The name orangutan (also written orang-utan, orang utan and orangutang) is derived from the Indonesian and Malay words orang meaning "person" and hutan meaning "forest", thus "person of the forest". Orang Hutan is the common term in these two national languages, although local peoples may also refer to them by local languages. Maias and mawas are also used in Malay, but it is unclear if those words refer only to orangutans, or to all apes in general.
The word was first attested in English in 1691 in the form orang-outang, and variants with -ng instead of -n as in the Malay original are found in many languages. This spelling (and pronunciation) has remained in use in English up to the present, but has come to be regarded as incorrect.
The name of the genus, Pongo, comes from a 16th century account by Andrew Battell, an English sailor held prisoner by the Portuguese in Angola, which describes two anthropoid "monsters" named Pongo and Engeco. It is now believed that he was describing gorillas, but in the late 18th century it was believed that all great apes were orangutans; hence Lacépède's use of Pongo for the genus .
About Me
- SaveR of orangutan :)
- Shah Alam, Malaysia
- hye . we are students of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Seksyen 9 from Shah Alam ... we're doing a blog about orangutan .actually this is just a blogging competition in our school with others. so that we hope you guys can drop comments and vote us as much as you can . we're doing this because we want to save orangutan ... not just that,we also want to save orangutan's habitat because their habitat are less ..so that we just need your cooperation by giving a comments and also votes . thank you =)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment