Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1971, Page 121

Faroese Bird Name Origins
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history of Far. nakkalanga. Unless all appearances are decep-
tive, the bird name stands revealed as a special application of
a hitherto unrecognised word for ‘neck’.
Skúgvur ‘great skua’
Far. skúgvur, older skúvur, regularly descends from ON
skúfr ‘great skua; tassel’, and also has meanings comparable
to ‘tassel’ (Jaoobsen-Matras). The word fiurther survives in
Icelandic, though here only ‘tassel’ has íhe expected form
skúfur, iflhe bird now being skúmur as the result of later
differentiation (Chr. Matras, Fróðskaparrit, ii, 20—27).
The bird name has been held by flhe etymoilogists to be a
secondary development, making ‘tassel’ flhe primary sense.
However, no reason for che motivation of the bird name has
been suggested. It is easy to understand how, for instance, Eng.
shag as a bird name could derive from the crest (‘shag’)
which distinguishes this species from che cormorant, but there
is nothing at all about the great skua which reminds one of a
tassel.
We have already referred to one type of skua narne motiv-
ated by its robber habits (under meyrus). Another type is
based on the loud call, as ON (> Icel., Far.) kjói ‘arctic skua’,
a parallel formation to ON (> Icel., Far.) spói ‘curlew,
whimbrel’ (Fróðskaparrit, xviii, 1970), or to Far. jói
‘pomatoirhine skua’, according to Svabo ‘som .... tillægges
den Egenskab at skrige højt’ (FBN, 39f.). The great skua is
likewise notoriously noisy — Icel. skúmur oan denote a
loquacious, gossiping man — so that ON skúfr in the
sense ‘great skua’ may be of analogous origin. Indeed we see
chat this is so, except that in the present oase the call —
actually the pursuit call — suggested a word already in
existence in the language. So it came about that the bird was
alleged to call skúfr ‘tassel’ and was itself so named.
A note on names of the type ON svanr ‘swan’
ON svanr ‘swan’ is Comrnon Germanic, Pr. Cmc. '‘'swanaz
being comparable to Lat. sonus, Skt. svanás ‘sound, noise, cry,