Neanderthals and Poetry – a Word History
Hello,
Neanderthals are not commonly associated with poetry but the word caught my attention today and poetry formed part of the story as I explored its etymology.
I was listening to a podcast last night (“You’re Dead to Me”, a comedy history podcast hosted by Greg Jenner of Horrible Histories fame on BBC sounds – a great source for world history) and one of the guests mentioned in passing that Neanderthals are named for the Neander Valley.
This attracted my attention as a few years back I published a book (“How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary”) about words which entered the dictionary from the names of people and places. The first is an eponym (e.g. Tupperware is named for a man called Tupper), the second is a toponym (e.g. Hunky dory is named after a street). Since then I’ve stumbled on a few more words I missed in that book and I gather them in case I ever decide to publish a second edition. Neanderthal is now on that list but it’s a toponym and an eponym, which is fun.
Neanderthal is defined as an extinct species of human that was widely distributed in Ice Age Europe. It first appeared in English in the 1860s to refer to a specific extinct hominid from Neanderthal in Germany where their fossilised remains were found in 1856. Neander Thal is the name of a gorge near Düsseldorf. Thal means valley apparently.
The place name comes from Joachim Neumann (1650-1680) who was a German pastor, poet, and writer of hymns who particularly loved this spot. Neumann translates literally as new man and in Greek would have been neo-ander. It was popular in Germany during his lifetime to adopt a Greek or Latin form of your surname – hence Neander for his name, and ultimately Neanderthal for the place. It’s a wonderful piece of wordy luck that a man called New Man gave his name to the place where a new form of human was found.
Neanderthal as a word was being used to describe a large stupid person by the 1920s although the science doesn’t support that jibe. It was long disputed if they had bred with modern humans but DNA settled that question in 2013 – they did. We have no idea if they enjoyed poetry, but a poet gave them his name thanks a beautiful piece of the German landscape where both spent time.
Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
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