Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1975, Qupperneq 20

28
Faroese Bird-Name Origins
From here we take up the matter again. The suggestion that
r in ON tjaldr might be part of the stem admittedly leads to
difficulties, for the implied change of declension in modern
Icelandic would be irregular, and moreover the evidence of
Norwegian strongly favours the natural view that ON tjaldr
was a regular a-stem, gen. sg. tjalds, etc. It will become evi-
dent below that this was indeed the case; it is Faroese with r
as part of the stem which has been the innovating language.
It is a striking fact that Far. tjaldur is neuter, though Svabo
in the 1770’s also knew it as masculine, see below. There is
other evidence in the same direction. As is well known, many
Faroese birds have recognised noa names in addition to their
ordinary ones. Thus kráka f. ‘crow’ has gone under such names
as stálkoka, blábøka, referred to above, or fjatla, sigga, hin
bláa undir homrunum (see FBN, 61) and these appellations
are all feminine after the primary kráka. Such agreement is
regular. By the same token the oyster-catcher has the neuter
noa name hitt nevreyða corresponding to tjaldur n. Fiowever,
this bird has other names, as gestur, rúðurbori, which are
masculine. Such terms are, we submit, evidence that Far.
tjaldur, too, was once masculine. There will be no doubt that
this gender must be original, as is corroborated by the Ice-
landic and Norwegian cognates. Finally, we may stress that
the present neuter gender in Faroese is most exceptional, since
Scandinavian birds names are normally masculine or feminine.
Turning now to morphology, it appears that tjaldur first
joined those masc. «-stems where -r is part of the stem, words
like aldur ‘age’, Baldur (baldursbrá ‘Matricaria inodora’),
galdur ‘magic’ presumably being the attracting forces, and this
position still obtained towards the end of the 18th century.
Most of Svabo’s dictionary mss. mark the name masculine,
and the compounds quoted there, tjaldursgras, -grcelingur, show
the change of declension; at the same time, other mss. give
the word its present neuter gender.
It is noticeable that in Faroese the corresponding class of
neuters, i. e. where -r is part of the stem, is a fairly substantial