Etymology
The name is an anagram of the Spanish word canibal (Carib people), the source of cannibal in English. The character may be seen as a satire on "Noble cannibal" from Montaigne's Essays (A.30, "Of Cannibals").
The character's name may also be inspired by kaliban or cauliban in the Romani language, which mean black or with blackness. As the first Romani immigrants arrived in England a century before Shakespeare wrote The Tempest, the Bard may have been influenced by their exotic looks and manners. In Shakespeare's time, the English discriminated against the Romanies. Alternatively the name may originate from the Arabic word for "wild dog".
Read more about this topic: Caliban
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)