense because the catfish is among the biggest fresh water fish that we have here in germany.
Re: Meaning / origin / etymology of wels catfish name?
Posted: 26 Apr 2018, 18:34
by Viktor Jarikov
Thank you guys so much.
So the German word has a dual meaning. It means both this particular catfish species and also any catfish, and it simply found its way into English as is. That's all. Right?
I especially appreciate the German link. I'll provide here what it says in original and google-translated.
Wels m. Der Name des Flußfisches frühnhd. wels, welsch, wilsch (15. Jh.), mnd. wils(ch), mnl. wils setzt einen alten s-Stamm germ. *hwaliz- (s. ↗Wal) fort. Es ist davon auszugehen, daß Namensformen des Wals auf den größten Süßwasserfisch übertragen bzw. dieser als ein die Flüsse aufwärts ziehender Wal angesehen wurde, s. unter ↗Wal angeführtes Waller, Weller ‘Wal’ und ‘Wels’.
Wels m. The name of the river fish. wels, welsh, wilsch (15th century), mnd. wils (ch), mnl. wils continues an old s-stem germ. * hwaliz- (see ↗Wal). It can be assumed that name forms of the whale were transferred to the largest freshwater fish or this was regarded as a whale pulling up the rivers, s. Wallern, Weller 'Wal' and 'Wels' are listed under ↗Wal.
Whale in German is:
Wal
noun -- der Wal
-------- whale, cetacean
-------- der Walfisch
-------- whale