In the “K” section of many canine encyclopedias, the word, “kelb” appears, and virtually all such sources are in agreement that the word is Arabic for “ordinary dog.”
There is a breed, however, about which nothing is ordinary, and yet “kelb” is part of its authentic name of origin. The breed is the Pharaoh Hound, the national dog of Malta, and it was originally known as the Kelb tal-Fenek which literally means “rabbit dog” in Maltese.
Curiously, when the breed was imported to the UK in the early 1960s, the Kennel Club (UK) refused to use the breed’s Maltese name. Instead, the club opted to use “Pharaoh Hound” because of its resemblance to hounds depicted in ancient Egyptian art, even though there is no direct evidence linking the breed to ancient Egypt. The Egyptian connection is a myth, albeit a romantic one, but a landmark genetic study published in May 2004 by scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle demonstrated that the Kelb tal-Fenek and other similar Mediterranean hounds were developed in more recent times and do not share a direct genetic lineage with ancient Egyptian hounds. Additional research by the University of Malta, using mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite analysis, was published in 2018. This work demonstrated that the Kelb tal-Fenek is genetically distinct from the Cirneco dell’Etna and other breeds, with both molecular and population analyses reinforcing its Mediterranean roots.
Nevertheless, the British Kennel Club’s decision to tie the breed to the age of the pharaohs was done, in part, because in the 1960s, Kelb tal-Fenek was unfamiliar and difficult for English speakers to pronounce or understand, and Pharaoh Hound was far more intriguing, memorable, and marketable to the Western public and dog enthusiasts. The FCI would come to defer to the Kennel Club’s chosen nomenclature in time – but fun fact: Before the Pharaoh Hound was officially recognized as a distinct breed, the name “Pharaoh Hound” had been used informally—and briefly—by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale to refer to the Ibizan Hound. After 1977, it reassigned the Ibizan Hound to its Spanish name, Podenco Ibicenco which is how the FCI lists the breed today.
Image of Pharaoh Hound by © Pepsona/Dreamstime