Today in “Surprisingly Connected Etymologies”, we’re taking a look at some birds!
Just before I get to the birds – if you’re interested in learning more
about how etymology works, stick around at the end of the video to hear about a
new public course I’m teaching about the basics of historical linguistics.
We used to be told that the start of life was when the stork brought us to our parents,
and funnily enough this is etymologically appropriate, if biologically inaccurate.
Stork comes through Old English storc from the Proto-Indo-European root *ster- “stiff”
because of the bird’s stiff movements. This root also leads to Old English styrtan “to start,
leap up” and Modern English start, as the sense shifted from “stiff” to “move briskly or stiffly”
to “move suddenly” and eventually “begin to move”.
A canary and a hound seem like quite different animals,
and yet etymologically they’re one and the same. Hound, or Old English hund, used to be the
basic word for “dog”. It comes from the PIE root *kwn-to- , which comes from the base *kwon- “dog”.
Another derivative of this root *kan-i- leads to Latin canis “dog”. Romans in the 1st century
found islands off the North West coast of Africa which had on them a particular large breed of dog.
From the Latin adjective canarius “of dogs” they came to be known as the Canary
Islands. Later on in the 16th century a particular type of finch also found on
the Canary Islands was exported to England, and they came to be known as canary birds.
Trade is also behind our next bird pairing:
turkey and turquoise. Turkey the bird is in fact named after Turkey the country,
not because it comes from there but because it was confused with another somewhat similar bird,
the guinea fowl, that was traded into Europe through the Ottoman Empire and thus became known
as ‘turkey’ in England. When the bird from the Americas started to be imported, it got lumped
together with the other ‘foreign’ fowl, and ended up taking over its name. Similarly, most of the
turquoise that came to Europe did so by way of Turkish trade, hence its name. The country’s name
itself has disputed and unclear origins, beyond being named after the people known as the Turks.
A thrush and an ostrich are very different sized birds, but etymologically they’re the same. Thrush
comes from Old English þrysce, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *thruskjon and PIE *trozdo-,
also referring to the thrush bird. This same root leads to Greek strouthos “thrush”,
and in one hell of an understatement, megas strouthos, literally “great or big sparrow”,
referred to the ostrich, which was also known as a strouthokamelos, literally “thrush-camel”
because of its long camel-like neck. Eventually strouthos on its own came to refer to the ostrich,
and as it passed through Latin it was combined with avis “bird” leading to Vulgar Latin
*avistruthius, which became Old French ostrusce and English ostrich.
Etymologically speaking you should find goose served in a smorgasbord. Goose has a pretty
straightforward history, from Old English gos, Proto-Germanic *gans-, and PIE *ghans- meaning
“goose, swan” and is probably imitative of the honking sound the bird makes. Unsurprisingly then,
Swedish has the word gås “goose”. What is more surprising is the Swedish compound word
smörgås, which is literally “butter-goose” but is used to mean “slice of bread with butter”.
The first element smör, related to English smear, is Swedish for “butter” and in this context gås
means “lump of butter” by way of comparison to goose fat. Smörgåsbord then, with bord
(related to English board) meaning “table”, came to refer to food served buffet-style, and entered
English as smorgasbord eventually gaining the figurative sense of “medley, miscellany”.
Before I end, I have an exciting announcement: I’m going to be teaching a series of short
online seminars about the basics of etymology and historical linguistics. It’s hosted by Speakeasy
and I’ll be working through some linguistic puzzles to teach about the tools and methods
etymologists use to reconstruct the origins of words and the history of English. If that
sounds like something you’d enjoy, I’d love for you to join me! See the link in the description
for more information and to register – hope to get to meet some of you in an upcoming class!
Thanks for watching! This is one in a series of occasional short videos about connected
etymologies; to see more, you can also follow the Endless Knot on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.