Caballus, Equus and Horse

Brian M. Scott wrote:
<<Buck mentions Gk <kábe:los> 'castrated', ChSl <kobila> 'mare' and suggests
that it's a loanword, originally 'gelding'.>>

Although we have a common picture of horses as being riding animals in
ancient times, it's just probable that a large proportion of horses were
engaged in more economically productive tasks.

Plow horses, wagon-pulling horses in teams, mill horses, pack horses, etc
probably became the prevalent horses as these animals became bigger, more
common and available for such jobs.

It's also probably a surprise to learn that in the past the famous breeds of
very large and powerful draft horses (like Flanders Black Horses, Boulougnes,
and Clydesdales ) had a far greater market value than the average riding
horse. Most work-horses were no doubt "nags" or of lesser value, but it's
also clear that was not always the case.

<kaballes> in Greek appears to refer to work horses ("erga:tes hippos"). If
the word is from the Greek, we might look for some related meaning.

So, we find words like <kaballein> and <kabballo> which show a contraction of
<kata-> found in a number of Greek dialects, and are forms of <kataballo:>.
This word has a lot of different meanings , including "to strike down,
overthrown, abuse, bully, cast down, cast away", in one sense.

But, in a rather different sense, "to lay in, lay up stores, pay, pay down,
bring in, yield, to lay down seed," etc.

So perhaps <kaballes> refers either to a "washed-up" riding horse that had
been reduced to work detail. Or a horse that suffers the abuse of a work
horse. Or a farm horse. Or perhaps -- from a simple, practical point of
view -- a horse bought to return a profit. A horse that pays, yields, earns
its keep.

In Latin, <caballus> is often differentiated as a "nag", but this is an
imprecise word. L-S also refers to "an inferior riding- or pack-horse" (but
not connected to gelding - gelded horses may even be a better ride.) The
fact is, a large draft horse would be too large for many people to ride and
probably difficult to handle - i.e., it would be a poor riding horse and too
big and strong for the narrow paths a pack-horse might have to take.

And of course this definition ("nag") of Lat <caballus> does not explain why
the <equus> word was really completely trumped by <caballus> in Romance
(along with not retaining much of a serious presence in most other IE
families), virtually disappearing and being replaced by the word for a "nag".
And of course, even the first directly attested Celtic word for horse was
<markos> and not the equus word. And it is missing in Slavic, of all places.

Why did such a presumably "important" *PIE word referring to such a
presumably important IE animal lose so much ground?

Is it possible that in some of these languages, <equus> referred to a
particular breed of horses? A smaller breed that became less desirable as
horse-breeding improved? Is it possible that various names for horse,
including *markos and kaballes, may have referred to not just the often
mentioned gender or status, but actually to different and maybe bigger and
better breeds of horses? Maybe, the "equus"-horse became obsolete?

And, in all of this, one of my favorite words is the Greek <orsi-pous,
orsi-podos> "swift-footed", applied to deer, but just as appropriate for a
horse. Even a horse advertised as swift-footed and sold to some
horse-trading Germanic speaking customers, way back when -- who went home
having bought an "orsi-".

Steve Long