Comments on: Oh, what lark! http://blog.oup.com/2012/12/lark-word-origin-etymology/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Fri, 17 May 2013 12:26:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Annie Morgan http://blog.oup.com/2012/12/lark-word-origin-etymology/#comment-319303 Annie Morgan Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:29:20 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=32351#comment-319303 And what of the very unbirdy "lark" as in "what a lark that was", or as the verb "we were just larking about"? Your choice of Glinka's piece was perfect - "zhavoronok" though doesn't seem to have much larkiness about it as far as onomatopoea goes, does it. I listened to a bunch of them on a lark bird song site but had a hard time finding any 'la la' sounds therein. To digress further, I like the much cheerier House Finch instead. You do lead a person on to look at other things, don't you. And what of the very unbirdy “lark” as in “what a lark that was”, or as the verb “we were just larking about”?

Your choice of Glinka’s piece was perfect – “zhavoronok” though doesn’t seem to have much larkiness about it as far as onomatopoea goes, does it. I listened to a bunch of them on a lark bird song site but had a hard time finding any ‘la la’ sounds therein. To digress further, I like the much cheerier House Finch instead. You do lead a person on to look at other things, don’t you.

]]> By: Henno Brandsma http://blog.oup.com/2012/12/lark-word-origin-etymology/#comment-319292 Henno Brandsma Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:16:35 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=32351#comment-319292 Minor correction: the Dutch word is "leeuwerik". The modern West Frisian one is "ljurk" in the standard but some archaic dialects have "lorts", with old palatalisation. The internal f/v also disappeared in WF "hauk" (hawk) and "haad" ( head, but only in the sense of "boss", otherwise "holle" is used), where Dutch preserved them in "havik" and "hoofd". Minor correction: the Dutch word is “leeuwerik”. The modern West Frisian one is “ljurk” in the standard but some archaic dialects have “lorts”, with old palatalisation. The internal f/v also disappeared in WF “hauk” (hawk) and “haad” ( head, but only in the sense of “boss”, otherwise “holle” is used), where Dutch preserved them in “havik” and “hoofd”.

]]>