Two Herring Mysteries.

January 5, 2025 by 8 Comments

Dmitry Pruss writes:

I noticed that raw herring prep before salting it can be described in Russian by two very similar words, жабренная и зябреная. They turned out to be different, one is just removing gills [жабры], the other also taking out the part behind the gills known as калтычок or калтык. The latter word sounds Turkic but wiktionary gives no etymology. Жабры is common in several Slavic languages but no proto-Slavic form or etymology are given, too.

Any ideas?

Comments

  1. Dmitry Pruss says
    January 5, 2025 at 10:03 pm

    In the meantime I investigated the terminology in Dutch and other North Sea area languages.
    The gills+ removal, supposedly invented in the 1300s by Willem Beukelszoon, is known in English as gibbing, in Dutch as kaken, and in German as Kehlen. It removes both gills and “gibbing”, the latter generally meaning throat, but in fishes also referring to the area immediately behind the gills.
    Russian kaltyk also stands both for a part of a throat in farm animals, and a part behind the gills in fishes.

    I couldn’t figure etymology of gibbing either. Kaken is derived from Dutch for gills / cheeks / jaws, ultimately from PIE word for chewing with descendant words for jaws, throats, and gills (if so, then Russian жабры / жевать may also be cognate?)
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/%C7%B5yewh%E2%82%81-

  2. Ryan says
    January 5, 2025 at 10:44 pm

    Giblets, from French gibelets, has a broader but maybe related meaning. Wiktionary doesn’t take it further.

    Although looking further, French gibelets is less promising, since it means a gamebird stew, rather than organs

  3. Ryan says
    January 5, 2025 at 11:16 pm

    The earliest sense of giblet in the OED, an unessential appendage, going back to the 14th century, is more promising, at least for explaining gibbing.

  4. Dmitry Pruss says
    January 6, 2025 at 12:13 am

    It removes both gills and…

    apologies for my slip, gills and gullet (throat etc)

    Possibly related to another vaguely-similar Slavic word?
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/%C5%BEerti

  5. D.O. says
    January 6, 2025 at 3:17 am

    A very quick search of google books shows dialectal калтык = кадык (prominentia laryngea). Presumably (Semyonov’s Etymological dictionary кадык) from Tatar kadyk “hard, protruding” similar to закадычный друг (this is really cool, IMHO, if true, of course).

  6. Dmitry Pruss says
    January 6, 2025 at 11:59 am

    Thank you!
    Here it’s compared to Komi “kultuk” “Adam’s apple”, but it’s hard to know which direction the borrowing might have gone.
    https://www.google.com/books/edition/%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%8D%D1%82/bxEsEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

  7. Fil says
    January 6, 2025 at 10:13 pm

    Re ‘жабры’, my Czech etymological dictionary (by Jiří Rejzek) lists the following under ‘žábry’:

    > žábry, žaberní. Přejato Preslem z r. žábry, jež nemá jistý původ. Obvykle se vychází z ie. *gēb(h)-r- (B1) a spojuje s něm. Kiefer ‘čelist’, av. zafar ‘ústa, jícen’, jež ovšem vycházejí z *ǵeb(h)- , případně *ǵep(h)- ‘čelist, ústa; žrát’ (viz zobat). Museli bychom tedy předpokládat ztvrdlé iniciální g- jako např. v žlutý, husa.

    “Borrowed by [Jan Svatopluk] Presl from the Russian žábry, which is of uncertain origin. It is usually derived from PIE *gēb(h)-r- and connected with German ‘Kiefer’ (jaw) and Avestan ‘zafar’ (mouth, gullet), which, however, originate in *ǵeb(h)- , or possibly *ǵep(h)- (jaw, mouth; to eat [of animals or vulgar]); see ‘zobat’ (to peck). We would therefore need to presume a hardened initial g-, as in e.g. ‘žlutý’ (yellow), ‘husa’ (goose).

    I’m not aware of any words resembling ‘калтычок’ or ‘калтык’ in Czech, however.

  8. Xerîb says
    January 6, 2025 at 11:07 pm

    If LH readers can’t view the entry for калтык in Сергей Мызников (2021) Русский диалектный этимологический словарь that was linked to, here is the relevant portion of page 234:

    Калты́к (I) «недостаток»: – Какой-нибудь у тебя да калтык. Р. Урал (Малеча, 2, 153).
    Ср. казах. қалтақтау ‘трястись; проявлять растерянность’ (Бектаев, КРС, 271).

    Калты́к (II), колты́к ‘кадык’ Акчим. (СГДА, 2, 33). Калты́к ‘кадык’ Вилегод., Верхнетоем., Примор. (СГРС, 5, 40). Култы́к ‘кадык’: – Нашее такая штука, знаешь, култык. Виноград. (Топса) (СГРС, 6, 257). Кылты́к ‘то же’ Верхнетоем. (Керас) (СГРС, 6, 331).
    Ср. коми летск. култук ‘адамово яблоко, кадык’ (ССКЗД, 83).

    The Сравнительный словарь коми-зырянских диалектов referenced there doesn’t have any more information other than recording the form. And Ракин А.Н. (1999) ‘Иноязычный компонент индивидуально-пермской антропотоминимической лексики’ Пермистика 7:162–168 (available here) takes the Komi култык, култук from Russian on p. 165. The entry in the Словарь русских народных говоров vol. 16 (1980) referenced in the article there doesn’t add much more.

    Vasmer’s reference (s.v. кадык) to Radlov for Tatar kadyk is here. The form isn’t standard Volga Tatar as far as I can tell. The large Tatar dictionary, Татар теленең аңлатмалы сүзлеге, has only каты ‘hard’.

    Any ideas on the intrusive -л- in Russian калтык if a variant of кадык ? Is there a Russian-internal explanation for this?

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