From: george knysh
Message: 64689
Date: 2009-08-10
--- On Mon, 8/10/09, Daniel J. Milton <dmilt1896@...> wrote:
I found several definitions for "gakk".
From Wiktionary: (variant of "gakk-gakk") 1)The sound of a goose. 2) Name of a goose applied by young children, 3) A Norwegian navy conscript.
From Urban Dictionary:
1)Unidentified substance, especially located on something that should be clean and pristine. 2) A sharded crystal-like substance that ma fucka's been known to smoke.
I gather from the thread that in an archeological context it's something like a tamga, but I'd like to know more. Torsten or George, enlighten us.
Dan Milton
*****GK: I had never heard of "gakk" until reading Yatsenko's article, which is the on-line version of an item currently in print as part of the "GIM Compendium in memory of I.I.Gushchina" (Moscow: GIM 2009). The article ("German gala spears of the 2nd-3rd c. AD with Sarmatian signs") merely notes at the beginning that "Alano-Ossetian 'gakk'" means "a Sarmatian clan and family marker". I gather from his use of the term that it is the exact equivalent of Turkic "tamga". Why he introduces it here is anyone's guess. I suppose he thinks that since the Turks borrowed the system from the steppe Iranians it is only fair that "gakk" should be made as popular as "tamga" (?). Perhaps there's something in an Iranic dictionary? *****