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Give us a heads up when this article gets published, I would love to read it. Always interesting to go #languagebirding.

a small bird perched on a tree stump looking at the camera ALT: a small bird perched on a tree stump looking at the camera

Language birding: Linguistic ornithology

The titmouse has a bit of an odd name in English. The word titmouse is a compound of two words where the first part, tit, simply means 'small bird'. Tit can be found in other bird names, especially in Scandinavian.

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Language birding - linguistic ornithology

The osprey is a small eagle which has specialized in fishing. The word "ospey" originates in the latin "avis praedae" (through an Anglo-Norman form "ospriet"), which literally means 'bird of prey'.

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As with most other birds, this bird has several other names in various dialects of English. Peewit, pewit, tewit, pyewip are some onomatopoetic examples, where one simply mimics the sound this bird is known for. This also goes for Scandinavian vipa/vibe, and Frisian ljip.

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Swedish and Danish strandskata/strandskade means 'beach magpie', similar to Latvian jūras žagata 'sea magpie'. These names do not have the same committee-ring to it, but perhaps more a decision made by a civil servant or an economist or something.

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The name chiffchaff is clearly mimicking their song. In German it is called Zilpzalp, which is also onomatopoetic. Dutch has tjiftjaf, Breton has chip-chap, and Latvian has čuņčiņš, so this is bird is well known for its peculiar song.

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Language-birding (Scandinavian: språkfugling):

Previously I talked about birds in place names. Today I will show you the example of the stork. Here is an entire article about the distribution of storks in Southern Sweden. #languagebirding #språkfugling #ornithology #placenames #culturalhistory

Language-birding : linguistic ornithology

I will regularily be posting language-stuff related to birds here, so stay tuned for an interdisciplinary party.

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#birds #ornithology #linguistics #placenames #language #languagebirding