bohor

noun

bo·hor

ˈbōˌhȯr

plural -s

: a small fawn-colored eastern African reedbuck (Redunca bohor)

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, borrowed from Amharic boḥər (or bəhor, boḥor, buxar)

Note: Bohor was a word introduced by the German naturalist and zoological explorer Eduard Rüppell (1794-1884) in Neue Wirbelthiere zu der Fauna von Abyssinien gehörig (Frankfurt am Main, 1835-40), pp. 20-21. In describing specimens that he designates Antilope redunca Pallas, Rüppell notes the Amharic name of the animal in Ethiopic script: "Der abyssinische Landesname des Thiers is Boher ([transliterated:] boḥər)." He states in a footnote that Hiob Ludolf mistakenly gives the name as [Ethiopic script] bokər, a word that Rüppell does not recognize as that of any Ethiopian animal ("Ludolf in seiner Historia Aethiopica Lib. 1 Cap. 10. 72 schreibt wohl aus Versehen bokər: Capreolus; wenigstens kenne ich unter dieser Benennung kein Wild aus Abyssinien"). Rüppell, however, appears himself to have misread Ludolf's text, which gives the word as boxər, not bokər (ḥ and x are merely graphic variants of [h] in modern Amharic). The forms bəhor, boḥor, and buxar are all variants given in Thomas Leiper Kane, Amharic-English Dictionary, vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990). In a later publication (Verzeichnis der in dem Museum der Senckenbergischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft aufgestellten Sammlungen, Band 1, Säugethiere und deren Skelette, Frankfurt am Main, 1842, p. 38), Rüppell redesignates the specimens as a distinct species, Redunca bohor (the basis for the current name Redunca redunca bohor).