girl

From: mdesfaye@...
Message: 604
Date: 1999-12-16

I thought there was no PIE word for girl because nobody inventen one,
but I see now that someone did invent some tortuous ones. There is now
PIE word for girl and boy. Useless to invent any. But there ARE
cognates if you search hard enough:

boy. No satisfactory explanation has ever been supplied for this word.
Some cognates however are found in Franco-Provençal: Grenoble boya,
Forez boye "young girl", Savoie boya "young cow, girl", Grand-Combe
boyè "young boy", Valais (Switzerland) boyè "young boy, young bull",
Romanian bâiat "boy". These cognates disprove the other etymologies
given for English boy. For the same name being applied to both a young
person and a young animal, cf. English chick "chick and yound girl",
Spanish chica "small and young girl", Greek neossos "chick", neós "boy,
girl", Albanian zogë "chicken, girl", Serbocroatian mladac "fledgling"
mlada "bride", French poule, poulette "chicken, girl".

girl. Cf. German: Switzerland gurrle, gurrli "girl". This name refers
to the garrulous quality of girls. The following terms belong to a root
gar- "garrulous":
Old French garioller to warble
Old Provençal garolle warbling
French: Béarnais garriulá gargouiller, FEW 23: 202
French: Gascogne garola, gariolle Skylark
French: Gascogne gariole Lapwing; Golden Plover sandpipers
Italian: Bologna sgariol sandpiper
French: Lavedan gariole Ptarmigan
Spanish garular to chatter
Latin garrulus talkative
German: Switzerland gurrle, gurrli girl
English girl young woman; Australia girlo
Old French garruler to warble
Galician garrular to warble
Spanish: Pyr. garullo Ptarmigan; Andalusia garullo Turkey
French: Béarnais garoulh rauque; coquâtre
French: Andelis guerlinder to produce a metallic sound, FEW 3: 199
French: Norm. guerlette sandpipers; sandplovers
Breton garreli Garganey
Galician garéla Grey Partridge
Galician merlo garleiro Oriole
Italian North garluda Mistle Thrush

Crazy, ain't it ?

From: A thesaurus of bird names - Etymology through paradigms
By Michel Desfayes
Les Cahiers du Musée No. 2
Museum of Natural History
1950 Sion
Switzerland