> I would now ask for your help again with the names of seabirds (as
defined
> by Peter Harrison in his "Seabirds: an identification guide"). I am
> particularly interested in the French, German and Spanish names for the
> various seabirds but would also welcome seabird names in any other
language.
> I can managed most English names without much help these days.
Julian & fellow Ozbirdies,
I don't know how interested you are in Japanese names for seabirds & I
realise that you can look them up in a number of prestigious tomes (by the
way,can you read Katakana-if not you may have trouble with Hanzab!).
However, I thought some of us out there in Cyberland may be interested in
the meanings & derivations of a couple of the more common names.
One of my favourites is the all encompassing name for the gull spp. -
Umineko meaning literally "sea cat", peguins are known as "pengin" as the
sound 'gwin' is difficult for Japanese speakers;the various spp of
albatross are "ahoudori" - stupid bird(!), Wandering Albatross is
"watariahoudori" - wataru means to cross or pass over - hence crossing
stupid bird,the Pterodroma petrels are "mizunagidori" possibly meaning
"throwing water bird" (presumably describing some behavioural trait-do they
throw up on people who handle them?). Another of my particular favourites
is the word for Storm-petrels which is "umitsubame", a delightful name
meaning sea swallow.
There are of course plenty more where that came from, if anyone is
interested in further expansion on the subject, please let me know. Plenty
of my friends (?) can vouch for the fact that I can rabbit on forever on
this subject! Of course all of these names have adjectival definers with
there own meanings to define more narrowly the particular species.
de ha, yorishiku ne!
Susan
ps. I have recently changed my email address as below:
Susan Myers
Email:Susan Myers
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