indri 的詞源

1839年，歐洲給 babakoto, 狐猴總稱的馬達加斯加樹棲靈長類動物（Indris Lichanotus）的名字； 自19世紀末以來，普遍的說法是這個名字是法國博物學家 Pierre Sonnerat （1748-1814）誤譯馬達加斯加語 indry! “看！看見了！”而得來的，他的當地嚮導們在發現這種動物和引起他的注意時這樣喊叫。

However, as Hacking (1981) pointed out, Sonnerat was far too familiar with indris — he described and figured them in detail, and apparently kept at least one in captivity — for this story to be plausible. Furthermore, endrina is actually recorded as a native name for the indri (Cousins, 1885), and indri could easily be a variant of this name. Although the word endrina is first recorded in Malagasy only in 1835, there is no evidence that it could be a back-formation from the French indri (Hacking, 1981), and it seems implausible that the Malagasy would adopt an erroneous French name for an animal they were them selves familiar with. [Dunkel, Alexander R., et al., "Giant rabbits, marmosets, and British comedies: etymology of lemur names, part 1," in "Lemur News," vol. 16, 2011-2012, p.67]

然而，正如 Hacking（1981）指出的那樣，Sonnerat 對馬達加斯加大蟻鵑（indri）非常熟悉——他詳細描繪和描繪了它們，而且顯然至少馴養了一隻——這個故事就不太可能可信了。此外， endrina 實際上被記錄爲大蟻鵑（Cousins，1885）的本地名稱，而大蟻鵑很容易是這個名稱的一個變體。雖然 endrina 這個字詞在馬達加斯加語中首次被記錄於1835年，但沒有證據表明它可能是從法國的 indri 衍生出來的（Hacking，1981），這似乎不可能馬達加斯加人用一個他們自己熟悉的動物的誤譯法文名字。