The word nightingale has been around for a while and is in no way related to gale. In Middle English, it was spelled nightingal, nyghtyngale, nyghtgale, nightegale, nittingale, and several other variations using the yogh as a stand-in for the voiceless velar fricative sound. The central n slowly crept in over time, but wasn't originally there. This is all from Old English nihtegale, which literally meant "night-singer" (a reference to the noises the males of the species make, which in fact occur during both night and day). The nihte part is where night comes from: it traces to the Proto-Germanic root nahts, which is from Proto-Indo-European nokts. Gale, meanwhile, was a conjugation of the Old English word galon, meaning "to sing". That is thought to be from Proto-Indo-European ghel, "to yell".
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AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. This year, I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Government and Linguistics. There, I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote a thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy, magna cum laude. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy philosophy, trivia, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
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