Re: [tied] Re: Sobaka and Iranian

On Tue, 08 Oct 2002 12:12:14 -0000, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>> *****GK: Could Arabic be a source of the epenthetic
>> "o"? We know they turned the Byzantine "sklav" into
>> something like "saqalibah". And Arab merchants traded
>> actively (via the Caucasus)with the Khazars (and Volga
>> Bulgars, and East European Slavs)*****
>
>A good idea. Something like *saba:ka: from *spaka- could well be due
>to a Semitic "filter". Iranian --> Aramaic --> Arabic --> Khazar -->
>East Slavic?

Yes, something like that may work. The only thing I can check is Arabic, and
there's no *saba:ka "dog" in Wehr's dictionary. Possibly of interest is the
root *sbq "to precede, to surpass, to win (in a race)", with inter alia a
nominal/adjectival derivation sabba:q "precursor, winner, race-car driver", and
other terms (siba:q, musa:baqa) that are related to horse racing [so why not dog
racing?]. An Afghan/Iranian windhound (actually, windbitch, *spaka), attracted
to this Semitic root as sab(b)a:qa?

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...