Fun fact about the etymology of “alligator:” When the Spanish first landed in what is now Florida, they found alligators and simply called them “el lagarto,” which literally translates to “the lizard.” While there were many reptiles in the swamps and bayous, only one was enough of a problem to be called “THE lizard,” and after several mistranslationsbeing borrowed into other languages, “el lagarto” morphed into “alligator”
Good to know! I took years of Spanish classes and my kids are in a Spanish immersion school in California, but I’ve only ever heard lagarto for smaller lizards and cocodrilo for anything resembling crocodilians
Fun fact about the etymology of “alligator:” When the Spanish first landed in what is now Florida, they found alligators and simply called them “el lagarto,” which literally translates to “the lizard.” While there were many reptiles in the swamps and bayous, only one was enough of a problem to be called “THE lizard,” and after
several mistranslationsbeing borrowed into other languages, “el lagarto” morphed into “alligator”Or at least that’s what I read somewhere once.
We still colloquially call them lagartos, regardless if its a crocodile or alligator.
Good to know! I took years of Spanish classes and my kids are in a Spanish immersion school in California, but I’ve only ever heard lagarto for smaller lizards and cocodrilo for anything resembling crocodilians
Thanks for the info
Yeah lagarto literally means lizard, but we use it for pretty much any type of reptilian that looks like a lizard lol