9 hours ago, KennethT said:Thanks. Do you know the root of boeuf (or porc for that matter) in the French? Is there a reason why the French created words to differentiate between animal and meat?
The French didn’t create words to differentiate between animals and meat. Middle English did that, by taking the animal word from Old English and the meat word from French.
‘Boef’ in Old French, ‘bœuf’ in Modern French meant and still means both animal and the meat, as is normal in nearly all languages.
‘Bœuf’ is derived from the Latin ‘bos’ which in turn is derived from the Ancient Greek ‘βοῦς’, the same root which gives us ‘bovine’ etc.
‘Porc’ too comes from the Latin ‘porcus’ meaning both animal and meat.
‘Mouton’ means both ‘sheep’ and their meat in Modern French, too. From Gaulish, the Celtic language used in that part of the world before the Romans turned up. You can still hear traces of it in the Welsh ‘molit’’, Cornish 'mols', Breton ‘maoet’ and Irish ‘molt ram’.
