First thing we gotta cover is the Great Vowel Shift, which occurred in English back betweeen Chaucer and Shakespeare, when sounds began moving forward in the mouth. “Meat” used to be pronounced more like “mate.” Make the sounds, and you’ll see how most older pronunciations were formed further back in the mouth. Go way, way, back, “y” was the Greek “u”, and pronounced as such. Clytemnestra was originally said “Klootahmnayster”, but the sound evolved over time, passing through “uh” to short “i” to the two variants of long “i”: the “ee” sound we see in “slowly,” and the “eye” sound we see in “electrolyte.”

Going way, way back, there was a word in English, “pygg,” which referred to a certain clay. It was used for making all kinds of household objects, including things for storing money. At the time the barbaric Saxons learned to write, “pygg” was probably pronounced to rhyme with “pug,” but as the pronunciation of “y” changed, “pygg” came to be pronounced about like “pig,” and the banks were shaped like pigs as a joke, or because of confusion of the meaning.

According to Charles Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, people were saving money in kitchen pots and jars made of pygg, called “pygg jars”… and by the 18th Century, pygg jar had become pig bank, potters simply casting the bank in the shape of its common, everyday name.

By the way, clay bottles filled with hot water are still used as bed-warmers in parts of Britain, and are called “pigs” or “china pigs”; Eric Bogle did a song about them. They, too, are often shaped like pigs as a visual pun.

Over the next two hundred to three hundred years, people forgot that “pygg” referred to the earthenware material. In the nineteenth century when English potters received requests for piggy banks, they produced banks shaped like a pig. Of course, the pigs appealed to the customers and delighted the children.

Over the next two hundred to three hundred years, people forgot that “pygg” referred to the earthenware material. In the nineteenth century when English potters received requests for piggy banks, they produced banks shaped like a pig. Of course, the pigs appealed to the customers and delighted the children.

The banks were kinda’ cute in the past…

Thank you sir for posting this question I even starred it1 My children are going to love to know the origin of the “Piggy bank”.

I wonder if it has to do with the farmers attempting to fatten up their pigs before slaughtering.