Language Of Confusion: Smol Birbs

Yeah, I’m doing this. Consider it inspired by last week’s revelation about where “hawk” comes from. Also me really not having any ideas. This week, we’ll be looking at song birds. I’m sure other types of birds will follow on later occasions.

Cardinal

Cardinals were named after cardinals in the seventeenth century—they were named cardinals as in the cardinals of Rome, who wore red robes. Pretty simple explanation there. But the word itself first came to English in the early twelfth century, from the Medieval Latin cardinalis, short for cardinalis ecclesiae Romanae—the chief cardinals of Rome. The cardinal part is what means chief or principal, and it’s also what “cardinal numbers” comes from, because they are the “principal numbers” that ordinal numbers depend on (as in, you can’t have the concept of first without the concept of one).

Sparrow

Sparrow used to be spearwa in Old English, coming from the Proto Germanic sparwan and Proto Indo European spor-wo-. The root word of that is sper-, which actually used to form the names of other small birds. Um, but not in English. Other Indo European languages.

Wren

Wren comes from the Old English wrenna, which is actually a mix-up of the Proto Germanic word werna. No one knows where that one actually came from. Maybe they didn’t have a name for them back then.

Canary

Canary showed up in the mid seventeenth century from the French canarie, which in turn was taken from the Spanish canario, a bird from the Canary Islands. So the birds were named after the island. But there’s more. See, the Canary Islands were, in Latin, Insula Canaria, and Canaria is from canis—dog. They named the island after dogs, and then a type of bird after the island.

Finch

Finch comes from the Old English finc, which means finch and was also pronounced finch. It’s from the Proto Germanic finkiz, and like wren doesn’t have an origin before that, although some think it may have been named for the note the bird makes when it chirps.

Swallow

Swallow. Like the bird. Not like what you do with your throat. Are they related? Nope. The bird comes from the Old English swealwe, while to swallow comes from swelgan. Before it was swealwe, it was the Proto Germanic swalwon, from the Proto Indo European swol-wi-. Basically, swallow and swallow were spelled and pronounced differently until they got to Modern English. Great job screwing that one up and forcing us to deal with a lot of annoying puns, guys.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

Dictionary of Medieval Latin