The country of Cameroon is so named because a 15th-century Portuguese explorer was so struck by the abundance of shrimp in a local river, he dubbed it Rio dos Camaroes, or “river of shrimp.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Etymology of Cameroon”
You know, Grant, earlier Christian mentioned that his wife is from Cameroon.
And whenever I hear that name, I always think of shrimp.
Wow, I don’t have that connection.
You don’t?
No, what’s the story?
The story is that the name of that country comes from the Portuguese word Camaroes, which means shrimp, because early explorers in the 15th century who went there saw that the river there was really full of shrimp.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
So it’s related to camarones in Spanish.
Yeah.
I always make the mistake of ordering camareros, which is the waiters.
Or at least I don’t always make that mistake, but I used to when I was trying to order in Spanish.
So you have, like, all these gorgeous people in aprons lined up at your table by the end of the night?
Yes, yes, yes.
It happens anyway.
But Camarones is Spanish for shrimp.
Anyway, I thought that was interesting.
I always picture shrimp.
I like it very much.
One of the things I love about Cameroon is the number of languages they have spoken there, English and French, and then a lot of regional languages.
It’s a really good example of how you can do multiple languages in a country well.
Interesting.
And maybe that inspired them to raise those kids trilingually.
Good luck with that.
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