helicopters

[John Dunn]

I hesitate to be even pickier than John Dingley, but I am not sure that there is any necessary reason to assume that вертолёт [vertolet] is a calque at all.  If it is, then I would suggest that a likely source for the first part is a word such as gyroplane or, more probably, autogyro (Russian автожир, автогир [avtozhir, avtogir] - v. Ushakov).   Unless anyone knows to the contrary (and there may be a question about which word is the older) I would assume that the second part is modelled on самолёт [samolet].

John Dunn.

-----Original Message-----
From: jdingley at YORKU.CA
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:54:00 -0700
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Unitaz - Karandash

Hi,

Being picky, "vertolet" is probably not a DIRECT calque of "helicopter",
since the second element in "helicopter", viz. "pter", means "feather" or
"wing". However, the usual Greek word for "to fly (like a bird)" is formed
from this root, viz. "petomai"(shortened from "ptEsomai"). According to
the OED "helicopter" is first recorded in English in 1872.

John Dingley


John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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