animal has been borrowed into most European languages, in a form similar to English orangutan, more or less unchanged from Malay orang hutan, which is a descriptive term for this primate meaning ‘man of the forest’, from orang, ‘man’, plus hutan, ‘forest’. There is a tendency to rhyme the second and last syllables of orangutan (as if
aŋ and aŋ) and in a number of European languages including English a g is sometimes added to the last syllable, both in pronunciation and spelling. See also GORILLA.