Читать книгу Moby-Dick or, The Whale / Моби Дик, или Белый кит. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Герман Мелвилл, Герман Мелвилл - Страница 3

(Supplied by a late consumptive Usher to a grammar school)

The pale Usher – threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.

“While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh[1] up the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true.”

Hakluyt.

“Whale. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted.”

Webster's Dictionary.

“Whale. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. Wallen; A. S.[2] Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow.”

Richardson's Dictionary.

JiI, Hebrew.

xntos, Greek.

Cetus, Latin.

Whoel, Anglo-Saxon.

Hvalt, Danish.

Wal, Dutch.

Hwalt, Swedish.

Whale, Icelandic.

Whale, English.

Baleine, French.

Ballena, Spanish.

Pekee-nuee-nuee, Feegee.

Pehee-nuee-nuee, Erromangoan.