I was trying to find an etymology for the Russian word люрик ‘little auk‘ when I went to that Wikipedia page and saw “The little auk or dovekie (Alle alle) is a small auk, the only member of the genus Alle.” I was struck by “dovekie” and went to the OED, where I found (entry from 1897):
dovekie, n.
Pronunciation: /ˈdʌvki/
Forms: Also doveca, dovekey, doveky.
Etymology: Scots diminutive of dove: compare lassikie, wifikie, or -ockie (which are of 3 syllables), and see dove n. 1c, dovey n. b.An arctic bird, the Black Guillemot (Uria grylle). Also (and now normally), the little auk (Plautus alle).
1819 A. Fisher Jrnl. 18 June in Jrnl. Voy. Arctic Regions 1819–20 (1821) 27 Another species of diver was seen today..it is called by the seamen, Dovekey.
1823 W. Scoresby Jrnl. Voy. Northern Whale-fishery 421 Colymbus Grylle—Tyste or Doveca.
1835 J. Ross Narr. Second Voy. North-west Passage liv. 693 The second dovekie of the season was seen.
[…]
1954 J. M. M. Fisher & R. M. Lockley Sea-birds i. 17 Among the auks the dovekie and the Brünnick’s guillemot from the north join the puffins, razorbills and guillemots in ocean wanderings.
There are no entries for lassikie, wifikie, or -ockie, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to compare them, and I don’t know what they mean by “which are of 3 syllables,” but never mind — what a charming word!
I never did find an etymology for люрик (it’s not in Vasmer), so if anybody knows anything, do share.
The DSL might help a bit – see wife, lass and -ock, which suggests that -ikie endings are a double diminutive, -ock + -ie
I don’t know about the three syllables, except that it does feel a bit odd just to add the -kie without a linking -i- sound…
I think it means that -kie adds one syllable and -ockie adds two to a monosyllabic word.
Russian names for northern species could come from many sources. One of those is Norwegian. The stem element люр- might perhaps be borrowed from Norw. lyr-/ljor-, which forms e.g. ljore “smoke vent in roof; (arch.) hole in cloud cover” and its doublet lyre “small window; slit for air in thatching”. If so, the bird might have been named for the characteristic white spot on the belly. The European pollack is called lyr in Norwegian for similar reasons. But without attestation of a cognate birdname this is entirely speculative.
an etymology for люрик
Just post somewhere “possibly of a sound-imitative origin”, and the world will accept it and quote it without question.
Just post somewhere
Better yet, add it here.
(TIL: Hesychius has σισίλαρος· πέρδιξ. Περγαῖοι “sisilaros: partridge, among the Pergaeans [of Perga]”.)
I never did find an etymology for люрик
Dementyev et al. 1951 says “attested in Pallas 1811, probably vernacular; etymology unclear”. [Click on p. 119 for the start of the description.]
My googling attempts found a few more places saying “etymology unclear” (этимология неясна) without context; the aforementioned description was by far the most detailed treatment that I could find. I’m not sure if anyone actually studied it (presumably post-1951). An onomatopoeic origin does not sound entirely implausible.
You can hear it here. Whether or not you think it kinda sounds like it’s saying “люрик”, it’s not enough to support a sound-symbolic origin.
BTW, Xerîb’s link mentions sea smew, i.e. a seagull; I wonder if it’s the origin for smew, a different seabird with an unexplained etymology. (Or, just call it “possibly sound-imitative” and be done with it.)
Another odd name for the dovekie, once very common but now no longer much used (at least on this side of the Atlantic), is rotche or rotchie. According to the OED this is derived from Dutch rotge, itself of uncertain etymology:
There are a many variants in 19th-century sources: rodge, rotje, rotgee, rotch, ratch, roach …
ruokki
Finnish
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /ˈruo̯kːi/, [ˈruo̞̯kːi]
Rhymes: -uokːi
Syllabification: ruok‧ki
Etymology 1
Borrowed from Sami, compare Northern Sami ruokke.
Noun
ruokki
1. auk (birds of the family Alcidae)
2. in plural (ruokit), the family Alcidae
3. razorbill, Alca torda (type species of the family)
Derived terms
– pikkuruokki, Alle alle (little auk / dovekie)
– siivetönruokki, Pinguinus impennis (great auk)
Don’t forget the onomatopoeic word Lyra – the unstrument and the constellation! (I’m kidding).
Well, in my idiolect of Russian -lyr- (⟨y⟩ for /ю, yu, ü/ etc) sounds more like a borrowing. Sound-imitative words usually are not Liquid-V-Liquid.
But there is oj lyuli-lyuli in songs (is it related to lyul’ka “cradle”?) , sayings… in some book I saw lyulechki! in the sense бютюшки!
I frequently mention here zinziver “mallow, titmouse” here (I see to just like this nest of words). And once soon after mentionign it I heard a three-syllable bird call which I was tempted to write transcribe as “-i-i-é-!” (we use /i/ in Russian when imitating high-pitched sounds, e.g. mosquitos). Or maybe some other sequences would work, but not all of them. I know this call, and I suspect it was exactly a great tit. I even found some recordings of them, with this song and dozens other songs too. But I don’t remember most of others while this one is familiar.
Also we have a plenty of z-onomatopoeias like dzin (thin glass or a bell, cf. also zvyak) for high-pitched sounds Ginger words (zingiber) sound like a collection of those.
Onomatopoeias are not hopeless, but for zinziver I know (1) the exact sourse (2) how Russian onomatopoeias work (3) what sort of sounds I hear from local birds.
On the topic of Greek λάρος ‘gull’ and its possible onomatopoeic origin, I just thought I would note that there is a Hittite word lari(ya)- that Calvert Watkins (How to Kill a Dragon 1995: 141, note 16) interpreted as ‘gull’ (specifically, the black-headed gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus) in the following Hittite passage (probably in verse) to be recited during the course of a religious festival originating in the Hittite Old Kingdom (ca. 1650–1500 BCE):
possibly to be interpreted as
(The meaning of tīeštēš is unknown.)
Obviously https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/teistie 😀
Wow.
That may just be the missing cognate.
https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/lyre
The lyre is a puffin, attested in Orkney since 1701. Certainly a close match for a dovekie.
P.S. WP says, for the Little Auk, “Alle is the Sami name of the long-tailed duck; it is onomatopoeic and imitates the call of the drake duck.” I swear I didn’t look at it earlier.
Alle is the Sami name of the long-tailed duck; it is onomatopoeic and imitates the call of the drake duck.
alli
Finnish
Etymology
Most likely onomatopoeic.
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /ˈɑlːi/, [ˈɑlːi]
Rhymes: -ɑlːi
Syllabification: al‧li
Noun
alli
1. long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis)
From Wiki:
Nimi
K.E. Kivirikko on kirjannut seuraavia allin kansanomaisia nimiä: tunturialli (valkeapäinen koiras), tavallinen alli (ruskeapäinen koiras), isompialli, upseerialli, allisorsa.[6] Historiallisia nimiä ovat olleet tohtaja (Schroderus, 1637, Lönnrot 1861), jääsuorsa (Lencqvist, 1760, Ganander, 1787, Helenius, 1838), kirsisuorsa (Ganander, 1787, Sadelin, 1810, Lönnrot, 1861) ja myös kirsipartti, jokisuorsa, jääpurri, hankelo ja allitelkkä.[7]
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alli#Nimi
DeepL:
K.E. Kivirikko has recorded the following common names for the alli: tunturialli (white-headed male), ordinary alli (brown-headed male), isompialli, officer’s alli, allisorsa. [6] Historical names have included slipper (Schroderus, 1637, Lönnrot 1861), ice sow (Lencqvist, 1760, Ganander, 1787, Helenius, 1838), cherry sow (Ganander, 1787, Sadelin, 1810, Lönnrot, 1861) and also cherry partridge, river sow, ice purr, hankelo and allitelkkä.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Herra Pystynen?
Alle alle alle! Auk auk auk!
That looks like Möwe “gull”, which… is indeed thought to be sound-imitative, though I’m not sure why. Gulls don’t exactly meow.
That may just be the missing cognate.
This is very promising. I wonder how the vocalism of the North Germanic words and люрик (presumably -ик is diminutive) can be reconciled.
Here is the entry for Icelandic líri in Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk orðsifjabók (1989), with a quick and inadequate translation by me:
Well, I was just being silly about the unknown tīeštēš, but if I’ve accidentally said something useful I’m very glad!
Just to be clear… English mew ‘gull’ (OE mæw, ON már, MLG meve (> ModHG Möwe) and English smew ‘the duck Mergellus albellus’ (cf. Zeelandic Flemish smie here, with some etymological speculation) are doubtless separate words.
I was just being silly about the unknown tīeštēš
Cal Watkins would have loved the joke! 😀
Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon in his etymological dictionary just has this to say about Icelandic þeista fem., þeisti masc. ‘black guillemot’ and related North Germanic words, the source of teistie: Nafn fuglsins er ef til vill reist á einskonar eftirhermu á gargi hans ‘The name of the bird is perhaps based on an imitation of its cry’. Similarly de Vries, p. 607, middle of column b.
About onomatopoeias: it is true that many bird names do have some chirping or otherwise meaningful quality. Consider grackles. But the next observation would be that they are still diverse. So they still can have histories. It is etymology within some subset of funny sounds, but it is etymology.
What, a good half of our language is this or that way funny/expressive.
@xerib
It is perhaps too easy seeing patterns with l-vowel-r+ending, when you can drop the ending and change the vowel. English lark even fits this pattern, although not a seabird. I know you are just quoting a source, but I think the source should perhaps have been edited to say first that no good etymology exists and then give the speculation in a footnote or endnote.
-ik is very common in names of birds that a Muscovite knows from books. Like puffins: tupik “puffin”, from the family of chistik-ish “alcidae”: blunt-ik and clean-ik. I can’t remember even one bird in Moscow with -ik:-) Many don’t have recognizable suffixes, some are -ets/-itsa, some are -ka.
J1M’s link describes люрик’s areal. It includes Spitsbergen and “Мурман” (that is, “the Norman [coast]”) where they spend winters: both are areas of Russian-Norwegian language contact. It also includes some Arctic lands to east and west. Also люр does not sound as a good Russian onomatopoeia to me, but mayby it is different for Pomors. It sounds somewhat more natural in Germanic… Which is confirmed by all the words above.
Looking for a foreign etymology for the Russian word is a good idea a priori.
But of course -y- would be much better than -i- and I won’t be too surprised if the Russian word was inspired by ruokki:)
After all they have mansikka, mustikka and we have zemlyanika, chernika, where -ika is an unquie berry suffix.
What about люр “pollock (Pollachius pollachius)”? Surely that is imitative of the call of the pollock? 😀
But seriously, I wonder if some of the many many LH readers who read Russian much more quickly than I do can ferret out an etymology for люр “pollock”? Perhaps it will be illuminating for люрик.
Wow. Дребезги языка: словарь русских фоносемантических аномалий
люнка мн. -и редупл. звукоподр. подз. диал. Слова для овец. Ср удм. люр-ляр “блеянье”, лир-люр “шум, гам”
Drebezgs [1. “tinklings” 2. “smithereens”] of language: a dictionary of Russian phono-semantical anomalies.
Svetlana Sergeevna Shli︠a︡khova · 2004
lyunka pl -i redupl. onomatop. подз. dial. words for sheep. Cf. Udm. lʲur-lʲar “bleating”, lir-lʲur “noise”
Russian люр “pollock (Pollachius pollachius)”? I didn’t know that, and don’t read Russian, but that’s easy. Quoting myself:
@Trond, good catch! (I’m ironizing, but it is actually great catch)
There is also тюрлюрлюр said to be “an onomatopoeia for rustling silk”.
But this one is French:)
I see Trond Engen actually answered my question about the etymology люр at the beginning the thread. I should have paid more attention. Thanks, Trond Engen. It is attractive for люрик too.
…which is now the opposite of “loud”, BTW.
Verner-wise the etymon is odd. I’d have expected initial stress ( > *s) on the noun and final stress ( > *z) on the adjective.
I see no reason to think so. S mobile has done stranger things, male smews are black and white like a gull, and smews are mergansers – they eat fish.
The Dictionary of Russian Dialects has only two entries for lyur- (in volume 17). I’ll translate them in full:
—-
Lyurba, -y, m. and f. “unkempt person”. Евоная баба такая люрба, стыдно в люди показаться (His woman is such a люрба it-s-a-shame in people to-apper). Йонав. Lithuanian SSR 1968.
Lyurik. -a, m. [stress?]. A bird Alle alle L., lesser auk. Kamchatka, Menzbir.
—-
Menzbir “Birds of Russia, 1895:
“The latter name is applied to this and related birds by Russian inhabitants of Kamchatka”
Anikin in his Etymological Dictionary of Russian dialects of Siberia explains “люлька” (another word) in the sense of “small diver/loon” as a loan from Ob-Ugric (Khanty) lula (luli, lule with various diacritics) and hypothesises that люрик (for which he quotes the Russian Dialect Dictionary) can be somehow connected to it.
E.g. *lyulik>lyurik. He object objects that люлька has a limited distribution and is poorly known even near Irtysh.
Then suggests that maybe люрик is the evidence of formerly wider usage of люлька.
Then suggests that Russians could borrow люрик from Nenets luл́л́i “(<Khanty?").
…. whatever those characters mean.
—
Anikin is looking from Siberia and can't find a good Siberain explanation for it, but he has some ideas.
Kamchatka adds more posibilities as to where they could take it from (and yet does not exclude Norwegians, because Pomors sailed East after having met both the bird and Norsemen)
Xerib: [On Orc. lyre]: This is very promising. I wonder how the vocalism of the North Germanic words and люрик (presumably -ик is diminutive) can be reconciled.
Not very well. I had forgotten last night the existence of Norw. lire “shearwater” (never mind the Faroese and Icelandic cognates), which shows that the vowel is i, not y/ju.
But before letting it go, we should take a closer look at the etymology of the bird’s name. Grunnmanuskriptet (Norwegian lexicon per c. 1900) says:
“probably onomatopoietic”. We’ll look firmly away from that.
One attractive connection is the verb lira:
I read that the Manx' breakwater flies just above the surface of the water with a wriggling side-to-side movement.
There’s also another word for movement through air:
Also lyrespel “ballgame”. (and Mod.Sw. lirare “ballplayer”?)
I don’t find a further etymology, but there’s an ON hlýr “stern of a ship” that perhaps may have been used to describe the shape of the arch. If so, the y is original.
The waters are muddled by what seems to be mutual contamination with several words, e.g.
lyra v. “tell untrue stories”, presumably from lur “clever”.
lera v. “wait stealthily, listen for something”.
lidra v. “puzzle with small work”.
“probably onomatopoietic”. We’ll look firmly away from that.
Trond, it is because when you are clumsy and unseeming, your silks rustle: “turlurlur”. Like that. In French. It is obvious.
Unseeming people rustle in French.
BTW note the word from Lithuania, lyurba “unkempt person” above…
Norw. lurv m. “unkempt (literal) hair and (metonymic) person” lurv n. “shabby work ” lurve f. “shabby clothing, shabby woman”. Probably in ablaut relation to larv with similar meanings.
Oh, right. I meant to mention that Sc. dove-kie is a cognate formation of the name Dyveke.
And I meant to mention that…
…I had no idea!
Clearly some Irish influence.
Du. rotge ~ NSa. ruokke?
This is very much jpystynen’s turf, but while we wait: I don’t think there’s a principled way to connect the two.
If I read Sammalahti (1998) correctly, NSa. uo is from older *a or *ō, while *o > NSa. o. OTOH, NSa. -kk- seems not to be an outcome of native processes, which does indicate a substrate word or a borrowing taking place in a narrow window between PFS and PS, i.e some time BCE, when Sami was still spoken in southern Finland. The final -e seems to be from *-i (as opposed to -i < *-e). This adds up to preform *raki or *rōki. I find no Germanic candidates for that,
Heikkilä (2014) doesn’t mention the word, but he has the similar ruokko n. “care, provision (for)” < PGmc. *rōkō (no ON form cited) and ruokkia v. “care, provide (for)” < PGmc. *rōkijana, ON rœkja. They don’t match semantically, but they do indicate that I’ve understood the phonology. Heikkilä implicitly dates *ō > *uo in the 2nd century BCE or so, which also supports my understanding of the timing.
All this leads to nothing without Germanic cognates. It could still be Baltic or a substrate word.
Aikio (2012) treats substrate words in Sami. Ruokke is not mentioned, but he does list other words with NSa. -uo- and with -kk- < *-k-, so the phonochronological window for borrowings with *-ō- to become -uo- was probably still open at least into the first centuriy CE.
Maybe the Dutch word simply meant what it says on the package, “little rat”.
I can’t remember even one bird in Moscow with -ik
There are a few, to be sure: зяблик, крапивник, рябинник, рябчик, кулик, травник, гуменник, могильник, подорлик, кобчик, перепелятник, тетеревятник, тювик (OK, that one is way down south).
juha, thank you!
I think my formulation was somewhat misleading: I actually could not remember one, but I suspected there are some, including some that I know.
In your list “the one that I know” is зяблик. I have seen them, but I am not good at remembering bird names. So I recognize them as a “familiar unnamed bird”, even though I once owned a wind-up metal zyáblik (and I firmly associate the name with it):)
I know kulík (proverbs like “every kulík knows his swamp”. and some people with a surname Kulikóv and of course books about birds), but I have no idea if I ever saw them in Moscow and if they live here.
I know ryábchik, that is, I know it they are game, people eat them.
The rest are: names that (1) don’t sound entirely unfamiliar, but I am not sure (2) names thatr sound unfamiliar.
I suspect that I have seen the name крапивник krapívnik, “nettle bird” (if we translate -ik with -bird). I even can remember someone’s avatar with one (“someone”s nickanme was “Troglodytes”), but I must have seen photos in Russian sources too, and they were subscribed. And I easily could have seen – or heard – them in Moscow without being able to recognize them: there are many small birds I don’t recognize:(
Google offers news artciles like (on the city government’s site): “employees of Mosnature photographed a rare bird in [such and such] park” and says that крапивник has the status of protected (and endangered) bird. Also they say that Çalıkuşu (“Королёк – птичка певчая”, a popular novel) originally referred to крапивник (Troglodytes Troglodytes) and not to королёк (Regulus Regulus). Wiktionary says çalıkuşu is Regulus.
Also they list two other names: oréshek “little nut” and podkorénnik (under-root-nik, under-root-er) .
Morphologically krapivnik is a bit different story than lyul-ik (???-ik) and even chistick (clean-ik). It is [noun] – [adjectival -n-] – [-ik], such deadjectival-from-denominal words may mean “pertaining to [noun], associated with [noun]”.
Unused – but derived regularly and with ease ad hoc when needed – adjective krapivnyj means the same as nettle in my “nettle bird”. Not the same kind of adjective as “clean”, it does not even need to be lexicalized.
And addining -ik to it is also not the same (cf. *nettlebird and *cleanbird).
тетеревятник too looked somewhat familiar… I googled it and now I see what was wrong: I know the name as a specifying part of a compound: yastreb-teterevyatnik. Same with perepelyatnik which I don’t know.
Thank you drasvi and Trond Engen for looking into this further and then taking the time to write it up!