In Lg. 24.56-63 (1948), M. B. Emeneau re-examines the problem of taboos on animal names, with special reference to the IE names for the bear in Slavic. Collecting nearly the whole literature on the subject, he demonstrates that there is as yet no satisfactory explanation: why was the original IE name for the bear (represented by Lat. ursus, Gk. árktos, etc.) displaced in Slavic by a compound meaning ‘honey-eater’ (Russ. m'edv'éd'), in Baltic by a word meaning ‘one who licks’ (Lith. lokỹs), and in Germanic by a word meaning ‘brown’ (Eng. bear)?

Emeneau summarizes the two current theories. Frazer and Meillet believe in a ‘hunter’s taboo’: when the animal is hunted, the utterance of its name is forbidden because, understanding human speech, it would either escape or become dangerous to the hunter. (Emeneau rejects at once Meillet’s additional explanation, that the name is not used because the animal is ‘repugnant’.) Keller, Schrader, and Gray, on the other hand, believe in a ‘religious taboo’: for the primitive hunter, the bear was in some way part of the world of gods and demons; to name it gave the bear the power to harm the hunter. According to this view, the original name of the bear in the Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic languages had a ‘religio-demonic meaning’.