#18: Lundi

Today's word doesn't have much of an interesting history behind it, nor is it a particularly useful word for most people. But, it's one that's worth mentioning because I chose it as a mascot for this little project of mine. It's lundi, and it means "puffin."

Surely you've noticed my little puffin up at the top of the page there, right?

I chose to draw a puffin when designing this website because, well first of all I really like puffins. I think they're funny little birds... skemmtilegir fuglar, if you will. But it also seemed like a good mascot for Iceland and, by extension, the Icelandic language. Lundar are found all over Iceland; in fact, the Atlantic puffin is the most abundant bird in the country, with approximately 3 million breeding pairs roosting there annually. That's about 20 puffins for every human, and this estimate doesn't even include juvenile birds and other non-breeders! As such, it is an animal that many Icelanders are very familiar with, and which is intimately connected to the island's culture.

In Iceland and the Faroe Islands, puffins are hunted for both their eggs and meat, which can be ordered in many restaurants and hotels. It's such a common practice that there is actually a verb (að lunda) which specifically means "to hunt puffins," although it seems to be rarely used. In the early 20th century, unregulated "puffining" led to drastic population declines, but recently stricter regulations have been put in place to make it a more sustainable practice. Now puffins are only hunted for a brief period of time after the breeding season, when excess birds are available and the impact of hunting on population growth is lower. In some neighborhoods of Vestmannaeyjar, there is also a "Puffin Patrol" after the hunting season, in which children collect lost fledglings (lundapysjur) throughout the town and return them to sea. It is not unheard of for each child to rescue 10 or more pysjur during this night.

Etymologically, lundi and að lunda come from the Old Norse word for puffin (also lundi), the origins of which are unclear. The British Island of Lundy, which is home to another large breeding population of puffins, likely took its name from the Old Norse term as well.

And, that's all I have to say about puffins! In this case, the bird is more interesting than the word, I think.

WORD SUMMARY:

lund/i, -a, -ar (m): puffin

Posted in: Animals, Iceland, Nouns