The Etymology of Condor
Condor reached English by the early 17th century, taken from Spanish cóndor, which the Spanish chroniclers of Peru had borrowed from Quechua kuntur, the language’s name for the great Andean vulture (Vultur gryphus). The condor was sacred in Inca cosmology — one of three holy animals alongside the puma (mountain lion) and the snake — representing the upper world (hanan pacha) of sky and stars, while the puma stood for the middle world of the living and the snake for the lower world of the dead. The Andean condor has the largest wingspan of any land bird (up to 3.3 metres) and can soar for hours without a wingbeat on Andean thermals. The Spanish encounter and chronicling of Inca civilisation in the mid-16th century brought a small but rich set of Quechua loans into Spanish and from there into English: condor, puma, llama, alpaca, guano, jerky, quinoa, coca, and pampa. The North American Californian condor (Gymnogyps californianus) was named by analogy in the early 19th century, despite being a different genus.