How did 'cocodrilo' originate from 'crocodile'?

Question

The English word crocodile seems to originate from the Latin crocodīlus and Ancient Greek κροκόδιλος. Indeed it has ended up very similar in several modern languages: German (Krokodile), Russian (крокодил), Hungarian (krokodilfélék).

But does anyone know why the Spanish (and only they) moved the r and call it a cocodrilo?

Answer 1

This is an example of metathesis, the rearranging of sounds or syllables in a word. It occurred in a number of words in the evolution from Latin to Spanish:

• Latin parabola > Old Spanish parabla > Spanish palabra 'word'
• Latin mīrāculum > Old Spanish miráclo > miraglo > Spanish milagro 'miracle'
• Latin pericŭlum > Old Spanish pericolo > periglo > Spanish peligro 'danger, peril'

• Latin crocodīlus > Old Spanish crocodilo > Spanish cocodrilo 'crocodile'

• animalia > alimaña

• integrare > entregar
• vidŭus/a > viudo/a
• crusta > crosta > costra
• Algeria > Argelia
• guirlanda > guirnalda
• Old Spanish mur + ciego> Old Spanish murciégo > (diminutive) murciégalo > murciélago

There are even instances of this happening multiple times to recreate the original syllabic pattern:

• praelātus > prelado > perlado > prelado

This also occurs commonly with these non-standard (i.e. not recognised by the RAE) pronunciations (and associated spellings):

• croqueta > cocreta
• dentífrico > dentrífico
• calcomanía > calcamonía
• vereda > vedera
• cerebro > celebro
• guijarro > guirrajo
• programa > pograma
• neandertal > neardental
• colchoneta > cholconeta
• meteorología > metereología

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_{Note: These changes do not occur in all Romance languages, see:}

• _{French Algérie}
• _{French miracle, Italian miracolo}
• _{French guirlande, Italian ghirlanda}
• _{Portuguese crocodilo, Galician crocodilo}
• _{Portuguese perigo, Galician perigo, Italian pericolo}

_{But other Romance languages did in fact undergo the same change as Spanish with this last word:}

• _{Italian coccodrillo}
• _{Sicilian cuccudrillu}
• _{Vernazzese (Spezzino (Ligurian)) cuccudrìllu}
• _{Logudorese Sardinian cuccudrillu}
• _{Corsican cuccudrillu}
• _{Asturian cocodrilu}
• _{Old French cocodril}
• _{Picard cocodril}
• _{Catalan cocodril}
• _{Languedocien (Occitan) cocodril}

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_Sources:

_{• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metathesis_(linguistics)#Spanish
• https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metátesis
• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/crocodile#French}

Answer 2

Actually the word crocodilo is listed in some Spanish dictionaries, but one thing is what dictionaries say and another thing is what real users of language do. Anyway, it seems that this is a case of metathesis, which is a process that reorders the segments of a given string. Thus, perhaps crocodilo became cocodrilo after the /r/ was reordered in the word. In Italian it is very similar: coccodrillo, so Spanish is not the only case as you think. This phenomenon could have started in Latin for crocodilus, and this would explain that Spanish and Italian exhibit the metathesis too.

Answer 3

I think that one should think of the Vulgar Latin that was spoken in many countries by speakers who were not too firm in Latin or Vulgar Latin. And such special cases of metathesis that r not only jumps from its place before a vowel after it but also to a place in the last part of a long word occur, because a lot of speakers could not reproduce long words correctly. That's how I would explain such curiosities that r is shifted to a remote position.

Answer 4

I think that with time the original word of crocodīlus has become cocodrilo in Español, through laziness or just by error. The same thing happens with Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (yerushaláyim) in Hebrew): in Spanish it is called Jerusalén (with a final -n). On many occasions I have heard people say "Ansterdan" (with two n's). Horrible but true.