avio/n

[Rick Mc Callister]

> avión "airplane" c. 1330 "vencejo" < ¿gavión [gavio/n] c. 1250? < ¿?
> [c] rel to Latin apis? [rmcc]

>No Basque here, but I'm certainly startled to see a word for `airplane'
>figuring in a discussion of supposedly pre-Roman words.

	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"
	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?