Lemizh / English dictionary

xaxpqà.

to make swans (also the constellation Cygnus; see appendix, Constellations)

Etymology

< NLem xaxpfi‑a ‘mute swan (Cygnus olor)’
< LMLem xàj‑pifì‑yr, compound of
  LMLem xàj‑yr ‘waterfowl’
< MLem xayj‑yr ‘(water?) bird’
< OLem xayj‑ ‘bird’
< PLem *xawj‑
< PIE *h₂éu̯i‑s
 —and—
  LMLem pifì‑yr ‘bulge’ [noun]
< MLem pifii‑yr
< OLem pifī‑ ‘swell’
< PLem *pifī‑, i-reduplicated athematic present of
< PIE *pei̯h₁‑

For LMLem xàj‑pifì‑yr, lit. ‘bulge swan’, compare Ger Höckerschwan, lit. ‘hump swan’ (referring to the knob on its bill). In NLem, when the second component had come to mean angry, the name of this quite aggressive waterfowl was reinterpreted as ‘angry bird’.

The term was generalised to include all swans in modern times. The whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus), the other species of swan found in Lemaria, was called xàj‑gan‑yr ‘singing swan’ in LMLem.

Cognates

Lat avis ‘bird’; Ved pínvate ‘swells’