Editing 2381: The True Name of the Bear

{{comic
| number    = 2381
| date      = November 4, 2020
| title     = The True Name of the Bear
| image     = the_true_name_of_the_bear.png
| titletext = Thank you to Gretchen McCulloch for fielding this question, and sorry that as a result the world's foremost internet linguist has been devoured by the brown one. She will be missed.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE BEAR WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Interestingly the Welsh for the word Bear is also Arth

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:Megan: Wow - according to the internet, we don't know the true name of the bear.
:Cueball: What?

:Megan: Apparently there was a superstition that saying its name would summon it. "Bear" and "bruin" mean "the brown one." Its actual name has been lost.
:Cueball: Wow.
:Ponytail: Gretchen, is this for real?

:Gretchen: Well, sort of
:Gretchen: The Proto-Indo-European root was *rkto-
:Gretchen: It was lost in the Germanic languages like English, but survived elsewhere, e.g. Greek "arktos" and Latin "ursus"

:Megan: So could we figure out what the word would have been in English?
:Gretchen: Hmm. I mean, we'll never know, but given Germanic sound shifts, a reasonable guess might be "arth"?
:Ponytail: ''No!!''

:Ponytail (off-panel): ''Stop! AAAAA!''
:Gretchen: What??
:Ponytail (off-panel): Don't ''say'' it!

:Ponytail: What have you ''done''?
:Off-panel noise: <big>'''''ROAR'''''</big>
:Gretchen: Oh
:Gretchen: Oh no

{{comic discussion}}

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