Re: girl

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, December 11, 1999 7:13 PM

Subject: [cybalist] girl

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

Nice, but the meaning GIRL must have developed in Germanic for *gar-(V)l-a: 'warbler', which looks as if it were a Romance loanword (otherwise Grimm's Law would have make transformed it into *kar-(V)l-). But ... wait! Germanic has *kar(V)l- 'fellow, man', cf. German Kerl, OE ceorl, etc. Haven't we got an etymology for it -- 'talkative young man' > 'fellow'?

Piotr