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From Malayorang(“person, man”) + hutan(“forest”); literally, "forest man". Other names for the animal are mawas and mayas.
The name orangutan has been used in Old Javanese texts, notably in Rāmāyaṇa and Smaradahana, in the form of uraṅutan and wuraṅutan. Its usage to refer to the apes in these texts (from as early as the 9th century CE) opposes the belief that the name orangutan originates from a European source.[1]
^ Sastrawan, Wayan Jarrah (2020) “The word ‘orangutan’: Old Malay origin or European concoction?”, in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, volume 176, number 4, →DOI, pages 532–541