r/etymology • u/Idontknowofname • 3d ago
Question Were cranes, herons, and storks always considered as different birds in English and other European languages?
Despite being commonly mistaken with each other, the etymology of these words suggests that they have been recognised as completely different wading birds since Proto-Germanic (hraigrô for heron, kranô for crane, and sturkaz for stork). Therefore, have they always been considered as different birds in English and is this also true for other European languages?
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u/PacNWDad 3d ago
We moderns generally suck at observing nature compared to our predecessors. Their lives could depend on being able distinguish things like this, whereas ours do not at all. I remember reading that preindustrial people could actually discern the different sounds that wind makes going through something like 20 different types of trees. This stuff was practically innate to them because they were surrounded by nature all the time, even in relatively urban settings. So, I have a hard time believing they would confuse three rather distinct bird species.
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u/marintkael 3d ago
Medieval household and game accounts list them separately, with different prices per bird. A clerk who has to write a number next to a name cannot afford to confuse two species.
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u/pieman3141 3d ago
I've never mistaken a heron for a crane before. Both are relatively common in my area. They don't look alike, they don't sound alike, and they don't behave alike. Storks don't exist at all where I live (I've never seen one, nor have I heard of anyone seeing one, and google says they're only recorded in some local "rare birds" books).
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u/ConsciousFeeling1977 2d ago
I’m from a place with storks and herons and I don’t know anyone who would confuse those. I looked up the crane, and it looks nothing like either.
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u/Familiar_Cheetah4792 1d ago
Where are you? I associate storks with western Europe.
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u/AmazingPangolin9315 3d ago
Despite being commonly mistaken with each other
By whom? I have never heard this assertion before.
have they always been considered as different birds in English
They are very clearly different birds, and always have been. Different colours, different sizes, different behaviour. There is no suggestion, in language or otherwise, of these ever having been considered anything other than different birds.
is this also true for other European languages?
Yes.
Crane = Kranich (German), grue (French), grulla (Spanish), gru (Italian).
Heron = Reiher (German), héron (French), garza (Spanish), airone (Italian)
Stork = Storch (German), cigogne (French), cigüeña (Spanish), cicogna (Italian)
Other European languages are available.
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u/Idontknowofname 3d ago edited 3d ago
By whom? I have never heard this assertion before.
Mostly through anecdotal evidence, you won't believe the amount of people I've seen that consider herons, storks, and cranes as the same type of bird.
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u/avinaut 2d ago
Yes, I've paid attention to birds my entire life, and inability to tell birds apart is very common among people who were never inclined or encouraged to pay much attention to them; which is most people born after the Industrial Revolution. Jared Diamond (an ornithologist, before making a lot more money theorizing about history) introduced Guns, Germs and Steel with his observation that the indigenous New Guinian hunters he asked could accurately estimate how many bird species lived in a particular patch of rainforest without necessarily being able to name them all. Many of these species would be much more similar than cranes, herons, and storks.
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u/hanguitarsolo 2d ago
I know we’re talking about European languages, but these 3 birds also have distinct names in Chinese, which I think further supports the idea that ancient peoples would not have confused them.
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u/Vultureosa 1d ago
Hungarian:
crane: daru
egret: kócsag
heron: gém
stork: gólya.
Multiple species within each category (except crane) are differentiated by traditional language.
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u/greenknight884 3d ago
Well OP, I for one couldn't tell you the differences. Add in egrets and ibises too.
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u/No1RunsFaster 3d ago
But what about Egrets
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u/Idontknowofname 3d ago edited 3d ago
All egrets are a type of heron, belonging to the heron family (Ardeidae)
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u/zeptimius 3d ago
Dutch has 3 completely different words for these birds: "kraanvogel," "reiger" and "ooievaar" respectively.
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u/Odd-Promotion2743 3d ago
Is "stork" not used? (Meaning, a Dutch cognate of the English and German words)
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u/zeptimius 2d ago
Only in dialects, and not for a long time.
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u/Odd-Promotion2743 2d ago
Interesting
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u/zeptimius 2d ago
The unusual one, "ooievaar," comes either from the Old High German word "odobero," which meant "bringer of fortune/treasure" ("od" means "riches"/"treasure" and "bero" means "to bear" as in to bring or to carry), or from "uda" and "faran" meaning "swamp walker" or "walker in marshy meadows." The first etymology would be related to the good fortune associated with the bird.
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u/ReptilianRevolt 2d ago
They are clearly different birds with different appearance and behavior. Ancient people knew their differences well, because observing birds was important to them. Greek has separate words for them for example, and all three have mythological significance. Now I am not sure if they could distinguish between more homogeneous bird groups such as plovers or many songbirds, but broad distinctions between cranes, storks and herons were possible:
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u/Used-Waltz7160 1d ago
My grandfather worked a farm in Tipperary without electricity, without mains water and largely unmechanised.
He was fully connected to nature and he, my Dad and his brothers cut hay with scythe in fields with nesting corncrakes, curlews, and redshanks.
He called herons, 'cranes', and couldn't tell kestrels and sparrowhawks apart, not recognising them as two species.
My uncles, now in their 70s, still work the farm with very little interest in or understanding of its fauna or flora.
It's very easy to romanticise and wonder how past generations possessed incredible wisdom that we have lost, but most humans have always been pretty simple, incurious, and dull creatures.
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u/trysca 3d ago
We have garan for crane kerghydh for heron and hwibon for stork
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u/Double_Richmonder 3d ago
We is who? I’m going to have to take a somewhat educated guess
fromthe appearance of the word kerghydh and assume you might be talking about Cornish or, possibly, Manx Gaelic.
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u/SagebrushandSeafoam 3d ago edited 3d ago
The ancients were very good at distinguishing birds, because they were sources of food and other resources. A bird's appearance was merely one feature considered in identifying it: its call was perhaps the most important; its seasonal migration was important too; what habitat it occupied (and could be fowled in); if it was destructive to crops, or tasted good, or had to be caught first and fed for a while before slaughter to taste good, or its eggs were edible, or its feathers useful, or its fat useful, etc.
Rather than the people of the past having a less nuanced and complex view of such things, they universally had a more complex understanding of experiential nature (not the how, but the what) than the average person nowadays. For us it is mostly just interesting; for them it was life.