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RIGHT MONKEYS

7/21/2020

1 Comment

 
When the word monkey was borrowed into English in the 1530s, there was no standard way of writing it. Spellings included monkaie, munckey, munkai, menkeie, munkkey, moncky, munkie, and many others. The reason for all the confusion is that it was borrowed from an unrecorded Dutch word, so scholars had to figure out how to spell it on their own. In the language, it probably sounded something like monnekjin, and that's thought to be from Spanish mono, meaning "monkey". Mono is thought to be a shortening of Old Spanish maimon, which was borrowed from Arabic maymun, still "monkey" (as a Serbian speaker, it's cool to see the connection to their word, majmun). Finally, that's thought to be related to the Proto-Semitic root y-m-n, "right", but the etymology is uncertain.
1 Comment
hans verschoor
11/19/2022 08:18:41 am

So, where does 'monckery'come from. Is it just a 'slip of the tongue'< made by some body intending to say 'mockery?' The word is used in the jazz tune 'Blue Monk', composed by Thelonious Monk and given lyrics by Abbey Lincoln? Actually these lyrics are bland and meaningless and no tribute to Monk and could in fact be all about Jack the Sailor or the dog next door.

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    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. I have a linguistics degree from Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote my thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy traveling, trivia, philosophy, board games, conlanging, and art history. 

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