I haven't got a decent etymological
dictionary of Slavic at home, so here's the best I can do with my limited
resources.
Some of these names are borrowed.
<bekas> 'snipe' and <bekasa> come, surprisingly
enough, from Fr. becasse (< *becca:tum 'beaked', based on a Gaulish
word for "beak"). I don't think the early Slavs had different words
for different birds of the sandpiper family. The Eurasian woodcock, _Scolopax
rusticola_, seems to have represented all of them -- Pol. sl/onka (<
sl/e,ka), Russ./Ukr./Cz. sluka, etc., with exact correspondences in
OPr. slanke, Lith. slánka < B/Sl. *sla:nka:.
Pol. mewa 'seagull' and OPr. mewe are loans
from German. The common Slavic word was apparently *c^e^ja (cf. Russ. c^ajka,
Pol. czajka 'lapwing', with a diminutive sufix) < *ke:ja:
(onomatopoeic?).
The "swan" word is *ólbUntI (~ *-ndI) <
*álbontis, perhaps *h2albHo-h2nh2ti- 'white duck' (though I find the
details, especially the initial acute vowel in Slavic, puzzling), dialectally
also *kUlpI (no doubt an irregular relative of Baltic *gulbis).
There are "heron/stork" words based on
*c^e^p- < *ke:p- (possibly one of the "catch" roots). Cz. volavka means
'caller'. I find it surprising that in an area where white storks are common and
popular birds (perhaps the most familiar "mega-avifauna" in these parts, and
certainly synanthropic since a long time ago), there are so many etymologically
obscure names for them -- even neighbouring and closely related languages and
dialects may have different terms (taboo?). I can't check all of them at the
moment -- suffice it to say that, to begin with, I have no idea where Pol.
bocian comes from. Russ. aist is often claimed to come from dialectal
MHG heister 'magpie' (cf. Pol. hajstra 'black stork'), or from <agist>
(same source and meaning), or a cross between them. I am sure Sergei
won't let us down.
For once, the "crane" word belongs to a
recognisable IE etymon (*ger-) -- Lith. gérve., Latv. dze:rve <
*ger&wja:, Slavic *z^eravI < *gero:wi-, suggesting (to me)
*ger(o)-h2wi-(ah2) 'cry-bird'.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 1:00 PM
Subject: [tied] Slavic water birds
What's the etymology of these names of aquatic
birds
Russian tsaplia "heron" = Polish czapla = Czech
c^ap "stork"
Czech volavka "heron"
Russian aist "stork"
Polish bocian "stork"
Russian c^aika "gull"
Czech rac^ek "gull"
Polish mewa "gull" < *Germanic
maihwa- ?
Russian lebed' "swan" = Czech labut' =
SerboCroatina la"bu^d < *labo,ti <*albH-anHti "white duck" ?
Russian bekasa "snipe, woodcok" = Polish bekas
"woodcock"
Any Baltic cognates for these
words?