Taung, noun
/taʊŋ/
- Origin:
- Sotho, SetswanaShow more Sotho and Setswana, ‘place of the lion’, tau lion + locative suffix -ng.
1. Plural unchanged, or Bataung [see ba-]. Usually in the plural : Collectively, the members of a Tswana clan of the Orange Free State (now Free State) and Lesotho. Also attributive. See also Tswana sense 2 a.
1905 W.H. Tooke in Flint & Gilchrist Science in S. Afr. 92The ba-Taung or ‘lion’ people..are now practically dispersed, a small remnant still remaining in Herschel...The ba-Tlapi or fish-folk under Mahura, Manloroane and his son Molala, are now in the Taung Reserve.
1986 P. Maylam Hist. of Afr. People 56The Taung were another southern Sotho community to gain prominence during the difaqane. Their ruler, Moletsane, emerged as one of the most powerful Sotho leaders during the early 1820s...In the early years of the difaqane the Taung moved across the Vaal and became engaged in attacks on various Tswana chiefdoms, notably the Seleka-Rolong.
2. Also Taungs. [The name of a town.] Usually attributive, especially in the phrases Taung baby, Taung child, Taung skull, etc., designating the remains of a fossil hominid discovered at Taung in the northern Cape Province in 1924.
1925 Nature 28 Mar. 469A certain amount of criticism has been levelled at Prof. Dart’s nomenclature of the Taungs skull. It is generally felt that the name Australopithecus is an unpleasing hybrid as well as etymologically incorrect.
1990 TV1, 20 July (Origins)What did surprise Dart was the reaction of the scientific community to his claim that Taung was an ancestor.
Plural unchanged, or Bataung [see ba-]. Usually in the plural :Collectively, the members of a Tswana clan of the Orange Free State (now Free State) and Lesotho. Also attributive.
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