Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Síða 39

Postscript to The Faroese Bird Names
47
In Antrim, lach(a) meant ‘wild duck’ (P. S. Dinneen, Irish
-English Dictionary, 1934), a meaning which must have
been general throughout East Ulster. In this connection,
I was thinking in terms of possible Scottish influence in
Northern Ireland. It seems, however, that the forms are
best explained on the assumption that Ir. tonn- retains the
primary vocalism, which was altered by raising of o to u
(in association with the nasal) giving Sc. Gael. tunn-. It
will not be irrelevant to mention the Manx evidence. As
an Eastern Gaelic dialect, Manx usually agrees with Scottish,
but in this case Mx. tunnag (the Iiterary form) was heard
from the last surviving speakers as tonnag (K. H. Jackson,
Contributions to the Study of Manx Phonology, 1955, p. 39).
It is known that Mx. lagh became attached to the teal, a
wild duck fairly commonly met with round the Island (cf.
P. G. Ralfe, The Birds of the Isle of Man, 1905, p. 168).
Manx thus reflects the opposition tunnag/lach ‘domestic
duck/wild duck’ characteristic of Scottish Gaelic and para=
lleled in Far. dunna/ont. Such facts do not, of course, affect
the theory of the Gaelic provenance of Far. dunna, except
for confirming the view that the word reached the Faroes
from the Scottish (Hebridean) region. Our word may cer«
tainly be classed with Far. kjallámur, køkja and drunnur,
which Chr. Matras, Fróðskaparrit, III, V, and VI, has
shown to be loan words specifically from Scottish Gaelic,
leaving no doubt that colonists from this area played a part
in the settlement of the Faroes.
It goes without saying that dunna is the oldest witness
to the Gaelic name, which judging from the silence of the
Contributions to a Dictionary of the Irish Language; to-tu,
1948, is absent from the medieval and early modern records.
Hyplingur
In The Faroese Bird Names, pp. 26—7, I discussed the
etymology of hyplingur or hiplingur m. ‘cormorant’, in
essence as follows. The name occurs outside the Faroes in