Talk:Tayassu

@-sche, one of those Amerindian etymologies that needs tracking down. It seems to be from Old Tupi, but a brief search revealed only one promising BGC hit, which I couldn't actually read. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:07, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Portuguese Wikipedia: "Tayassu, "taiaçu", "tajaçu" e "tanhaçu" vêm do tupi tai wa'su, "dente grande"." Also, [1]. DTLHS (talk) 05:13, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how reliable that book is. I'd like to confirm with an Old Tupi dictionary, but I don't have one. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:33, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Without yet trying to verify if Tayassu is descended from them, I can at least help check if those claimed Tupian words exist: although the Tupian word for "tooth" mentioned in the etymology of piranha is a bit different, this SIL book of Tupi studies does mention a root *ãy "tooth", and this book by Schleicher of Comparative and Internal Reconstruction of the Tupi-Guarani Language Family has the forms ne r-āi "your tooth" and h-āi "his tooth" (so a form tai is not implausible), and it has wasu, usu, uu "big". - -sche (discuss) 16:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)