Gulls are are a group of aquatic web-footed birds that I think almost anyone who lives near an ocean or waterway has seen. Scientists consider them to be among the smartest of birds along with parrots, crows and jays.

    The word appears to be of Celtic origin replacing the original English word moew. It also turns up in Welsh Gwylan "sea gull"; Breton goelann "sea gull" French (primarily Canadian goeland), Irish gealbhan "sparrow", and even Spanish gavilán and Portuguese gaviao "sparrow-hawk".

    The bird seems to be greatly revered in the Orient where the Japanese call it KAMOME which means "seabird". Here are some web pages about gulls in Asian languages:

     http://rec.netfirms.com/japanese/vertebrate.html
   
     http://www.cjvlang.com/Birds/intro7.html

     http://www.cjvlang.com/Birds/larinae4.html

     http://www.cjvlang.com/Birds/gull.html

   Brian C. - Seattle, Wa.  8)
     

It’s interesting that the original English word would be moew. It is closely related to German Möwe and Dutch zeemeeuw.

Brazilian dude

By the way, sea gulls do not restrict their habitats to oceanic waterways.  We have sea gulls this far inland around Lake Norman all year long, if memory serves… I have heard that the primary requirement is a large enough flat surface to use for landing, but I haven’t investigated that.

-Tim

and even Spanish gavilán and Portuguese gavião "sparrow-hawk".

If so, let’s include Italian gabbiano (seagull) in your list.

WQ        

   Katy,

   You have a very discerning eye. This seems to be a computer problem because when I returned to my original edit format, the mistake was not on there. Thanks for letting me know, though.
—- Brian

    Quinette,

    Re Italian gabbiano as a cognate - Possibly. The Romans borrowed many words from the Celts including sagitta "arrow", camisia "shirt", caballus "pony" and petitia "piece" why not the word for sea gull? They also seem to have borrowed many words from the Etruscans too including cuppa "cup", mensa (table), tabula (board; table) finestra "window" and toga.

—- Brian

[quote author=brian_costello link=board=etymology;num=1092004301;start=0#5 date=08/09/04 at 00:53:38]    Katy,

   You have a very discerning eye. This seems to be a computer problem because when I returned to my original edit format, the mistake was not on there. Thanks for letting me know, though.
—- Brian

Or perhaps some kind of automatic correction (filter?). In this particular case replacing tee i tee for breast.  

WQ

   
   Careful, here. These are the kind of words that tend to get asterisked *** out on this website.
—- Brian

Brian

The bird seems to be greatly revered in the Orient where the Japanese. . . .

Could your provide material that support this point ???

 
     Flaminius,

     It shows up in the literature and the scholarship of Asians. Did you see the nomenclature and calligraphy websites I included? What Westerner would go through painstaking effort  to describe or depict the members of the gull family? Of course, you and I may not be thinking the same Gestalt with regard to the word "revere" too.

       Here are a couple of literature examples:

1)    monk comes or goes by the karma-relation
horizon seems to be extending endlessly
current, however, takes us to the New World
Yesterday, the whales swam around us.
the clouds shut off the sight of old Japan.
the West to the East I go.
turning to the South, I may visit
and Ceylon again, making a pilgrimage like Sudhana
Before long, our boat will enter the Golden Gate
the SEA-GULLS, perhaps, may guide me to the destination.
(Written by Soyen Shaku aboard the steamer Cleveland, which carried him, along with eighty Japanese immigrants, to America.)

2)  I Stand Alone
By Tu Fu

A single bird of prey beyond the sky,
a pair of white GULLS between riverbanks.

Hovering wind-tossed, ready to strike;
the pair, at their ease, roaming to and fro.

And the dew is also full on the grasses,
spiders’ filaments still not drawn in.

Instigations in nature approach men’s affrairs—
I stand alone in thousands of sources of worry.

Trans. Stephen Owen

  3) Finally: "Japanese fishermen consider the gulls to be lucky, telling them where to find the schools of fish."

    (From an article entitled "What’s So Cool About Sea Gulls?").
 
——Brian

Well,

There’s always Richard Bach: "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull"...

From amazon.co.uk:

Synopsis
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the most celebrated inspirational fable of our time, tells the story of a bird determined to be more than ordinary. This bestselling modern classic ...  is a story for people who want to follow their dreams and make their own rules and has inspired people for decades. ‘Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight—how to get from shore to food and back again,’ writes author Richard Bach in this allegory about a unique bird named Jonathan Livingston Seagull. ‘For most gulls it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.’ Flight is indeed the metaphor that makes this story soar. This bestselling modern classic is a fable about seeking a higher purpose in life, even if your flock, tribe or neighbourhood finds your ambition threatening (at one point our beloved gull is even banished from his flock). By not compromising his higher vision, Jonathan learns the meaning of love and kindness and gets the ultimate payoff—transcendence.

Sooen Shaku is the master of Daisetsu Suzuki and was the abbot of Engakuji, the second authoritative temple of Kamakura (but my best temple of the town) in the mid-19th century.  To Fu (Jp. Toho) is my best Chinese poet number 3 and worthy of a bit more respect than tofu.
http://www.tofu.ne.jp/recipe/images/hakata.jpg

I am loathe to think that what they wrote are just "a couple o’ pomes" for other people but it saddens me to see the two writers abused as supporting evidence of some shaggy-dog story.  Both poems use gulls as tools to enhance their poetic imagery and have no reverence towards the birds.  If such reasoning as that of Brian’s post were applied to Western cuture, it would be very ingenious to conclude that Europeans and Americans are wind-worshipping people according to the lines of "the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. . ."

Flaminius

       Flaminius,

       Uh-hum. There is no good luck lore surrounding sea gulls in western culture.  Again, what about the calligraphy examples. What could be more artistic for writing "sea gull" than the Japanese or Chinese characters for "sea gull". See my original postings.

     —- Brian   

   Katy,

   I would appreciate it if you would stop interefering with my posts. If you delete your previous post. I will delete this one.

    Sincerely,

     Brian

My kamakura-encomiast side must have took a wrong tern, Katy.  Was I foolish a bit to expect everybody should know about the Engakuji abbot.  Please refer to my last post to which I have applied minor corrections.

Brian, the third proof of yours does not go beyond practical folk-wisdom.  Japanese fishermen know that sea gulls swarm over a part of sea where there are schools of fish.  Five very pragmatic steps are behind the fishermen who consider a flock of sea gulls as a luck.

1. For unspecified reasons krills gather in a small spot in sea.
2. Small fish, like sardin, storm in flocks to eat krills there.
3. Bigger fish, like bonito, storm in flocks to eat sardin there.
4. Sea gulls spot sardin from the above and come swarming to eat them.
5. Fishermen spot sea gulls from their ships and, knowing all the above steps and their workings, rush to the spot to fish sardin and bonito.

Some fishermen, by extention from the reasons above, may even consider a single sea gull as a sign of luck.  We can, however, start talking about reverence only by observing sea gull worship spread over Japan in forms either of numerous gull shrines or of a luck icon that everyone in the culture recognises as such.

Flam,

You wrote "The poet is then To Fu (Jp. Toho) is my best Chinese poet number 3 and worthy of a bit more respect than tofu."

Pinyin helps.

Then, he is Du Fu and the bean thing doufu.

Have you tried http://www.chinese-poems.com/du.html ?
"Each poem indexed below appears in characters, pinyin, and literal and literary English translation"; there are 56 of them.