Re: Ducks and Souls

--- 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