Martial distinguishes two brands od "soap": a liquid product called
<spuma Batava> or <Chattica spuma>, and solid soap-balls called
<pilae Mattiacae>, both associated with Germanic-speaking areas
(Utrecht/Batavia and Wiesbaden/Marburg). It seems that at the time
the word <sa:po:> referred to any kind of hair-dye or hair-wash (or
both) "made in Germania". In later Germanic the meaning was '(lye-and-
tallow) soap' (OHG seifa, MLG sêpe, OE sa:pe); the suggested Old
English by-meaning 'resin, amber' is dubious at best, and doesn't
occur anywhere else.
The West Germanic forms point to PGmc. *saip-o:n- (a feminine nasal
stem), whose diphthong doesn't quite match the long /a:/ of Pliny's
<sa:po:>. The first century AD is much too early for the
monophthongisation of *ai > a: as in Old English (which, of course,
did not yet exist). I'm not sure how to explain it; perhaps the
Gaulish middlemen substituted their /a:/ for Germanic /ai/, since
Gaulish /ai/ tended to be realised as a front mid-open vowel. The
expected North Germanic development of *saip-o:n- would be *seipa,
but we have OIc. sápa instead (cf. Norw. såpe, Sw. såpa, whereas Dan.
sæbe is a loan from Low German), perhaps borrowed from Old English
(or Latin?). The theory that Scandinavian /sa:p-/ (as if from PGmc.
*se:p-) and West Germanic /saip-/ reflect old dialectal variants is
unconvincing, since the word was borrowed into Baltic Finnic and
Saami at an early date with the diphthong *ai (cf. Fin. saippua,
Saami sáibbo); this means that the North Germanic form is of later
origin.
Piotr
Original message:
From:
x99lynx@...
Date: Thu Apr 25, 2002 5:30 am
Subject: Re: Soap
I have here in some notes on soap: [Watkins 1985: 56] soap < Indo-
European *seib- "to pour out, sieve, drip, trickle" Germanic
*saip? "dripping thing, resin." I think Pokorny has sort of the same
thing.
In Greek, we find the forms <sapo:n>, <sapho:nion> and <sa_po:n-ion>
(and <sa_pôn-arike: techne:>, the technique of making soap.)
What's curious is that in Greek, soap was interpreted in two ways:
- One is as a "dye". Pliny is cited in Lidell-Scott for "a Gallic
invention (hair-dye) adopted by the Germans..." (Note that is saying
the idea is Gallic, not necessarily the word.)
- The other is later and treats soap as something to clean or wipe
away with - "tôi Germanikôi smêgmati" - but not necessary in
reference to cleaning the body.
This double meaning of soap is also supported by Latin references
to "causticus" as "a kind of soap ["sapo"] with which the Germans
colored their hair, Mart. 14, 26, 1." (Lewis & Short). (The word is
from the Greek <kaustikos>, burning, caustic, corrosive.)
Another entry in Lewis & Short is to "spuma caustica, a pomade [sic]
used by the Teutones for dyeing the hair red,... called also spuma
Batava,..." and as "nitri" (the active ingredient in soap.)
Now, I have a theory about this, but right now I'm asking if anyone
knows of any other references to the "soap" word as a "dye" for hair
or wool?