Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1993, Page 111

Learned & Popular Etymology
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with the realities of language development. “Etymonic necessity” has
never been a formative factor in diachronic linguistics, because di-
achronic movements in language are synchronically motivated: its
immediate development is precipitated, amongst other things, by its
current momentum and equilibrium, not past history. But prescriptive
etymology has unfortunately left its mark on scholarly attitudes to-
wards paronomastic or echoic intertextual relationships, which tend to
be disparaged or at best ignored. Remarkable correspondences remain
unexplained. I am thinking for example of the English term mares’
tails ‘streaks of cirrus cloud’ and the Icelandic term for the same phe-
nomenon, maríutásur or -tjásur, literally ‘Mary’s skeins (of wool)’ or
‘Mary’s locks (of hair)’. A similar case is the echoic similarity between
the traditionally most characteristic Icelandic cow’s-nam e,Búkolla, and
Latin bucula ‘heifer’. In spite of the resemblance, bucula is unlikely
to be the single or even main origin of Búkolla, since the name is an
almost inevitable formation within the context of other names for cows
such as Búbót, Grákolla and so forth,4 but it would be unwise to rule
out the Latin term as an influencing factor. Icelandic classical scholars
of the past, both clergy and laymen, were usually subsistence farmers
like their neighbours, and those who had read their Vergil could hardly
miss the echo. The Latin term may have contributed to the popularity
of the Icelandic name; — or for that matter, we might also recall no
less a beast than Alexander’s steed Boukephálas ‘the bull-headed’.
Significantly, too, this echoic tendency seems to continue in modem
Icelandic. Several specialist neologisms follow this pattem. One exam-
4 Fonnum (1928:61) records the cow’s name Bukoll in Ál, Hallingdal, Norway, as an
isolated instance, not otherwise known and “not native” to Ál, but presumably known
elsewhere in Norway; neither Bugge (1918) nor Delgobe (1919) mention Bukoll(e)
among their cows’ names. (I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for these refer-
ences.) However Fonnum reports other names in Bu- as common in Ál, and also that
the final element -koll ‘poll’ was mandatory for homless cows (Fonnum 1928:69). In
Iceland today homed cows are extremely rare, and the element -kolla has lost its limited
signification, if it ever had it. Conceivably an original “homless” connotation might
strengthen the association with bucula (immature heifers are presumably homless),
but I mention the point only as a curiosity.