the geese is a subfamily of the duck-birds in the biological systematics of the birds. The name goose for this bird-group is relatively old. Already in the Old High German as well as in the Middle High German, the term goose was used. Comparative analyses with other Indo-European languages suggest that both the German name gans and the Latin name anser, which is the generic name for the field geese today, derive from the sound of the hissing geese.