avio/n

[Larry Trask]

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

[on Spanish <avio'n>]

> It means "airplane" now but it does go back a ways.
> vencejo --acc. to Velásquez dictionary-- means "swift, black martin,
> martlet, martinet [Hirundo apis]. Not a word I've come across in Latin
> America
> gavi- appears as the first element of a couple of birds: gaviota "gull" &
> gavila/n "small hawk"

Most interesting.  Without ever really thinking about it, I'd always
vaguely assumed that the word was <ave> `big bird' plus the augmentative
suffix <-o'n> -- hence `really big bird', or some such.

OK; it's dumb, but it's cute.

A propos of nothing much, the Basque verb for `fly' is <hegaz egin>,
which is <hega> `wing' plus <-z> instrumental plus <egin> `do, make' --
hence, literally, `make with the wings', I guess.  Reminds me of the
slang expression `make with the feet' for `walk', which was prominent in
my childhood but which I don't think I've heard for over 30 years.

The Basque for `airplane' is the neologism <hegazkin>, from <hegaz> plus
<-gin> `maker, doer', and hence literally `flyer', or, even more
literally, `thing that makes with the wings'.  Who says those Basques
don't have a sense of humor?

> but I seem to remember seeing <avio/n> somewhere used to mean
> "bumblebee" or some sort of large bee

> I also seem to remember seeing somewhere that the use of avio/n as
> "airplane" comes from French --that whoever the French claim as the
> inventor of the airplane called his contraption an "avion", is that right?

Well, <avion> certainly *is* the French for `airplane', but I confess
I've no idea what its origin might be.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk