Of Peerie Bairns and Periwinkles

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Jakob Jakobsen, An Etymological Dictionary of the Norn Language in Shetland, London and Copenhagen, 1928, s.v. peerie.

2. Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Tarrin Wills et al., eds, Copenhagen, The Arnemagnaean Commission, 1989-, s.v. pírál, https://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php.

3. Svenska Akademiens ordbok, Stockholm, 1898-, s.v. pirål, https://www.saob.se.

4. Guus Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden, Brill, 2010. To return to Proto-Indo-European and its reconstructions, Julius Pokorny identified a root, variously *pōu-, pǝu-, pū- “small, slight, few.” It was completed with various consonants, among which/r/is not represented. Moreover, German reflexes have initial/f-/, which further distances peerie from this root; Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden, Brill, 1989, s.v. *pōu-.

5. Uinca, perfince, Ælfric’s Glossary, MS St. John’s Oxford, 311, Worcester, peruenke; uinca, peruincæ, Antwerp Glossary, Plantin-Moretus Museum 47 (Salle, iii.68) and British Library, Add. 32246, all as cited by the Oxford English Dictionary: OED Online, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024, s.v. periwinkle, n.1.

6. Anglo-Norman Dictionary, William Rothwell et al., eds, 2nd ed., London, Manley Publishing for the Modern Humanities. 2005. s.v. pervenke.

7. John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse, London, Iohan Haukyns, 1530, 253/2. To pause for a moment over whelk, the OED cites Old English wioloc, weoloc, West Flemish willok, wullok, but calls the word “of obscure origin.” Old Norse hvél in the sense of “vault, dome” in reference to the shape seems a plausible cognate.

8. The OED considers the verb to winkle to originate in modern military slang but it is surely a well established verb used in reference to extracting the mollusk from its shell, in which the etymological/l/of the noun was perceived as an iterative verbal suffix. Winkler would then be the corresponding agent, not just a seller of periwinkles.

9. The nomenclator, or remembrancer of Adrianus Iunius physician, John Higgins, trans., London, Ralph Newberie, 1585, 65/2.

10. Joseph Wright, ed., The English Dialect Dictionary, London and New York, H. Frowde and G. B. Putnam Sons, 1898–1905, s.v., and Dictionary of the Scots Language, https://dsl.ac.uk, s.v. peerie.