More like âthe original word for bear has been lost because if you say it you might Speak One up.â
This was a general central/northeastern Europe thing. The original Indo-European root for bear seems to be *h2rktos, which gives us ursus in Latin, arktos in Greek, and arth in Welsh. (Plus the name Arthur.)
So you would expect, knowing a thing about the neogrammarian principle, that the Proto-Germanic word ought to be *urhtaz, the Proto-Balto-Slavic word *irktas. But what we actually see is that in Germanic languages, the word for bear derives from the same word as brown; in Baltic languages, a word related to âhairy, shaggyâ; and in Slavic, some variation on medu-ed, âhoney-eater.â
Meanwhile, the Proto-Finnic word for bear, karhu, is either the PIE *h2rktos borrowed, or a Proto-Uralic word meaning ârough, coarse.â The same is true of other non-PIE languages in the region, like Estonian, Karelian, etc.
In other words, these people were so fucking scared of bears that they didnât even dare say the word bear. They used euphemisms â âthe brown one, the honey-eater, the shaggy boyâ â until those euphemisms just because the word for bear, and the original word was lost. (Interestingly, the Sanskirt reflex of *h2rktos is rakshas, so that word itself mightâve been a euphemism â âthe Destroyerâ â replacing an even older word for bears.)
Bears were fucking scary if you lived in northern Europe, guys.
And vaginas were even scarier.