Gnu

Filed Under January 2007, columns 

Wild thing.

Dear Word Detective: I am trying to find out the origin of the word “gnu.” It is an alternate name for the wildebeest, a large African antelope. — Jason.

That thing is an antelope? Looks to me like a buffalo that’s been through the rinse cycle once too often. But your email address indicates that you’re writing from Zambia, so I’ll take your word for it.

OK, a “gnu” is indeed an antelope, but it sounds like one put together by a committee. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, the gnu’s “heavy head and humped shoulders resemble those of a buffalo, while the compact hindquarters are like those of a horse. The gnu has a beard, a short, erect mane, and a long, flowing tail.” Well, I suppose something had to balance out the butterflies.

Onward. As you note, the gnu is otherwise known as the “wildebeest,” which is Dutch for “wild animal,” the Dutch having been a powerful colonial presence in Southern Africa at one point.

“Gnu” itself is the word for the animal in the language of the Khoikhoi ethnic group of southwestern Africa. Early European settlers called these folks “Hottentots,” a name, now considered offensive, which in the settlers’ Dutch dialect meant “stutterer,” a reference to the Khoikhoi use of “clicks” as consonants. The word “gnu” is presumed to be echoic in origin, an imitation of the snorting grunt of the animal itself.

Although in Khoikhoi the “g” of “gnu” is pronounced (”g-noo”), in English it is generally not and the word is pronounced simply “noo.” One notable exception, which has been running through my head since I started answering this question, is the immortal song “The Gnu” by the British comedy team of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, who made a point of stressing the “g” right over the edge: “I’m a G-nu, I’m a G-nu, The g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo; I’m a G-nu, How do you do, You really ought to k-now w-ho’s w-ho’s; I’m a G-nu, Spelt G-N-U, I’m g-not a Camel or a Kangaroo; So let me introduce, I’m g-neither man nor moose, Oh g-no g-no g-no, I’m a G-nu.”

p.s. — There is also a free, open-source computer operating system called GNU, commonly encountered as part of the GNU/Linux operating system.

 

 

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