Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1995, Page 74

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THE FAROESE WHALE NAMES
eviđently set a pattern for other languages,
including Icel. hnúfubakr and related forms
(Blondal 343), none of which are recorded
before the rise of the English name.
The motivation is not self-evident. The
name humpback is the creation of a certain
Paul Dudley who, in a contribution to the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society ofLondon XXXIII (1724-25) 258,
used the term hump in reference to the pe-
culiar fin of this whale which is mounted on
a fleshy platform, in contrast to the usual
type of fin found on another large whale
which he christened finback, and this non-
descript term, too, has passed into the stan-
darđ nomenclature; a variant/m whale has
been imitated in other languages, as Norw.
finhval.
Now only scholars who had read Dud-
ley’s article could have known what was
really meant by humpback. But when the
name was taken into common use, as it
quickly was, it could only be understood as
a synonym for hunchback in accordance
with natural feeling for the language. That
being so, some reason had to be found to
justify the name. There is nothing in the ap-
pearance of the whale that could remind the
whalers of a hunchback, so the notion arose
that the name would refer to the arched
body as it appears before diving. This new
sense is illustrated in Whales 96: The usual
breathing sequence is followed by a deep
humpbacked dive... The fin is seldom seen
until the high rolling dive which brings the
hump into view before sounding. Such us-
age lies behind Dýralcera 100: Tá ið hon
kavar, kreppir hon seg saman og sýnist tá
kúlut. The inherent unsuitability of this
name is further apparent when one consi-
ders that anonther large whale, the Finback,
also reveals an equally pronounced ‘hump’
in the final roll of the diving sequence, cf.
Whales 93.
The occurence of this relatively [natural-
ly indicates a later interpolation] recent
name in the traditional Fiskakvæði.
LEIFTUR, pl. LEIFTRAR, m. Pilot
Whale calf. Known since Dict.fær. 474
Lajttur »en ung GrindehvaU, also Indb.
257, with an exact counterpart in Icel. leif-
tur specifically the Whitebeaked Dolphin.
The term is securely attested for the Old
Norse period, cf. Fritzner leiptr m. »et
Slags Hval«... Kgs. 29u, SE I 55010. Infor-
mation provided by the first of these
sources (Konungsskuggsjá, first half of
13th cent.) enables us to identify the whale,
or rather whales, concemed. One reads that
hnísa is not longer than five ells, leiptr not
longer than seven. Such measurements
point to the smallest whales likely to be en-
countered in our area, first the Porpoise
(Far. NÍSA), and second the Whitesided
Dolphin which, however, in popular use is
not distinguished from the marginally larg-
er, but similarly coloured Whitebeaked
Dolphin, as explained under SPRING-
HYALUR.
Having identified the species, we can
proceed to the etymology. ON leiptr m.
may be closely compared with leiptr f.
»brightness, lustre«, the words being ulti-
mately identical despite the different gen-
ders. Here is an example of an abstract
noun used to name a living creature, the
motivation being provided by the conspi-