European explorer, pointing at wild animal: "Excuse me sir, what is that?"
Local: "It's a wild animal."
European explorer, writing it down: "Thank you!"
Kinda. Although most people would say "dier" for animal in Afrikaans. Beest could be related to "bees" which is singular for cattle. "Beeste" for the plural. That's what I always thought... That the name was more akin to "wild cattle" than "wild beast".
But I'm not a real animalnameologist so...