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L O W L A N D S - L - 31 May 2011 - Volume 05<br>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">From:
R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Subject: Etymology</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p>Dear
Lowlanders,
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Just now that I watched a couple of hummingbirds bobbing about the blossom-laden tree outside the window across from my desk, another linguistic query popped up in my mind.<br><br> English seems to stand out among the West Germanic languages, nay, possibly <i>all</i> Germanic languages, in that it has coined its own word for the hummingbird. Related languages have derivatives of the French word <i>colibri</i>, which spread through Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries after having been brought from the Lesser Antilles. The actual origin of the word is unknown, but we ought to assume that it had been encountered in an indigenous language of the Lesser Antilles at the time.<br>
<br>Latin: Trochilidae<br>English: hummingbird<br>German: Kolibri<br>Low Saxon (DE): Kolibri (?)<br>Low Saxon (NL): kolibrie (?)<br>Dutch: kolibrie<br>Danish: kolibri<br>Norwegian: kolibri<br>Swedish: kolibri<br>Icelandic: kólibrí<br>
<br>What about Frisian and Scots?<br><br>The <i>colibri</i> thread continues through most other Old World languages. Exceptions are Spanish <i>picaflores</i> ("flower-stinger", besides <i>colibrí</i>),<b> </b>Portuguese <i>beijaflor</i> ("flower-kisser", besides <i>colibri </i>and<i> cuitelo</i>) and Turkish <i>sinek kuşu</i> ("fly bird").<br>
<br>In non-European languages with European bases there is for instance <i>zwazo mouch</i> ("fly bird") in Haitian Creole.<br><br>Indigenous American languages tend to have their own, natively constructed words for the same, obviously because the speakers of these languages were familiar with hummingbird -- just as I am sitting here in North America where hummingbirds perform in front of a linguist's window.<br>
<br>Languages that tend to be resistant to lexical importation create their own words; e.g. Vietnamese <span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="vi"><span title="Click for alternate translations" class="hps"><i>chim ruồi</i> </span></span>("fly bird", cf. Turkish and Haitian Creole above), Chinese <span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="zh-TW"><span style="" title="">蜂鳥 (Mandarin </span></span><i>fēngniǎo</i><span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="zh-TW"><span style="" title="">, "bee bird") and Japanese</span></span> ハチドリ (<i>hachidori</i> < <span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="zh-TW"><span style="" title="">蜂鳥</span></span><span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="zh-TW"><span style="" title=""> *<i>hachitori</i> "bee bird").</span></span><br>
<br>Can any of you enlighten us further?<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br>Seattle, USA<br><br><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center">=========================================================<br>
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