Piotr wrote:
<<Martial distinguishes two brands of "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)....
There is somethings that don't seem right about all this. I don't have a
copy of Martial so I don't know what he specifically writes when he uses
"soap" words. But I suspect he is referring to packaging with <pilae> and a
type of soap with <spuma>-- not all soaps "foam." The most likely soap to
come in liquid form would use an oil as the "fatty" ingredient. The most
likely soap in a solid form would have used animal fat, although the presence
of alkaline used and the presence of salt would also be factors.
I think looking a little closer at soap gives you a kind of different idea of
its history and may also justify a different history for the "soap' word,
based on the processes that were integral to what soap was originally for and
how it was originally made.
Here's a quote from a chemistry teacher's site on the web that has great
details on the chemistry of soap:
"Contrary to what you might think, soap was not invented for purposes of
personal hygeine. Rather, it was invented early on to solve a problem with
textiles: wool as it comes from the sheep is coated with a layer of grease
that interferes with the application of dyes....
"Soap very likely counts potash as a direct ancestor.... Potash [potassium
hydroxide] by itself is not a very effective soap. If fat is boiled in
potash, however, it makes a pretty good soap. And a really strong soap comes
from boiling fat in a strongly basic solution, such as a lye (sodium
hydroxide) solution."
(
http://cator.hsc.edu/~kmd/caveman/projects/soap/)
Now, I have some indications (most second-hand) that "saponification" was
developed well before its appearance in Gaul or Germany in the current era.
Apparently from Kirk-Othmer Encycl of Chem. Technology, I have this note:
"Basic early soap is a mixture of fats and alkali such as potash or lye. A
soap-like material found in clay cylinders during the excavation of ancient
Babylon is evidence that soapmaking was known as early as 2800 B.C.
Inscriptions on the cylinders say that fats were boiled with ashes, which is
the basic method of making soap,..."
The process for making soap is apparently alluded to in a variety of other
places (including among the Egyptians and Phoenicuans) and it seems there was
an understanding that mixing oils and alkaline soda (<nitron>) created a
"washing agent" even if it was not called soap, although it would have been
soap in the chemical sense.
It seems however the "soap" word originally may have had a more specific
meaning - Pliny's "soap" was a made by boiling goat's fat and with beechwood
ash (potash). (BTW, lye once simply referred to the alkaline agent whether
potash or soda.)
As the quotes above points out, potash (potassium hydroxide from wood ashes)
boiled with fatty animal parts makes a very basic soap, the kind associated
not with the washing of bodies but with the washing of wool (and perhaps
dyeing barbarian hair, if the "caustic potash" content was high enough or if
it was used as a mordant - setting the color.)
The gathering of potash from burnt forests for wool soap was in fact one of
America's first industries. ("Potash was a leading industrial alkali from
antiquity until the close of the nineteenth century, when it was finally
abandoned for most uses in favor of soda (sodium carbonate)....By 1750 there
was a steady international demand for potash soap, particularly in England,
where "fulling sope" was much needed to wash wool before it was woven in the
burgeoning mills. Having greatly depleted its own timber resources, the
mother country sent experts and manuals on potash making to its American
colonies...")
But it also seems from various home soap-making books and web pages that
using animal fat can also make a VERY BAD SMELLING SOAP. ("Soap made from
anything less then pure fat will still clean well, it just isn't pleasant to
smell.") In fact, it stands to reason that any place where this early kind of
soap was made was not a pleasant smelling place. In fact, the production of
"tallow" was frequently associated in England with the foul-smell of
slaughterhouses.
So, without going into any more detail what does this all say about the
"soap" word?
Here's a guess. Greek.
In Greek, <se:po:> which meant "make putrid, rotten or rancid", but is also
attested as referring "soaking hides" in the fifth century BC in Athens,
("dermata se:po:", Lidell-Scott). That soaking may have been in a
fat-alkaline solution, ie, soap.
Interestingly, according to L&S, <se:po:> also appears in the form <sa^po:n>.
And it also appears that <sapo:n> (soap) may have appeared in the form
<se:po:n>.
It may not make sense at first impression to match apparently incongruent
ideas like "rotten" or "rancid" with soap, but a better look at the early
soap-making process makes it make a lot of sense. In fact, making early soap
would have involved rendering animal fats, boiled down from rancid leftovers
and then boiled again with potash. An accurate description of such a product
might be <se:pe:/se:pon>.
How and where this word originally would have traveled so that this
connection would have been lost, I have no idea. Piotr mentions <<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:>.>> I don't
know how a Greek source (or some third source) would affect the expected
outcome here, if there is an expected outcome. I am used to expecting sound
changes however when words pass from one language to another, even though
those languages may have roughly common sounds.
(Interesting also are also two cf. Greek words also related in meaning to the
process described above: <oisupos>, by the 6th cent BC, the lanolin grease
extracted
from wool, used and presumably sold for medicinal puposes. And <zo:pissa>,
defined as the mixture of pitch and wax "scrapped off from old ships", but
which appears to be a compound of <zeo:>, to boil, with the word for fat or
resin, <pion>. Early soap is primarily boiled down fat with potash,
<spodos>, added.)
I think don't think there's any reason to doubt Pliny when he tells us that
"soap" was a Gaulish invention - at least as far as the Romans were
concerned. The Celts were early famous for their dyes and scouring wool
would have been something they would have had to have learned early.
Applying that process to the hair on one's head, however, would be truly
taking the process another "barbaric" step, along with exporting the idea of
a "pomade" to the Germans and Romans.)
Whatever the source, if my guess at the original meaning is correct, the word
could have traveled indirectly from Greek, where its original meaning was
relatively transparent. In any case, another place to look for the older
meaning of soap might also be in the key process in making soap, i.e.,
boiling down or rendering. See, e.g., Lat, <sapa, sapae>, boiled down wine.
Practically everything we call "sap" in English would have to be boiled down
to be useful. "Soup" is just water until something is boiled down in it.
Steve