Re: Ducks and Souls

From: Daniel J. Milton
Message: 25768
Date: 2003-09-11

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> 11-09-03 17:03, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > English-Irish Dictionary of Bird Names
> >
> > http://gofree.indigo.ie/~cocaomh/English-Irish%20Dictionary.htm
> >
> > Swallow
> >
> > ... Áinleog, Áinle [orig. Fannall, Fáinneáil ?
Fluttering or
> > Circling]; ...
> >
> > Swift
> >
> > ... Áinle [see Swallow]
> >
> >
> > (but is it close enough semantically and phonologically?)
>
> Scottish Gaelic fainleag, Welsh gwennol, Old Irish
fannall 'swallow',
> VLat. *vannellum 'lapwing' (e.g. Fr. vanneau). I'm not sure about
the
> correct Proto-Celtic reconstruction, perhaps *wenna:lo-, but
definitely
> with an initial /w/, whose reflex has been dropped only in Modern
Irish.
>
> Piotr
*************
"Lapwing .. the 'Triga vanellus' of Linnaeus... The
word 'vanellus' is from 'vannus', the fan used for winnowing corn,
and refers to the audible beating of the bird's wings (Alfred
Newton, 11th Britannica)".
Is this a false etymology? Or is the Proto-Celtic a parallel
construction from a similar root? Or is Piotr wrong (gasp!) and the
Irish word is not from the Proto-Celtic but from the V. Latin?
The English ' hleapewince' (<'hleapan' "to leap" + 'wince' "to
waver") --->'lap'+ 'wing' shows what folk etymology can do.
Dan