Wild Oxen Called Beyamini

Dr. Laufer writes to me: “Yule correctly identifies the ‘wild oxen’ of Tibet with the gayal (Bos gavaeus), but I do not believe that his explanation of the word beyamini (from an artificially constructed buemini = Bohemian) can be upheld. Polo states expressly that these wild oxen are called beyamini (scil. by the natives), and evidently alludes to a native Tibetan term. The gayal is styled in Tibetan ba-men (or ba-man), derived from ba (‘cow’), a diminutive form of which is beu. Marco Polo appears to have heard some dialectic form of this word like beu-men or beu-min.”

XLVIII., p. 70.