Re: Att. Ray -- of snails and slugs

At 2:19 pm +0200 5/6/01, BP Jonsson wrote:
>In Swedish both 'snail' and 'slug' is _snigel_, which obviously is
>etymologically related to _snail_.  A snail can also be called _snäcka_,
>altho this word also means 'seashell' and basically refers to the shell of
>this kind of animal, whether it lives on land or water.  This seems to be
>representative of Gmc languages other than English.  It should be noted
>that snails are not eaten here!
Thanks - it confirms what I thought.

But according to my French daughter-in-law, her compatriots - just like us
anglophones - do distinguish between _limace_ (slugs) and _escargots_
(snails).  Interestingly, altho born and brought up almost in the
geographical center of the Hexagone, she was unfamiliar with either
_limaçon_ or _colimaçon_ which dictionaries gives as alternative words for
"snail".  I guess they are either archaic or regional.  Maybe Christophe
can shed light on this.

I get the impression that the Romancelangs generally do have different
words for these two sets of land gasteropods; but then I guess that's not a
surprise if you eat the one but not the other.

That doesn't account for English having two words since snails are not
generally eaten here.  But it may well be that in former times they were
eaten more widely in the UK; certainly whelks (marine gasteropods of the
genus Buccinum) are eaten, and those sea creatures look remarkably
snail-like!  And they are certainly eaten in some anglophone countries;
I've had them as 'starters' in South Africa and found them also on the menu
in the good ol' USA.

But the modern Brittonic languages don't have separate words but specify
slug or snail by saying whether the gasteropod has a shell or not, thus:

          SLUG                          SNAIL
Welsh:   malwoden (heb gragen)        malwoden [pl. malwod]
Cornish: melwhesen [pl. melwhas]      melwhesen [pl. melwhas]
Breton:  melhouedenn [pl. melhoued]   melhoudenn-groenneg

Note:
- the singular in Welsh may also be _malwen_ and in Cornish _melwhen_.
- the Cornish is given in 'Unified Cornish'.
- the Breton is in the 'Orthographie Universitaire' or Skolveurieg spelling
where {lh} = [lG].

Andrew will have to decide whether Brithenig will have two different words
as other Romancelangs do or whether it will just keep basically one word as
the Brittoniclangs do.  The 'slug' word, at least, should be drived from
Latin: li:ma:x, [gen.] li:ma:cis.  Romance snail-words come from various
sources, but none from the Classical _coclea_.

Ray.



=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================

Replies