Re: The Papers That Ate Cincinnati

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting "T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>:

> On 5/4/07, John Conway <john.a.conway@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Seems to me that the best solution would to not use Aves at all. It's a
> > common name in some languages,
>
> Which ones? I welcome correction from a native speaker, but I think
> none of the common words for "bird" in the extant Romance languages
> are cognate with Latin "avis". Examples:
> - French: oiseau
> - Italian: uccello
> - Portuguese: pássaro
> - Romanian: pas?re
> - Spanish: pájaro

*Oiseau* and *uccello* actually are, though not transparently so.  
They're derived from a diminutive form, something like *avicillum*.  
Vulgar Latin loved diminutives; that's where we get words like French 
*soleil* 'sun', from *soliculum* 'little sun' (cf. Latin *sol* 'sun') 
and Spanish *oveja* 'sheep', from *ovicula* 'little sheep' (cf. Latin 
*ovis* 'sheep').

The Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish words above are actually derived 
from *passer(um)* 'sparrow'.  Spanish does have the word *ave* (plural 
*aves*), but it's used, IIRC, for your bigger, less songbirdy types of 
birds.

--
Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan

"Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity."
    --Edwin H. Land