Re: [tied] Slavic water birds

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

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 8:13 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Slavic water birds

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 -----

From: João S. Lopes Filho

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

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?