Re: *ekwos, equus hemonius khur?

S.Kalyanaraman:

> Is the jury still out or is it settled that *ekwos connoted equus
> caballus spp. Linnaeus?
>
> Are there PIE terms for 'foal', 'mare', 'ridle' or 'cheek-piece'? If
> not, *ekwos could have referred to a domesticated onager (which was
> used to draw chariots in Mesopotamia)?
>
> The term *ekwos for `horse' as Proto-Indo-European only indicates
> that the horse was known to the speakers of the language; it does

not

> indicate that the term in fact denoted a domesticated horse.

There is *markos, which gives English 'mare'. The idea is it might be
the PIE word for 'wild horse'; it is compared to Eastern Eurasian
terms, e.g., Mongol 'morin' Chinese 'ma', and could have been a
borrowing from an eastern (non-IE) language, but which is preserved
only in western IE. It is absent in eastern IE.

The distinction would parallel that of English 'bronco', 'mustang' (an
unbroken horse) vs 'mount' (a horse broken to the saddle).