Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1978, Page 22

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Faroese Bird-Name Origins
so, we conclude that the name is not properly meaningful, in
which case it will only be explicable in terms of onomatopoeia.
We therefore identify kvørkveggja and its variants as onoma-
topoeic representations of the shrill, screeching chatter of the
startled blackbird. We notice that the gender is feminine and
wonder if we may see in this a faint trace of the lost ON
súsvgrt f.
Turning next to the other type kvørkviski, one sees that this
form contains a quite different second element, and further
differs from kvørkveggja in being meaningful. The question
arises: is its meaning 'shy, retiring person’ a figurative use of
the bird name or is the opposite true? At this point we observe
that kvørkviski is neuter, a gender which is most exceptional
in primary bird names (Fróð., xxiii, 28 f.). On the other hand,
compound formations of this nature denoting persons may
well have this gender, as the common -menni, -vætti (Jacobsen-
Matras, op. cit., 277, 511). Evidently then kvørkviski is not
primarily a bird name at all, but how did it come to mean
‘blackbird’? The development must by due to folk etymology
motivated, it would seem, by the blackbird’s shy and retiring
behaviour in the Faroes. M. á Ryggi, op cit., 6, writes: (Kvør-
kveggja.... er varugur fuglur, flýgur mest høgt fram yvir
jørðini og dámar væl at fjala seg.
Whereas we hope to have adequately explained the origin
of kvørkveggja and its variants, we are not yet able to do as
much for kvørkviski. But we can offer suggestions. The second
element -kviski appears to be an extension of -kvisi, occurring
in the variant kvørkvisi (Jacobsen-Matras, op. cit.) and paral-
leled in Icel. orkvisi ‘degenerate person’, whence the Faroese
adjectives ørkvisin ‘sensitive’ and kvørkvisin ‘shy, retiring’.
Dare we guess that the latter may be no more than the former
modified by contamination with the bird name kvørkveggja?
Vípa ‘lapwing’
We considered the two etymologies long ago proposed for
this term in FBN, 73 f., preferring that one which views it as