Re: [tied] Re: Ducks and Souls

11-09-03 21:25, Daniel J. Milton wrote:

> "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

McBain (not quite an up-to-date resource) quotes reconstructed
*vannello- which is practically identical with the Proto-Romance form of
the 'lapwing' word (the [uncertain] Classical Latin word was <parra>).
Its vocalism seems to me to match the Goidelic forms better than the
Brittonic ones; as to the possibility of reconciling them I'd prefer to
hear the opinion of a Celtologist. It seems likely that the Romance word
is a folk-etymologised borrowing from Celtic, with a change of meaning.
Perhaps Old Irish re-borrowed its phonological form from Latin, but note
that the Celtic meaning is stable ('swallow, martin, swift', not 'lapwing').

Piotr