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prettygoodwordnerpa (NER-pah) - n., the Baikal seal.
That is, the species of earless seal (Pusa sibirica) that lives in Lake Bailkal -- one of the smaller seals, and the only exclusively freshwater one. The fact that there are seals there shows that at some point, Baikal connected to the ocean, but how is a matter of speculation. Regardless, they've been there for at least two million years. The English name is a little odd: in Russian, нерпа means just generically a seal, but somehow when transferred to English, it came to mean a specific species that hardly any English-speakers ever see or even know about. As for the Russian word, it's a borrowing from a Finnish language.
---L.
That is, the species of earless seal (Pusa sibirica) that lives in Lake Bailkal -- one of the smaller seals, and the only exclusively freshwater one. The fact that there are seals there shows that at some point, Baikal connected to the ocean, but how is a matter of speculation. Regardless, they've been there for at least two million years. The English name is a little odd: in Russian, нерпа means just generically a seal, but somehow when transferred to English, it came to mean a specific species that hardly any English-speakers ever see or even know about. As for the Russian word, it's a borrowing from a Finnish language.
---L.
