Re: [cybalist] Re: Hamp and his dog

 

Piotr Gasiorowski a écrit:

    ----- Original Message -----From: "DEFAYES MICHEL" <mdesfaye@...>To: <cybalist@egroups.com>Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 7:37 PMSubject: Re: [cybalist] Re: Hamp and his dog Dear Michel, Wouldn't you agree that by interpreting *kuo:n as 'herder' Hamp refers to the FUNCTION of the dog? If the name of the dog were of "acoustic" origin, I'd expect it to be "bow-wow" or the like rather than "dog" or "hound"; at least I fail to see in what way the sound of hound is supposed to symbolise the animal's character or function.

Dear Piotr,>I said of  "acoustic origin", not onomatopaeic or  imitative origin. Tordo is of acoustic origin, not imitative by any stretch of imagination.

Your selection of consonantal combinations "expressing" noisiness looks completely arbitrary to me. Why not h-l (howl, hullo, Latin [< Greek] haliaeetus 'sea eagle, osprey')

>Haliaeetus translate as "fishing eagle" and has nothing to do with to howl. Besides it does not howl.

or t-r (Spanish tordo 'thrush', English turkey,

>turkey is from the country's name, not of acoustic origin.

Greek tarakhE 'frenzy', tauros 'bull' etc.), or indeed any other pair of consonants? You don't analyse the examples you list -- you just play with their sound, which is OK if you're a poet but no good if you're a linguist. Some of the terms you quote are obviously onomatopoeic, some are not, quite at random; many are cognates, which accounts for their similarity more realistically than the assumption that they are sound-symbolic. The list is long but also full of errors. Let me correct the Polish examples only, leaving the rest to other interested Cybalist members: 1. The Polish word for the tree pipit (Anthus trivialis) is wiergotek (drzewny), not konik 'little horse'; its song sounds like anything but neighing, as far as I know; it could be imitated as "ship-ship" (or something more chirrupy in the nesting season).

>konik is one of the 10 Polish regional names I have for the Tree Pipit, Anthus trivialis. Its >official ornithological name is S'wiergotek drzewny. ship-ship is its call-note, not its song >which does sound like a neighing, or may be likened to it.

2. The standard Polish word for the brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) is jer. Kitajka ("kytajka" isn't a possible Polish word at all) is a plausible dialectal bird name, but not a sound-imitative one: the word means 'something from China' (cf. Cathay, Russian Kitaj 'China'), especially 'a kind of silk cap'. The brambling cock has a conspicuous dark-brown cap, which accounts for "kitajka" (if genuine).

>The official ornithological name for the Brambling Fringilla montifringilla is Zieba jer. >Kitajka is one of 18 Polish regional names for this bird. (kytajka is the spelling I have found; it may not be correct).

3. "Dukacz" doesn't exist. You probably mean duka, but it means 'stutter, recite ineptly', definitely not 'to crow'. The Polish word for 'to crow' is pia. Excuse the diacritics (they are UTF-8-encoded). Piotr

>dukacz means to crow in a Polish dialect (of the Wrona Corvus corone cornix).

>Thank for the lessons in ornithology.

Michel Desfayes
A thesaurus of bird names - Etymology through paradigms, 1998.

"The breadth and depth of coverage is truly astonishing…
The author also deals in masterly fashion with bird names in the dialects of English…
This book is a stupendous achievement, a philological tour de force, a celebration of birds, and of man's relationship with nature, expressed through the wondrous gift of language; it is endlessly entertaining, instructive and illuminating. A few moments of browsing and you are likely to get hooked". Ibis, Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Union.