Diederik Cuckoo (1 Viewer)

The name Diederik Cuckoo is somewhat puzzling.

First, this word does not even look English at all (might be Dutch?)
Second, it has been adapted to other languages, e.g. 'Coucou didric' in French.

I would like to know where this word comes from.

Thanks in advance for any help.

According http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-diederik-cuckoo.html

The name “diederik” is an approximate rendition of the loud, persistent “deed-deed-deed-er-ick” call of the territorial male.

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I see, it's an onomatopoeia. Thanks Taphrospilus.

The funny thing is that the name Cuckoo itself is an onomatopoeia - so we have a double onomatopoeia here.

Gonçalo Elias said:

I see, it's an onomatopoeia. Thanks Taphrospilus.

The funny thing is that the name Cuckoo itself is an onomatopoeia - so we have a double onomatopoeia here.

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Hallo Gonçalo (and Martin and other readers):
Quite right, but the word Diederik was derived from a Dutch personal name, well known in history and somewhat revived nowadays as a Christian name.
The pronunciation is: dee-de-rick, with stressed dee, dull -de- and short -i-.
I didn't check, might have been Levaillant who first published this name for the Cuckoo.
Boa sorte, Tschüss,
Jan van der Brugge

Gonçalo, I have this bird in my MS (of Swedish Common/Vernacular Bird names) as it's called didrikglansgök (in Swedish), earlier we called it simply didrikgök, all in line with:

• the English Common name Diederik Cuckoo [in the IOC list] for Chrysococcyx caprius BODDAERT 1783 (OD/scientific name; here, No.657, as "Cuculus caprius", even if irrelevant in this case), as well as all its English variations; 'Diderick Cuckoo', 'Didric Cuckoo', 'Diederic Cuckoo', 'Diederick Cuckoo' or 'Dideric Cuckoo', etc. ... all originating from its French name; 'Le Coucou didric', a name coined by François Levaillant [just like Jan correctly assumed], based on its sound/call, described by Levaillant as: ”di-di-di didric” (alt. "diwi-diwi-diwi-diwic"). See here, from 1806.

And Levaillant sure ought to have known, as he and his servant 'Klaas'* shot many hundreds of specimens (of this single species) during a hectic period, in Southern Africa, in the early 1780's.

Björn
_________________________________________
*as in Klaas's Cuckoo Chrysococcyx klaas (Stephens, 1815), a k a
klaasglansgök (in Swedish: -glans- =shiny/glossy + gök = Cuckoo)

Thanks Jan and Björn

Calalp said:

Gonçalo, I have this bird in my MS (of Swedish Common/Vernacular Bird names) as it's called didrikglansgök (in Swedish), earlier we called it simply didrikgök, all in line with:

• the English Common name Diederik Cuckoo [in the IOC list] for Chrysococcyx caprius BODDAERT 1783 (OD/scientific name; here, No.657, as "Cuculus caprius", even if irrelevant in this case), as well as all its English variations; 'Diderick Cuckoo', 'Didric Cuckoo', 'Diederic Cuckoo', 'Diederick Cuckoo' or 'Dideric Cuckoo', etc. ... all originating from its French name; 'Le Coucou didric', a name coined by François Levaillant [just like Jan correctly assumed], based on its sound/call, described by Levaillant as: ”di-di-di didric” (alt. "diwi-diwi-diwi-diwic"). See here, from 1806.

And Levaillant sure ought to have known, as he and his servant 'Klaas'* shot many hundreds of specimens (of this single species) during a hectic period, in Southern Africa, in the early 1780's.

Björn
_________________________________________
*as in Klaas's Cuckoo Chrysococcyx klaas (Stephens, 1815), a k a
klaasglansgök (in Swedish: -glans- =shiny/glossy + gök = Cuckoo)

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Is gök Swedish for Cuckoo? The Scots word for Cuckoo is gowk, I am struck by the similarity.

David

Remember that for several hundred years there was a strong Scandinavian influence in Scotland and other areas of the British isles. That kind of thing often is recognizable in certain words for a long time.

Anecdotally, I was told 40 years ago that many fishermen from western Denmark still found it relatively easy to be understood in Scottish harbors.

Niels

david kelly said:

Is gök Swedish for Cuckoo? The Scots word for Cuckoo is gowk, I am struck by the similarity.

David

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David,
Gök is most certainly Swedish for Cuckoo (I think I know my Swedish, I've used it all my life ) ...

And yes, your gowk seem to be closely related. See the attached excerpt from A dictionary of birds, by Alfred Newton & Hans Gadow (1896).

Slàn leat

Björn
--

Calalp said:

David,
Gök is most certainly Swedish for Cuckoo (I think I know my Swedish, I've used it all my life ) ...

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And as you may also know, in some parts of Norway they use "Gauk" for Cuckoo. See e.g. this Wikipedia article.

Paul Clapham said:

And as you may also know, in some parts of Norway they use "Gauk" for Cuckoo. See e.g. this Wikipedia article.

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Sure Paul, but the Norwegian Ornithological Society NOF (Norsk Ornitologisk Förening) prefer and use gjøk.

The Norwegian World List (here):"Verdensliste (Excel)", of 20 Dec 2019. Also see Norwegian Wiki for the Guckoo/gök/gjøk/gauk/gowk, ... itself (C.canorus), here.

Or the other Wiki page for 'gjøkfamilien (Cuculidae)', here.

Note that the page you linked to was a nn.wikipedia-address, meaning it's written in Nynorsk (New Norwegian), as of here. It wasn't a no.wikipedia article (which is mostly used in Norway).

Nynorsk (New Norwegian) versus their Bokmål is just about as tricky/messy as British vs US English (or Canadian ditto, for that matter).

/B

Quote:
Remember that for several hundred years there was a strong Scandinavian influence in Scotland and other areas of the British isles. That kind of thing often is recognizable in certain words for a long time.
Anecdotally, I was told 40 years ago that many fishermen from western Denmark still found it relatively easy to be understood in Scottish harbors.
Niels

Quite nice, Ni(e)ls, to read about such things. The anecdotical aspect is stressed, I suppose, by the original languages of those conversation partners: did those listeners in Scottish harbors really speak the English of England and were those fishermen understandable in their own islands?!
Reading this evolution of the topic, I started humming/singing again what we children - yes, far more than 40 years ago - were taught at school (you can nearly understand it without my translating):

De uil zat in de olmen bij 't vallen van de nacht
En over gindse heuvels de koekoek antwoordt zacht:
Koekoek, koekoek, koekoek, koekoek, koekoek!
Koekoek, koekoek, koekoek, koekoek, koekoek!

(the owl sat in the elm trees at the falling of the night and over yonder hills the cuckoo answers softly)
(the Dutch oe sounds like the oo in cuckoo)
The educational aspect was that half of the school class started the song and when they arrived at the Koekoek part, the rest of the children began the same song from the start, so that a "canon" was heard . . . Every older compatriot of mine is familiar with the song.

I even found an English version to it:
"From out the battered elm tree the owl's cry we hear,
And from the distant forest the Cuckoo answers clear: etc."

There was a second part to it (we're staying with birds), but Internet seems to have forgotten its existence:
En bij het stille hutje daar staat een kippenhok;
De haan die doet 'n dutje, de kippen gaan op stok.
Tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok!
Tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok, tok!

[And near the silent hut there stands a chicken-house; the cock is taking a nap, the hens are going to roost.]
Well, enjoy, the simple melody is to be found on a number of sites.
Jan van der Brugge (indulging in youth memories)

Calalp said:

David,
Gök is most certainly Swedish for Cuckoo (I think I know my Swedish, I've used it all my life ) ...

And yes, your gowk seem to be closely related. See the attached excerpt from A dictionary of birds, by Alfred Newton & Hans Gadow (1896).

Slàn leat

Björn
--

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Sorry, my question may have been a wee bit rhetorical. When I visited Denmark I was struck by the similarity of some words which I heard with a few from my childhood. The Scots word for child is bairn, stone is stane and house is hoose. Is a sea mist called a haar in any Scandinavian languages? I am sure some of these words came with the Norse or later trading links with the Baltic.

David

david kelly said:

Sorry, my question may have been a wee bit rhetorical. When I visited Denmark I was struck by the similarity of some words which I heard with a few from my childhood. The Scots word for child is bairn, stone is stane and house is hoose. Is a sea mist called a haar in any Scandinavian languages? I am sure some of these words came with the Norse or later trading links with the Baltic.

David

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Some of those may be from Norse, but most are more likely from English, though there's always Dutch and Frisian and Old Saxon and...

Wikipedia likes Dutch as the source for English "haar" meaning fog. It may be related to a Proto-Indo-European term which seems to have meant "grey" or "dark" and shows up in lots of languages, with several changes in meaning. For example, English "hoary" as in old and grey, seems to be related to "haar" as in grey. This leads to the bird name "hoary redpoll" -- silvery, as in an old man's hair -- , and presumably to "hoar" as in frost - thought that's not very clear, and there may be some cross-pollination with "hair".


"Stone" in English comes from German/Scandinavian roots (c.f. "Stein" in German), and it's safe to say the Scots variation does too, but whether it was direct from Norse or via English I'm not sure. It's certainly not from Gaelic. Ditto for house/hoose (c.f. German "Haus"). "Bearn" is interesting -- it's completely faded from (non-Northern-dialect) English, but was once widely known. Same story - hard to trace due to being widespread in Germanic and Scandinavian languages. Wiktionary cites _both_ Old English and Old Norse for the origin of Scots "bairn".

Calalp said:

Note that the page you linked to was a nn.wikipedia-address, meaning it's written in Nynorsk (New Norwegian), as of here. It wasn't a no.wikipedia article (which is mostly used in Norway).

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Well yeah, that's why I did that. There are about one million people living in south and west Norway who say "gowk" for cuckoos. So it's not unreasonable to suppose that a thousand years ago there were Scandinavians living in northern Britain, as they did then, who said "gowk" for cuckoos.