Re: [tied] caballus, couple

tgpedersen wrote:

> I saw in Ernout-Meillet's Latin Etymological Dictionary that the
> first attestation of the Late Latin and common
> Romance 'caballus' "horse" (instead of inherited 'equus') was found
> in an inscription in a Greek colony on the Black Sea coast; its
> appearance in time in Latin fits with the Mithridatic wars. Loans
> (according to E & M) of that term appear in Celtic, Slavic
> ('kopyla')

It's *kobyla, actually. If the authors really wrote "kopyla", perhaps
they'd mixed it up with *kopyto 'hoof'

> and Germanic (German 'Kop').
>
> I was wondering if it wasn't a relative of the English word 'couple'
> (both as n. and v.), cf German 'Koppelpferd' "equus biju:ges',
> Danish 'hestekoppel' "flock of horses" and "fenced-in area for
> horses"? A Roman soldier was not likely to have his own equum, he
> would rather see horses as draft animals for waggons.
>
> I suspect also a connection, in view of German 'Kupplerei' "pimping"
> with Old High German 'koupo:' "merchant", Latin 'caupo:' (provincial
> loan?), German 'kaufen' "buy". According to Benveniste, the early
> Germani had no concept for buying and selling, in other words the
> first trade would have been barter or "hustling"; something with a
> low status.
>
> Some connect 'couple' etc with Latin 'copula' (*co-ap-ula, *ap-
> "bind"), I think it is from a cognate in some other IE language.

<couple> appears in Middle English ca. 1300 and is obviously a loan from
OFrench cople, couple with exactly the same meanings: 'man and woman
joined in marriage', 'pair of animals of opposite sex', 'any pair,
brace', 'something that unites two'. The verb <couplen> means 'unite in
marriage', 'bind together', but also 'copulate'. The formal and semantic
connection between these words and Lat. co:p(u)la and co:pulo(r) is so
secure that it makes your "some connect" an understatement.

Piotr