🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 22 Oct 1998, Jon Patrick wrote:

> I asked
> > Iratiko basoilarra - what might be the english name of this bird have?
> Larry replied
> Well, birds are hardly my strong suit.  But my dictionary tells me that
> "basoilar" means "capercaillie", a kind of grouse.  "Irati" is the name
> of a forest in the east of the country, so the title means "The
> Capercaillie of Irati".
>
> I have just remembered I have the Biological dictionary of euskara which has
> the entry
>
> Tetrao urogallus
>
> eus     basoilar
> sp       urogallo
> fren    grand te'tras
> eng     capercaillie
>
> Can anyone give a more common english name for this bird?

As far as I know, `capercaillie' is the only English name, and it's one
that is quite familiar to me.  In Britain, the bird is found chiefly
(only?) in Scotland, and the English name derives from Scots Gaelic
<capull coille> `horse of the woods'.  The bird is found only in
northern Europe, as far as I know, and so it won't have acquired a
different English name elsewhere.  It's a kind of grouse, but none of my
dictionaries gives any other name for it.  Aulestia suggests `wild cock'
as another English name, but I don't know where he got that: it is not
confirmed by my English dictionaries.


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk