Tortoise

Tortoise (pronounced tawr-tuhs)

(1) Any herbivorous terrestrial chelonian reptile of the family Testudinidae (mostly North American) or the order Testudines (elsewhere in the English-speaking world), the body of which is enclosed in a shell (carapace plus plastron), the animal able to withdraw its head and four legs partially into the shell, providing some protection from predators.

(2) Another word for testudo.

(3) Figuratively, a very slow person or thing, the idea explored in Aesop’s ambiguous fable “The Tortoise and the Hare”.

1550s: A variant of various Middle English words including the late fifteenth century tortuse, the mid-fifteenth century tortuce, the late fourteenth century tortuge and  tortose, & tortuca (all of which may have been influenced by the Old French tortue and the word porpoise), and probably from the mid-thirteenth century Medieval Latin tortūca, from the Late Latin tartarūcha the feminine form of Tartarus, from the Ancient Greek ταρταροῦχος (tartaroûkhos) (a mythological spirit, holder of Tartaros (or Tartarus), the land of the dead in ancient stories), the tortoise being regarded as an infernal animal with origins in the depths of the underworld.  The Medieval Latin form was influenced by the Latin tortus (crooked, twisted), that base on the shape of the creatures’ feet.  The Latin tortus was also the source of the English tort (the branch of law dealing with the civil remedies available for wrongful acts).  In Classical Latin the word was testudo, from testa (shell) and the words derived from Latin displaced the native Old English byrdling; the long obsolete synonym was shellpad.  Tortoise is a noun; the noun plural is tortoises.

Detail of an oval multi-foiled dish with chinoiserie motifs, tortoiseshell with gold and mother-of-pearl piqué work (circa 1740) by Giuseppe Sarao (circa 1710-circa 1775) of Naples, once owned by Baron Henri de Rothschild (1872-1947).

The noun carapace (upper shell of a turtle or tortoise; shell of an insect, crustacean etc) date from 1836 and was from the eighteenth century French carapace (tortoise shell), from the Spanish carapacho or Portuguese carapaça, both of uncertain origin but may be related to the Latin capa (cape).  The noun turtle (tortoise) emerged circa 1600, originally in the form "marine tortoise" from the thirteenth century French tortue & tortre (turtle, tortoise) of unknown origin. Etymologists suspect the English turtle may be a sailors' mauling of the French and it was later extended to land tortoises, the sea-turtle noted since the 1610s.

Lindsay Lohan in tortoiseshell-frame sunglasses, Los Angeles. 2012.

The use of the common terms turtle, tortoise, and terrapin vary by geography.  In North America, turtle tends to be the general term while tortoise is used only in reference to terrestrial turtles or those members of Testudinidae, the family of modern land tortoises.  Terrapin is applied usually to turtles that are small and live in fresh and brackish water.  Elsewhere in the English-speaking world, turtle is used generally of the aquatic while tortoise is applied to land-dwelling members of the order Testudines (regardless of whether they are actually members of the family Testudinidae).  One antipodean linguistic anomaly is that although land tortoises are not native to Australia, freshwater turtles traditionally have been called tortoises.  Non specialists often use tortoise and turtle interchangeably and although the most commonly accepted distinction is that tortoises are terrestrial (land-dwelling) and turtles aquatic, it’s not a zoological rule because the box turtle is primarily terrestrial and confusingly, is also called the box tortoise.  One helpful physical indication is that aquatic turtles (like snapping turtles) have webbed feet or flippers whereas turtles known as tortoises typically have stubby, round feet, and their shells are often more domed.

A sea turtle showing its classic tortoiseshell pattern & coloring.

Tortoises are studied by herpetologists, a field which encompasses reptiles and amphibians, the word from the Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν (herpetón) (creeping animal, reptile, especially a snake) +‎ -ologist.  The relatively rare suffix -ologist is the alternative spelling of -logist (one who studies a subject), the construct being -logy (study of) +‎ -ist (the agent suffix).  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).

In the style of late mid-century modern, a serving tray (circa 1970) by Guzzini of Italy, the platter of acrylic & acrylic glass with brass handles.  The use of the tortoiseshell motif on a large flat surface illustrates the possibilities offered by synthetics.  Such things can now be 3D-printed.

The oldest known reference to tortoise shell (also tortoise-shell & tortoiseshell) as a pattern of markings is from 1782 although for decorative purposes it had been prized for centuries.  The material is made from the shell of the larger species of turtles & tortoises and the attractive and unusual combinations of colors and patterning has seen the name tortoiseshell attached to some species, most famously the breed of domestic cat and several butterflies.  The attractiveness of the mottled material, its durability and even the pleasingly natural touch made tortoiseshell a popular material with consumers and it was famously used in inlays by French craftsman André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732) who lent his name to the distinctive style.  As a natural product, the some variations in style and color were especially valued and it was one of those commodities men sometimes killed to obtain.  Such was the demand that some species of sea turtles became threatened although trade in the substance, first restricted by treaty under the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) process, wasn’t wholly banned until early in the twenty-first century.  The appearance of the natural tortoiseshell is now emulated in a variety of synthetic materials including cellulose acetate and various thermoplastics.

Tortoiseshell kitten.

Despite the way the name is often used, there is no distinct breed of cat called tortoiseshell, the coloring caused by the normal operation of genetics.  The variations are induced by x-linked genes, the process called mosaic expression under which only one x-linked gene for hair color is expressed in each cell, resulting in the mix coloring which is determined by which gene is left “on” in each cell.  In a model familiar in mammals, a female cat has two X chromosomes in each cell (XX) while males have one X and one Y (XY).  In cats, the X chromosome includes much information (genes) including the instructions which determine the color of the coat and female cats, being XX, have two sets of genes for coat color in each cell.  In tortoiseshell cats, these instructions don’t match because there’s one gene for orange one for black fur and during the earliest stages of an embryonic kitten, one X chromosome in every single cell deactivates in a process called lyonization and because the process is entirely random, skin cells retain the instruction for orange fur while others remain coded for black, thus the tortoiseshell pattern.  As a further evolutionary quirk, because the colors are linked to the X chromosome, almost all tortoiseshell cats are female.