We have a division of labor in our household. I care about the spiders, Mary cares about the birds. She’s got feeders all over the yard, I raise flies and mealworms for the spiders. She’s signed up for FeederWatch, I tally up observations on iNaturalist. It’s not a competition, but she does score more daily points than I do. These are the birds she observed just yesterday.
House Wren, Common Grackle, American Robin, Pine Siskin, House Finch, Blue Jay, American Goldfinch, Downy Woodpecker, Eurasian Collared Dove, Yellow Warbler, Northern Cardinal, White-breasted Nuthatch, Chimney Swift, House Sparrow, Gray Catbird, Warbling Vireo, Chipping Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee, White-throated Sparrow, Brown-headed Cowbird, Red-winged Blackbird, Purple Martin, Red-eyed Vireo, Trumpeter Swan, Swainson’s Thrush, Barn Swallow, Tennessee Warbler, Dark-eyed Junco, Hermit Thrush, Mourning Dove, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Baltimore Oriole, American Crow, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Western Meadowlark, Common Yellowthroat, Wilson’s Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Indigo Bunting, Northern Flicker, European Starling, Eastern Bluebird, Hairy Woodpecker, Wood Duck, Common Nighthawk
OK, already. We got birds.
All at the feeder?
Taking turns not fighting over it?
Or in the garden or beyond generally?
Impressive in any case.
Now the list of observed spider species similarly observed would be… ?
I’m obsessed with my bird feeder. I got the “budget” bird seed, and the picky smaller birds flick away what they don’t want, and it ends up on the ground where the larger birds can get it.
I highly recommend the Merlin bird identifier app that Cornell created. Lots of fun, even when birds don’t speak on command.
A trumpeter swan? That’s a nice list. I assume she uses the merlin app to identify by song, maybe – true?
Starlings and Grackles! Arrrrrrhghghgghg!!! Locusts of the bird world.
purple martin!
FUN!
Where is a listing for the Minnesota state bird, the mosquito?
Purple martins? Damn! I had no idea they ranged that far! The only purple martins I’ve ever seen were from when I was working at Lava Beds National Monument in California.
I have spotted several swans in lakes this spring. They are very conspicuous with their bright white plumage and being enormous in comparison to geese.
Whooping Cranes are another species that I spotted and heard a few times this spring. They are very reminiscent of dinosaurs.
Both of these were brought back from critically endangered status, so it is wonderful to see them expanding their range.
Sparrows and buntings? Weird. And here I thought there were no native sparrows or buntings in the New World.
@lasius
House sparrows aren’t native to North America, but all the other species mentioned and more are common.
The indigo bunting is also native, and not at all common.
We lack Cuckoos, and the various colorful Tits.
Well, indigo buntings aren’t actually buntings as I just checked.
And neither are the sparrows mentioned actually sparrows. American common animal names are weird.
Should I mention Robins?
Grosbeaks, Finches, Sparrows, Buntings
Are all Fringillidae and they have a worldwide range. There are multiple native Buntings and Sparrows in NA.
The non-native House Sparrow and Eurasian Tree Sparrow are Weaver Finches in the family Ploceidae, so it’s your sparrows which aren’t really sparrows.
No, only Finches are Fringillidae. Sparrows are Passeridae and buntings are Emberizidae.
Not a single native member of Passeridae or Emberizidae. So your statement is false.
No. They are in the family Passeridae, the sparrows. So they are true sparrows, while none of the American species are.
Lol, nein. That’s not what my field guide says.
Okay? What does this have to do with anything?
We were talking abut families (suffix -idae), not orders. Yes, all the birds we were talking about are passerines.
No Canada geese? Surely they have taken over your neighbourhood as they’ve taken over mine, in southern Manitoba. Easy points…I mean, if crows count, geese should as well. I’m even starting to see the first wave of goslings, presaging the extreme inundation to come.
@lasius
You must have noticed that New World Sparrows are a real thing? It is very odd that you keep claiming that they aren’t really sparrows.
My field guide lists many species of Sparrows, immediately after the Cardinals, Finches and Grosbeaks.
Well as your quote accurately states, New World sparrows (Passerellidae) aren’t actually sparrows (Passeridae) and more closely related to buntings (Emberizidae). So as I said, there are no native sparrows in the Americas.
I’ve got chickens in the back yard. They’re birds.
My quote is from ‘New World Sparrows, so noting that they are more closely related to Old World Buntings than OW Sparrows doesn’t render them ‘not sparrows’.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_sparrow
Yes it does. Just because the common name in English has “sparrow” in it doesn’t make Passerellids sparrows. Or do you think jellyfish are fish, just because there’s “fish” in the common name?
What’s next? Turtles are actually toads? In my native language the common name for turtle is “armored toad”. That doesn’t make turtles toads though.
“New World sparrows” aren’t in the family Passeridae, so they are not actually sparrows. Easy as that.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsammer
The German common name is “Fuchsammer”, literally fox-bunting. Does that mean it’s actually a bunting? No.
Tethys@various,
Which do you think were first called “sparrows”: those native to Europe (specifically, Britain), or those native to North America? European colonists in the Americas and elsewhere applied the common names of European birds (and other animals) to superficially similar species in the lands they were colonising. Sometimes these were genuinely closely related to the European originals, sometimes they were not.
@19. John Morales : “I’ve got chickens in the back yard. They’re birds.”
My folks ahve chooks. I see a lot of magpies, eastern spinebills, ravens, the occassional Rosella or rainbow lorikeet and more.
Oh and Wattlebirds regularly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wattlebird
Folks used to have a wild wattlebird they would feed that got very friendly w them as a result.
New Holland Honeyeaters as well sometimes.
@KG
Precedence in naming has been subject to revision based on genetics. New World Sparrows – Passerillidae is the official classification given by ornithologists.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_sparrow
There are several cuckoos, family Cuculidae, native to USA. Today I saw the New Mexico state bird, the greater roadrunner, with a small lizard in its beak, and which is the only member of Cuculidae native to where I live.
There are lots of hummingbirds, kinglets, and goldfinches around at this time of year. Rarely I get to see larger birds, but they’re mostly scared away by the obligate hypercarnivorous birds (usually Cooper’s hawks and great horned owls) who are nesting nearby and who like to come to our yard for breakfast.
If I’m lucky I can see any of: Gambel’s quail, roadrunners, turkey vultures, golden eagles, or migrating sandhill cranes.
People, this is why we have Latin names. Common names are a mess. Birds variously called warblers, wrens, sparrows, buntings, robins, finches, grosbeaks, orioles, redstarts, and many other common names all belong to numerous different families in different places. Australian magpies aren’t even magpies. Nighthawks aren’t hawks. Meadowlarks aren’t larks. Owlet nightjars are neither owlets nor nightjars. Get over it.
Oh, right. Poesy. By England’s greatest 1-armed poet.
@John Morales
From Carmina Burana:
lasius, I can but bow my head reverently at such mastery of the form.
I find it funny that even in medieval times people were writing down Latin poems that just list the sounds that animals make.
Tethys@25,
Old World Sparrow:
And from your own link:
So the New World sparrow were originally misclassified as a subfamily of Passeridae: Passerellinae; the group was then shifted (as a subfamily), and subsequently given family rank (with a consequent change of name), but the name and status of the family Passeridae was unaffected by these changes.
Oh & I hear Kookaburras and see them occassionally though rarely if ever in my garden.
Also hear and haven’t seen Boobook (“Morepork”) owls. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_boobook )
Would it be illegal to import a breeding population of kookaburras? Or hoatzis?
It would make your local bird sounds even more interesting.
-Also, are buzzards bona fide vultures or are they just in the same ecological niche?
Never mind @ 35, let’s introduce Jean Jacket from Nope .
@KG: you misunderstood the reference. Passerellinae was a subfamily of Emberizidae, not Passeridae.
@KG
Yes, and? They are still sparrows. Passer.
It’s notable that lasius has not acknowledged that fact.
@birgerjohanson
Neither. Buzzards are Accipitrids of the genus Buteo. Like the common buzzzard or the red-tailed hawk (which incidentally, isn’t a hawk but a buzzard).
The animals many Americans call buzzards are actually New World vultures (Cathartidae), not closely related to vultures (Accipitridae, subfamily Aegypiinae).
So in conclusion. Vultures (Accipitridae subfamily Aegypiinae) are more closely related to buzzards (Accipitridae, genus Buteo) than to New World vultures (Cathartidae).
I haven’t because they are not.
Passerellidae is a distinct family from Passeridae. Not even closely related. Only Passeridae are sparrows. Ergo: Passerellinae are not sparrows. Easy as that.
To quote wikipedia, like you did.
So they aren’t even closely related to sparrows. They are not sparrows.
A rose by any other name may still smell as sweet but seems a sparrow by any other .. taxonomic classification creates one helluva debate?
Coz spoggies ain’t spoggies?
W apologies to the Bard and fuck the oil company advertised..
Does it matter to the birds?
Seems it does for the birders.*
(“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.” – Brian O’Driscoll apparently.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/brian_odriscoll_680037
But don’t let me stop yáll.. What family do the Aussie sparrows fit in?
.* What’s the Linnean name for the Klingon Bird of Prey? What are the avian dinos like on Quonos and convergent evolution there or what?
Or you could throw off the Euronormative shackles and realize that common names don’t have to reflect phylogeny. “Sparrow” isn’t a taxonomic term. Like “tree” or “toad”.
There aren’t any Aussie sparrows, just three introduced species. Two of those are real Old World sparrows, Passeridae, and one is a Java sparrow, Estrildidae. No idea why nobody ever appropriated the name “sparrow” for any Australian birds, when they used pretty much everything else.
Passer is a genus of the Old World sparrow family Passeridae! RTFL.
No, I didn’t:
As John Harshman said @42, common names don’t have to obey taxonomy. But this “What is a sparrow?” argument started when Tethys@12 bizarrely claimed;
Neither the house sparrow, nor the Eurasian tree sparrow is a weaver finch in the family Ploceidae! Both are in the genus Passer within the family Passeridae. So Tethys, basing their claim on several errors in taxonomy, claimed in particular that the house sparrow, Passer domesticus, which was called a sparrow before there were any English-speakers in North America, is not a sparrow, while those superficially similar birds English speakers encountered in North America are sparrows!
@43.John Harshman : Thankyou. Something new learnt tonight by me. Appreciated.
Birds are awesome but a little too quick for my reflexes and esp phone camera these days. Plant person* typing here. But, yeah, avian dinos – awesome too.
.* Not literaly sadly. having the ability to photosynthesise would give me somuch more energy than I currently have. Sigh. Just metaphorically speaking in terms of my focus.
@KG:
Yes, you did:
The reference, however, refers to them as a subfamily of Emberizidae. And the original description is as a subfamily of Fringillidae. I’m not aware of any classification in which Passerellinae is considered to be within Passeridae.
Anyway, New World sparrows are sparrows, New World warblers are warblers, New World blackbirds are blackbirds, New World orioles are orioles, New World quail are quail, tyrant flycatchers are flycatchers, and the American robin is a robin, so there.
However, scarlet tanagers aren’t tanagers. There I draw the line.
@John Harshman.
So you agree that turtles are toads?
@lasius
Complicated semantic problem. It may be that they are in your native language. Depends on whether they’re considered a sort of toad by the people who speak the language. Nobody thinks a decision tree is actually a tree, but people do think a song sparrow is actually a sparrow. (That doesn’t mean that they think it’s a passerid.)
John Harshman #47
What would them instead– black-winged Redbirds? They are like the opposite of red-winged blackbirds.
For what little it’s worth, as another researcher studying bird phylogenetics and systematics, I take the opposing view from Harshman and would consider only passerids to be “true” sparrows (making passerellids “not actually sparrows”). But yes, this type of semantic conundrum is exactly where the disambiguating value of scientific names comes into play.
(In similar vein, I would not consider marsupial mice to be mice, or marsupial moles and golden moles to be moles, and so on.)
@Walter Solomon
All the U.S./Canada “tanagers” are actually cardinals, members of the family Cardinalidae. But because “scarlet cardinal” doesn’t sound that great to me, I would prefer to rename them by their genus, Piranga, and so we get scarlet piranga, summer piranga, western piranga, etc.
@albertonykus: do I know you? Passerids are of course “Old World sparrows”, not “true sparrows”. My New World chauvinism requires me to consider all our birds to be the true ones, if the choice must be made. We can at least agree, though, that New Zealand wrens and the various families of Australian wrens are not true wrens.
@28 John Harshman
The penguin’s namesake and last representative of Pinguinus is extinct. By your logic, there are no more penguins.
It’s semantic nonsense. People go around naming things without regard to rigid phylogenetic boundaries. Even if it allows for some mild confusion in other cases, I prefer to call a penguin a penguin because that’s what everyone else calls it.
@John Harshman No, I don’t believe we’ve met (beyond maybe the occasional passing interaction in a Tet Zoo comments section). Have enjoyed reading your research though!
I’m a North American myself (albeit not currently living there), but I generally follow the logic that because the term “sparrow” and others like it were first applied to Eurasian groups and only later given to American and Australasian ones based on superficial similarity, that the former have a stronger claim to being the “true” bearers of those names. But under typical circumstances, I do refer to passerids as “Old World sparrows” (well, strictly speaking “Afro-Eurasian sparrows” would be my preference).
And relating to the point made by @54 beholder: Yes, even I would concede that the the term “penguin” has become more strongly associated with the extant Southern Hemisphere group and would not insist otherwise.
You underestimate my abilitty to wrestle logic into the desired conclusion. Penguins have inherited the name from the great auk, which no longer needs it. Priority is one criterion, but speciosity is another, geographic extent a third, and attractiveness might be a fourth. By various of these criteria, tyrannids are the proper flycatchers, spheniscids are the proper penguins, and parulids are the proper warblers. But I’ve asked them, and they’re all willing to share.
I appreciate John Harshman’s clarification of the latest developments in the official Latin nomenclature as applied to the group formerly known as Fringillidae (finches), which is now Cardinalidae. My field guide is outdated on the Latin, though of course the common names are unchanged.
The House Sparrow is possibly the most common bird in North America, and has like wise been reclassified from a finch back into a sparrow using the latest genetic technology.
The comment that started the debate over true sparrows vs false sparrows was this one.
Is embritz the common name of buntings in German?
Not quite true. Fringillidae is still around. It just doesn’t cover as much as it used to. Nor did the house sparrow ever belong to either. It’s always been in Passeridae, long before there was genetic data.
Indigo buntings aren’t buntings if you assume that means Emberizidae, as it does in Europe. There are no American emberizids, not even any introduced ones. We’re still going to call them buntings, even so.
Birds that are called buntings occur in at least four families: Emberizidae, Cardinalidae, Passerellidae, and Calcariidae. In German most of them are called something-“ammer”, which we see a hint of in English “yellowhammer”. But some of them are something-“fink”. But not even all the “-ammer” are emberizids.
@John Harshman
Yes, I didn’t mean to imply that House Sparrows are included. The checklist in my field guide groups Cardinals, Finches, Buntings, and both European and NA sparrows as Fringillidae etc. I assume the etc refers to all the sparrows.
I am intrigued by the Latin name Emberizidae. Latin nomenclature formed from a German word is unusual, but I’m not sure if Embritz is the current common name for a bunting in German. If so, it makes the vehement objections about buntings and sparrows make sense.
I wasn’t expecting it to become a no true sparrow debate.
As John Harshman said, the German namfor bunting is “Ammer” though I don’t know of a single bunting species that would be called “-fink.
Nobody uses Embritz anymore.
Incidentally, Alces alces, the scientific name of the elk, is another Germanic loan. And another animal that got a new name in North America.
Indigo bunting = Indigofink
That’s a cardinal, not a bunting. Not a finch either though.
Alces alces would be a Moose in North America, but Moose is an Algonquin word. Our Elk are Cervids.
If Alc is Elk, does Ammer originally have the meaning of wheat-birds? (Emmer)
Embritz looks like a good candidate for the etymologic root of the strange English word bird, which is brid in Old English. It’s not from the Old Norse word for birds, which is singular mus and plural misa. Mouse, mice.
Yes.
No. Embritz is just an old dialectal diminutive of Ammer.
What diminutive? OHG would stick an -el on the end.
Embritzel or possibly embritzki. Embritzchen?
I am endlessly surprised by German spelling.
Embritz sounds like m-brids to English ears.
It does explain Anglo-Saxon ‘brid’, as there was
documented migration from the Rhineland and kingdom of Burgundy to Mercia in the Early Medieval period.
Ammer -> Emmeritze -> Embritz
Why?
Not really. For one, this would be an Allemannic term. But more importantly, it makes no sense temporally as OE “bridd” is attested from early medieval times, while Emmeritze/Embritz form is basically modern German. In OHG, that would have been something like “amarzo”.
Haven’t we been down that road enough? Are only fringillids finches? What, then, are estrildids? Should we rename Darwin’s finches too? And while we’re at it, which trees are the real trees? Obviously pines and elms can’t both be.
Yes.
Dunno the English term, we call them “Prachtfinken”. But “Prachtfinken” aren’t “Finken” any more than jellyfish are fish.
Tree is an anatomical term, not a taxonomic term.
So is “finch”. Incidentally, the German term for estrildid finches appears to be “-amadine”. But there are many fringillids that aren’t “-fink” in German; i’iwi, for example, are “Iiwikleidervogel”. So much for taxonomic terms.
Taxonomic term doesn’t mean that every single species has to have that name as part of its common name. We don’t have “lion-cats” or “tiger-cats”. Doesn’t mean that they aren’t cats.
Fringillids are finches, no matter what the individual species are called, and no other birds are, no matter what the individual species are called.
A few species bear that name, yes. But the common name for the family is “Prachtfinken”.
Ha! I’iwis aren’t finches. “Finch” is a word that describes a bird with a particular sort of bill. It’s not a taxonomic term, not even in German. Hence “Indigofink”. Though I will say that German seems to follow recent taxonomic revisions much more closely than English does. I see that in German, Piranga “tanagers” are now “-cardinale” and Pteruthius “shrike-babblers” are now “-vireo”. Still, Geospiza “finches” are still “-fink”.
Yes they are. They are members of Fringillidae, so they are finches. That’s like saying dunnocks aren’t accentors just because this one species doesn’t have accentor in its common name.
Citation needed.
https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Fink
Yes, but despite that name, they are “Tangaren”. The common name has no bearing on wether they actually are finches.
[ :) ]
I do love me some pedantry; such a shame I lack ornithological erudition.
John Harshman@47,
Thanks, I concede the point! I assumed Passerellinae must originally have been a subfamily of Passerellidae.
Welcome to taxonomy: always changing, always keeping us on our toes.
Spider taxonomy is much, much worse.
I’ve always found it easier to remember the Latin nomenclature by knowing what it means in English.
Finches and finch-like birds as a category is commonly used for field identification of birds.
@lasius
I am surprised because German orthography strongly preserves the diphthong tz/ts (Z), which comes from Elder Futhark. It’s a grammatical ending in proto-Germanic. So many zeds. You even spell the number two as zwei.
This letter shifts to D in the Latin orthography of Romance languages.
Emmer+itze is the diminutive, but it refers specifically to the (small) grains rather than the plant Emmer. Embritz is a compound word, with the em being descriptive of the noun britz. Wheat-bird. The -itz modifier is used in many German words.
Kiebitz, Fritz, schatzi etc….
Allemannic dialects come from the exact regions covered by Burgundy and the Upper Rhine. There is very little written in these dialects from the relevant time period that has survived to the modern day. That’s why they call it the dark ages. Modernly they include all of Switzerland, Alsace, parts of SW Germany, some of the various Amish, etc..
I have tried to find a source for embritz, which is given as “Old German” in the wiki for Emberizidae. That’s not very specific as to time period but it obviously predates modern German.
The etymology you quoted from is valid for Emberizidae, but all those amarzo, amaro, words from Merriam-Webster refer to grains/groats and a particular type of cherries, depending on how much Vulgar Latin has gotten in their German dialect.
Britz is an exact cognate to O.E. bridd. That tz shifts to D in Grimms laws well before Anglo-Saxon became Old English. Unfortunately, Frankish is poorly attested but I’m sure that they consider moos a kind of pudding, rather than an Elk.
That makes no sense at all.
First of all tz/ts is not a diphthong.
Second, German does not preserve it at all, as the Proto-Germanic -z ending was not pronounced like the “German z” but the “English z” and is not preserved in German. Modern German “z” is derived from Proto-Germanic “t” after the High German consonant shift. The “ts” is not preserved, it is an innovation.
Third, Elder Futhark is just an alphabet, and it didn’t even have a “ts” letter.
It’s just a dominutive of Ammer. That’s like saying Mädchen is a compound of Mäd and -chen. Which would be nonsense.
The -itz modifier is used in many German words.
None of these words have a unifying modifier.
Kiebitz is onomatopoeia of that bird’s (the lapwing) call. Not suffix here.
Fritz is a pet name of Friedrich. No specific suffix.
Schtatzi ist just Schatz+i. No “-itz” suffix either.
No it is not. That’s not what being a cognate means. It means being derived from the same ancestral word, and in this case the two words clearly are not.
That’s not Grimm’s law, but the High German consonant shift. And it also states the exact opposite.
No offense, but considering linguistics you are a good example of Dunning-Krüger. Please don’t try to argue this further. There is absolutely no connection between bird and Embritz.
Interesting that you’ve not shown your work but the z in German long predates the Anglo-Saxon.
First of all tz/ts is not a diphthong.
Oh? Then write it with one letter. Explain how German spells two with a z instead of a t or d like every other language in Western Europe.
That’s not Grimm’s law, but the High German consonant shift.
?!?!?This is the stupidest comment you’ve made, in a thread filled with you being a wooden headed schnickelfritz on multiple topics.
They are sparrows. – itz is the diminutive and I kindly invite you to go down and north.
Second, German does not preserve it at all, as the Proto-Germanic -z ending was not pronounced like the “German z” but the “English z” and is not preserved in German.
Citation? There is no Z in the younger Futharks. Only German preserved the Elder Futharks elk-sedge/alcis z sound, which is used as a grammatical ending. It looks like a trident, and is located in the second row right before s.
Kiebitz is onomatopoeia of that bird’s (the lapwing) call. Not suffix here.. It’s clearly stuck on the end and it refers to its behavior. Kibbutz. Nosy. Apparently they are very sociable, but they aren’t native so I can’t confirm.
This will probably be my last post on this Tethys.
A diphthong is combination of two vowel sounds within the same syllable. The writing doesn’t matter, only the pronunciation. So the “y” in “by” is a diphthong for example.
Neither “t” nor “s” are vowels, so “ts” isn’t a diphtong.
Okay, then look up Grimm’s law and find where it says that a “ts” changed into a “d” in any Germanic language. Remember, Grimm’s law applies to English the same as to German, since it affected their common ancestor language. So there would be no difference between the two reagarding this law in any case.
<
blockquote>Citation? There is no Z in the younger Futharks. Only German preserved the Elder Futharks elk-sedge/alcis z sound, which is used as a grammatical ending. It looks like a trident, and is located in the second row right before s.
<
blockquote>
In Proto-Germanic the algiz rune denoted an English “z” sound, not a “ts” sound. The common ancestor of English and German didn’t have a “ts” phoneme. German got that phoneme during the High German consonant shift. So it didn’t preserve it, but innovated it.
<
blockquote>Only German preserved the Elder Futharks elk-sedge/alcis z sound
<
blockquote>
Where?
<
blockquote>It’s clearly stuck on the end and it refers to its behavior. Kibbutz. Nosy.
<
blockquote>
You have it the wrong way around. Kiebitz devoloped from an propable earlier “kiwit” (it’s “kivit” in modern Low German for example), mimicking the bird’s call. The High German consonant shift changed the final “t” into “ts”. (This is were almost all German z-sounds come from). The meaning of “looking into another’s playing cards” developed later in German thieves’ cant (by actually adding a suffix: Kiebitz + en = kiebitzen). But the “-itz” is no suffix. Just a mimmicking of a bird’s call.
[lasius, happens to me too, at times.
Mainly, I copypaste the <blockquote> twice, then have to remember to put in the slash in the closer.
So… no worries.]
[I love how Morales is desperate to troll this thread but can’t because he’s no idea what anyone is talking about. X-D
Dude, it’s okay, you can sit this one out. There’ll be other threads to troll.]
Way to misunderstand my comments.
Shame you can’t apply that principle to your trolling, “dude”.
—
Anyway. Birdies.
You know, human-modified environments are still environments.
Birdies can adapt, being life-forms.
cf. https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=birds+adapting+to+urban+areas
Of course, the variety of species is bound to decrease as we fuck up the ecosphere over time.
A shame.
(bin chickens!)
[Gotta love being addressed in the third person; rather indicative, that is]
[PSA – for anyone who is unaware — not regulars, obs — Silentbob has this idée fixe about me and has literally spent years trying to snipe at me. The conceit is that I am a troll, much as Trump’s conceit is that the 2020 election was stolen. Ah, well.
Obsessive people will obsess]
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/20/eagles-shifting-flight-paths-to-avoid-ukraine-conflict-scientists-find
Re: claiming that i’iwis are not finches:
It isn’t at all. It would be like saying that dunnocks aren’t accentors because they don’t look like accentors, which of course they do. But i’iwis don’t look like finches. There are finches in at least four families. Some finches are tanagers, and the two can overlap because “finch” is a morphological term while “tanager” is a taxonomic term, though one now imperfectly applied in English at least, because some cardinalids were once thought to be tanagers. German may of course be different, though your source (below) says otherwise.
I just noticed that your reference contradicts your claim. Though it does say that “fink” refers to a member of Fringilldae, it includes among its examples both Java sparrow and zebra finch, both estrildids. It’s all about beak morphology, not taxonomy.
Okay, then look up Grimm’s law and find where it says that a “ts” changed into a “d” in any Germanic language. Remember, Grimm’s law applies to English the same as to German, since it affected their common ancestor language. So there would be no difference between the two reagarding this law in any case.
You need to read more carefully. Firstly, there are multiple sound changes that are explicated by Grimm laws. It’s not simply the t -d shift which very obviously is not an early medieval sound change. If you run the word Tyr through the whole series of sound changes, you get Zeus or Deus.
Secondly, I said the tz/ts shifts to Z in western Germanic, not D. English is unaffected by this sound change. It is the Romance languages like Spanish and French which spell two with a D. Dos and deux, respectively.
Okay, last post Tetys.
This is true, but we were never talking about that.
First of all, you did say the opposite:
Which is nonsense.
Second, English is west Germanic.
Third, ts did not shift to z. “Z” is just how German writes the “ts” phoneme, so that would be no sound change at all.
Fourth, even if you meant to talk about the the actual t->ts sound change, that’s not part of Grimm’s law, but the much later High German consonant shift. Which did in fact only affect certain varieties of German, but not the other west Germanic languages, such as English, Dutch, or Low German,.
In any case, there is absolutely no linguistic connection between bird and Embritz. End of story.
The language called English did not exist in the early medieval period, but multiple dialects of German certainly existed in Merovingian and Karolingian eras, even though its only attested in a few law codes and fragments. English can’t be the source of all the Z’s in German orthography.
Gothic has a Z sound, but they used a Greek based alphabet as they were early converts to Arian Christianity. The one gloss that exists relates it phonetically to the Algis elk-sedge rune, as does W. Grimm.