Re: [tied] caballus, couple

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> 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'

Sorry, I quoted by memory.

>
> > 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.
>

That formal and semantic connection is so solid it would hold, even
if the source had been another IE language than Latin.

How would you explain 'caballus'?


Torsten