helicopters

[William Ryan]

All good points. Shanskii says 'vertolet' is a Soviet-period word based 
on 'samolet'. Samolet as a word seems to be quite old, certainly older 
than aircraft. The name Samoletov is know from the 17th c. on, and is 
perhaps a trade-derived name from the samolet which is a kind of shuttle 
in weaving (see Dal'). The folktale 'kover-samolet', whatever its 
origin, is a flying device of a kind, but it is very hard to date 
folklore evidence, except to say that it is at least older than its 
first recorded version (Afanas'ev?).
Will Ryan


John Dunn wrote:
> 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.
>
>
>   

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