etymology - What does the fox say?


It is true that as a fox, I should know this, so consider this a spoilers warning.


In a recent post, Geek Girl mentions that the mating call of the fox is a series of sharp, eerie barks and that this is called gekkering. This is supported by a citation in Wikipedia, but the reference is not one I have access to.


I am very curious about how this sound came to be named gekkering. There is nothing to be found on Etymonline, and gekker only appears in Wikitionary as far as I can tell. A Google search of the word turns up Gekker as a surname, but not much else.


Interestingly though, there is Chris Gekker, who is a master trumpteer and has a published series of "Gekker Articulation Studies". I don't know if he is old enough to have any sort of influence on the naming (his pictures make me think he is younger than the term) but I wonder if there is some connection there.


Does anyone know the etymology or history of the term "gekkering"?



Answer



There's a possible 1978 reference to gekkering in a Google Books snippet of The Junior Bookshelf, Volume 42:



She is born beneath the hawthorn hedge and through play and



David Macdonald is a Scottish zoologist and conservationist whose early work was on red foxes. According to Wikipedia:



He is known for his documentary films and his popular books, for which he has twice won the Natural World Author of the Year award. His Night of the Fox won the BAFTA for Best Documentary Film of 1976, Running with the Fox won the Natural History Book of the Year award for 1987



You can hear some gekkering at 1m11s in this video.


Gekkering isn't in the OED, but perhaps it's related to the Scottish and northern dialects' verb geck:



intr. to geck at : to scoff at, to use mocking language or gestures towards.



Geck's etymology:



apparently < Low German gecken = Middle Dutch ghecken , Dutch gekken , German gecken : see geck n.1, and compare the echoic German gecken to croak, cackle. Also in Scandinavian as Danish gjække, Swedish gäcka.



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