Talk:2381: The True Name of the Bear

This one is ridiculously early. 172.69.22.120 05:22, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Let’s try this again, hopefully won’t get stepped on this time... I know I’ve seen Gretchen on various YouTube channels but is she really “the world's foremost internet linguist” as Randal claims?162.158.79.87 05:29, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Probably as a linguist studying internet culture, which she is indeed one of the most famous in that area. Most popular linguist on the internet? It's everyone's guess.

From Randall Munroe to Tom Scott... how much more proof do you need? Or is it a conspiracy theory waiting to happen? 162.158.74.143 16:34, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, after being mentioned by Randall she totally might become the most known one.

"Arth" is Welsh for bear.

Hmm... I find Ponytail's behaviour strange. At first she asks for explanation/verification of Megan's claim and when she recieves it she yells "NO!" as if she already knew it would be true... Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 09:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

She gets confirmation that the name is lost in panel 3 (and assumes it also confirms the summoning part). So she indeed knew by panel 4.141.101.68.66 10:51, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Why isn't the bear's name summoning it after its name being said out loud in panel 3, though? Or is the name only "true" in English (in which the name didn't exist until Gretchen reconstructed it)? Doesn't make sense. /edit: I know we are talking about myths and superstition here and thus it might be all somewhat hazy but this comic is imho not self-consistent. I'm not used to inconsistent comics on XKCD (unless it's done on purpose for humorous effect which in this case seems not to be true). Thus my irritation. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:13, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

They are clearly in England (or the Anglosphere in general, though English isn't the official language in the US, merely customary) and by the Rules Of Summoning an English/etc 'bear' must only respond to the locality-sanctioned word (said with intent, not a coincidentally homophonic collection of syllables, not saying the exact same word but in the sense of being actually quoting a different language that uses the same word).

I theorise that the Welsh are saying their bear-name in slightly the wrong accent for being useful to summon a Welsh bear (maybe it should be more "Ardd"?) due to excessive Anglicisation. Or the Celtic way of not-saying-the-true-Celtic-word is to habitually say the Anglic one, which thus does not count. Or the Welsh bears are just confused by the current trend for dual-language signage and expect/require both. (Welsh then English in one half of the country, English followed by Welsh in the other part of the nation.) 141.101.98.208 12:55, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

If we're worried about consistency here, how is it that all the Romance language speakers (e.g. Orso for Italians, Oso for Spaniards, etc) get away without being constantly mauled? Perhaps it's only the *true* name of the bear, -rkto, that summons the animal. I suppose that would give an explanation of why we don't see any Indo-European speakers around nowadays... Gbisaga (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

• NOTE* I've added an explanation that attempts to summarize this consistency discussion. But somebody reverted it. Why? It doesn't seem out of line, compared to a lot of what I read on explainxkcd. Gbisaga (talk) 14:29, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

It need not be so complicated. Perhaps there is only 1 ur-bear (ha ha) that can teleport when it hears the magic word. If the magic word is said many times every day in Wales, that ur-bear would be exhausted by teleportation and only rarely does saying the name cause it to do so. Whereas in English, the first time in years it has been summoned is in this comic, so of course it comes. JohnHawkinson (talk) 19:54, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Or simply the summoning only works when the true name is said in the currently spoken language (English), not as a foreign word. And consistency on how it works or doesn't work in other languages is really really overthinking, as this comics is not about other languages and says nothing on summoning technicalities.141.101.68.66 00:53, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

How does the bear know which language is spoken, though... Besides, I'm not sure if this is overthinking if it's basically the first thought I had regarding this comic. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 12:34, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Fascinating! In Russian, the word for bear is also euphemistic, pronounced as medved, which roughly means "knowledgeable about honey". But until today, I thought that something like "ber" is in fact its true name. Turns out it's not even that. 162.158.238.236 14:02, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Actually, medved is 'honey-eater', see these two links (in Russian) https://pikabu.ru/story/kto_krayniy_za_medvedem_fenomen_tabu_v_lingvistike_5812897 and https://pikabu.ru/story/kak_rabotaet_istoricheskaya_lingvistika2_v_berloge_yetimologa_5817400 162.158.183.205 16:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Accurate! aoijgpisbHtejsykl7ekderhtsjk6r64os4kys\\\[]jsrtjgdrghtvgwrhtejyku5dli6;78t7l6rk5j4h|||||#Rty-----WWWWWWfflfllfllfllfeogk0q9wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww4-cv;c;;c;c[;]z\]d;v[\]????????OH GOD IT'S CRASIHNG MY PC����������������������������������������������� (talk) 06:40, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I've just been down a Wikipedia rabbit-hole, because of this information, to try to work out why I don't remember it being reported that Medvedev had resigned and replaced by Mishustin. (Or replaced with him, wherever he emerged from, by Putin, to be strictly accurate.). Probably we were more concerned about the Constitutional changes, then 'other things' hit the headlines. Not comic-related, but thank you for enlightening me on both linguistic and (as a side-effect) political subjects. 162.158.158.26 16:39, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

What were the linguistic speculations that the header mentioned? Even if there's no source, they shouldn't be removed.

I thought the reconstruction was *rtkos, not *rktos? Wikipedia agrees: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ŕ̥tḱos 162.158.183.205 16:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

You’re absolutely correct. Not only is the thorn cluster backwards according to the most commonly accepted reconstruction, it also has the wrong velar (should be *k̑, not *k), AND the laryngeal is missing. The syllabicity marker on the *r is also missing, though the nature of the right-to-left syllabification rule means that the *r would at least automatically be syllabified anyway. This was the main thing that really bothered me about this comic, along with the fact that the expected English form would absolutely not be **arth, but *urth (or perhaps just *ur (OE *urh-).

So yes, there’s an awful lot wrong with the actual linguistics in this one. Which is very disappointing. :-( 162.158.134.40 09:40, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

I bet a dollar that the long-lost English word for "bear" was "Voldemort". 108.162.215.242 01:03, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh-oh. You said it. This is why you need to create an account - you don't want people randomly summoning you by your true name "Mr/Ms 108.162.215.242" !! SteveBaker (talk) 17:48, 5 November 2020 (UTC) (Not my real name which is...oh wait...nearly got me there!)

In Finnish bear is karhu, which is also an euphemistic word meaning "the rough one". There are many other words for bear as well, such as kontio (one that walks slowly), nalle ("bear" in Swedish), mesikämmen (the nectar palm), metsän kuningas (the king of the forest), kouko/kouvo (some kind of ghost?), otava (this one would take way too long to explain) and finally oksi/ohto/otso, which likely is the true name. 162.158.238.239 11:46, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

A safe name to avoid the name of something dangerous is known as noa-name (further reference). You find it also for the wolf, devil, god, leprechauns etc. 162.158.154.215 20:51, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The etymological joke might be on the comic writer - hrtkos might be itself a euphemism, cognate with a word in Sanskrit that meant "destroyer" - possibly "hive destroyer." "there is also a suggestion that the original PIE word for bear, *rkso- (or its variants) is itself descriptive, meaning "destroyer (perhaps of beehives)", because a cognate word in Sanskrit is "rakshas", meaning "harm, injury"" Who really knows? Same source identifies the name in Lithuanian as a different euphemism - "the shaggy one." And wonders about a German, a Slav, and a Balt arguing about the best circumlocution while being careful not to slip up and make themselves an xkcd punchline. Anyway, it's a fun read: [1] Jd2718 (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2020 (UTC)