The Suevi occupied portions of Portugal for quite some time. One might ask what their cultural influence on Portugal has been?
Take the dictionary.
If you ask what Portuguese words may be Suevic, only very few are mentioned (and then too we are told that some of these may be not Suevic but Gothic). The words in question include:
- britar, to break (stones),
- lobio, vineyard [now obsolete], and
- laverca, lark
Let’s put aside britar and lobio and ask what is the source of laverca? We are told that it comes either from Suevic *lâwerka, or from Gothic *laiwerko. Both of these words appear to be “reconstructions” (signaled by *) meaning they have never been actually attested in that form in Gothic or any other language.
Of Suevic we know nothing so there is nothing to compare the word to.
Now lark appears in English and other Germanic languages.
What is a “lark”? The Online Etymology Dictionary tells us it is a “songbird of the Old World, early 14c., earlier lauerche (c. 1200), from Old English lawerce (late Old English laferce), from Proto-Germanic *laiw(a)ikon (source also of Old Saxon lewerka, Frisian liurk, Old Norse lævirik, Dutch leeuwerik, German Lerche), a word of unknown origin.”
More noteworthy is the use of the word in Scottish – laverock.
Old English and Old Norse forms suggest a contracted compound, perhaps meaning “treason-worker,” but “nothing is known in folklore to accont for such a designation” [OED]. Noted for its early song and high flying (in contrast to its low nest). When the sky falls, we shall catch larks was an old proverb mocking foolish optimism.
Some sources are nevertheless quite certain of the word’s origin. Here is Britannica:
Others are less certain such as this 1957 piece from the Archivum Linguisticum (volume 9):
Or this 1977 piece from the Zeitschrift fuer Romanische Philologie (volume 93):
As for English, there are actually two “larks” in English (three, if you count the obscure 18th century use of the word to mean “a small boat”). The older “lark” is a small bird (also known as both the “laverock” and the “skylark”) famed for its melodious call and its love of flying at great heights. The name “lark” comes from the Old English “lawerce,” which came in turn from Germanic roots. Oddly, some of the earlier forms of “lark,” especially those found in Old Norse, imply that the original meaning of the word “lark” was related to “treason” in some way. There may be some rationale for this to be found in some folktale somewhere (“The Tale of the Perfidious Lark”?), but so far it’s a mystery and probably nothing to worry about. After all, a batch of the little birdies has been known as “an exaltation of larks” since the 15th century, which certainly beats “a murder of crows” in the avian public-relations department.
The other sort of “lark,” the one meaning “a lighthearted adventure, a spree, an impulsive action,” is of much more recent vintage, first appearing in the 19th century (“My mother … once by way of a lark, invited her to tea,” 1857). A “lark” is a brief but daring departure from routine, a flight of fancy, a bit of forbidden fun or a harmless prank, and “to lark” since the early 18th century has meant “to frolic or play.” The generally positive tone of this “lark” fits well with one theory of its source, namely that it is simply a reference to the light, soaring flight of the “lark” bird. A related verb of the same meaning, “skylarking,” apparently originated aboard sailing ships, and was used to describe crewmen roughhousing in the upper rigging of the ship’s masts, probably by analogy to the soaring flight of actual “skylarks.”
But it’s also possible that “lark” in this “frolic” sense came from a source unrelated to the “lark” bird. Some authorities point to the English dialectical verb “lake” or “laik,” meaning “to leap, play, spring up,” dating back to Old English and derived from Germanic roots. The transition from “lake” to “lark” would, in this theory, be explained by the particularities of pronunciation in southern England, where “r” sounds tend to creep into words lacking the actual letter. Of course, the similarity of the result to the name of the “lark” bird no doubt also played a role in the spread of this “lark.”
In any event… the Portuguese/Galician word is supposed to have been derived from Suevic. The Slavic name for a lark is skowronek meaning, literally, “what a little crow”. (It is of a male gender. If it were female it’d be skowronka.)
But here are the interesting things about lawerka or laverca.
First, is the suffix. The -erca or -erka suffix is quite common in Slavic. It is (usually) used to express a diminutive of a female word whose suffix is –ra:
- siekiera > siekierka
- fujara > fujarka
- manierka, stolarka, miarka
And so forth. In fact, you can construct new words like that that normally lack a diminutive (wiar > wiarka). Notice that if the base suffix is -ara > -arka but if it is era > erka and lawerka would be in that second group.
No matter the source/stem of the word, the suffix looks Slavic.
Second, there was (is?) a place name in Slovenia by exactly this name. Specifically, it seems to have been located between Ljubljana (Laibach) and Gottschee (Kočevje). Was (is?) it of Gothic or Slavic origin?
This piece is from Karl Baedeker’s “The Eastern Alps…”
In fact the place seemed to have been well known to travelers in the region.
But maybe Portuguese/Galician also have the same -ercas?
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