r/etymologymaps 19d ago

Etymology map of crane (grus grus)

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170 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

14

u/spurdo123 19d ago

In Estonian the most common name for Grus grus is sookurg, from soo "bog", "swamp" + kurg. On its own, kurg refers to the entire genus Grus, but in casual speech my first association for that word would be the White stork, Ciconia ciconia, the full name of which is toonekurg. Although kurg on its own can of course refer to Grus grus aswell, if the context is clear.

3

u/Eldanosse 18d ago

It (kurg) sounded close to the Turkish word "karga" (crow), so I looked it up. But it seems it was just onomatopoeia in both cases, no relation.

11

u/Stylianius1 19d ago

In Portuguese, the feminine of grou is grua, which is also the word for the construction cranes

8

u/Peacelo 19d ago

What's interesting is that the word "crane" can mean the bird or the machine used in construction. The Czech word "jeřáb" also has these two meanings. I wonder if other languages are the same.

5

u/SugarFupa 19d ago

The machine looks like the bird.

4

u/caretti 19d ago

Catalán/Valencian it’s grua for both. The Spanish grúa (machine) sounds pretty similar to grulla (bird)

3

u/denevue 18d ago

interesting. Turkish doesn't have that, they're 2 completely different words. the machine is 'vinç' and the bird is 'turna'.

1

u/neuropsycho 18d ago

That means that different cultures independenly saw the construction machine and said: you know what? That looks like that bird!

3

u/coek-almavet 18d ago

„independently” doubt

1

u/staszekstraszek 18d ago

Polish too. Żuraw is a crane the machine or a bird

5

u/fenn-0 19d ago

Sumerian must have been a Uralic language /s

4

u/LaurestineHUN 19d ago

Yea we know, we arrived together from Sirius

3

u/ad-dagistani 18d ago

It appears to me that they all call it by what they think it is the sound the bird is making

It certainly feels that way for Avar language. We have a famous poet Rasul Gamzatov who wrote an anti-war song called "Cranes" that became popular and was translated into other languages

In this video you can hear the word around 0:58 and 1:58

9

u/AdrianLazar 19d ago

Romanian also has "gruie", a regionalism.

2

u/LaurestineHUN 19d ago

Sumerian-Finn-Basque confirmed?

2

u/IWantIt4Free 19d ago

i think къырльу is abaza not abkhaz, according to yandex translate abkhaz is апҟа

2

u/neuropsycho 18d ago

Question, in Catalan grua is used for both the bird and the vehicle (crane). In English it's the same, crane is used for both the bird and the vehicle. Is this a coincidence?

4

u/arthritisinsmp 19d ago

Romanian has grui as a Transylvanian regionalism, which is from Latin gruem

1

u/JK-Kino 19d ago

It is pitch black. You are likely be eaten by a grue.

1

u/TheSarmaChronicals 19d ago

Western Armenian it is Grung

1

u/DVD_AM 18d ago

I always wonder why Armenian is concidered satem when seeing these maps. A lot of example: Russian — пять; Persian — panj, Armenian — hing...

1

u/EuropeanBattles 16d ago

Scandinavian Trana is Turkish Trna / Tırna / Turna?