Re: Milk

From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 62822
Date: 2009-02-05

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 1:23 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Milk





Pulleyblank
II. Tribal Confederations of Uncertain Identity
The Hsiung-nu, p. 68
'The importance of milk in the Hsiung-nu economy deserves special
mention providing a link, as it does, both with the Scythians as
described by Herodotus and with the later Turks and Mongols. They gave
the Chinese the word lao, EMC lak, which now means "cream" and has
also been extended to various non-dairy products like junket and
thickened fruit juice but which originally meant either curdled cow's
milk (yoghurt) or fermented mare's milk (kumis). A Han dynasty form
something like *Grak can be postulated for this word. Mongol airaγ,
ayiraγ, form earlier *aGïraG, which can mean either yoghurt or kumis,
no doubt has the same origin.'

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/46155
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/47870
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58219


Torsten

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Starling lists the character lao4 < C-lak here :
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/sintib/stibet&text_number=+805&root=config
with the meaning "ferment"

The connection with milk is secondary.
Originally, it described any fermented drink.
The left part of the Chinese character means "wine".

A.