Re: : Butterflies

On 11/8/05, João Ricardo de Mendonça <somnicorvus@...> wrote:
> On 11/3/05, caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
> > The Spanish is mariposa.  Etymology?  Is the Portuguese similar?
>
> In Portuguese, mariposa means "moth". The word for "butterfly" is
> borboleta. I don't know the etymology, but I can check it at the
> library later.
>
Done. Portuguese "mariposa" comes from the Spanish "mariposa".
According to the dictionaries I checked, the original name of the
insect was Maria, and there was some popular song or children's rhyme
with the words "Maria, pósate" (Maria, land") as a wish to the moth.

The etymology for "borboleta" is not that clear. There is a recorded
form "berbereta" from the 16th century. I have found four possible
explanations for this word's origin.

1. Portuguese "borbulhar", to make bubbles.
2. From Latin "purpureta", from the expression "musca purpureta", purple fly.
3. From the Latin "papilio" plus diminutive suffix "-eta".
4. From Latin "bellus", beautiful, after reduplication, plus the
diminutive suffix "-eta", therefore forming "belbellita". But one
author (Silveira Bueno, Dicionário Etimológico e Prosódico da Língua
Portuguesa) says there is no record of this form.
5. An onomatopoeia representing the insect's wings folding and unfolding.

(Sources: Antenor Nascentes, 1933, gives a summary of the hypotheses.
José Pedro Machado, 1952, adds the "belbellita" hypotheses. Other
dictionaries I checked simply repeated these statements.)

Number 1 makes no sense to me (do butterflies make bubbles?). Number 2
is probable, if only there could be shown that this "musca purpureta"
really existed. Does anyone know about that? Number 4 seems too
imaginative to me.

João Ricardo de Mendonça