--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@> wrote:
> >
> > At 4:47:11 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2012, dgkilday57
> > wrote:
> >
> > > For OE <sceacel> 'shackle, fetter' we should probably
> > > compare ON <skakkr> 'limping'
> >
> > That's one possible sense, but it's more generally 'skew,
> > wry, distorted; unequal' (Fritzner: 'skjæv; heldende mere
> > til den ene Side'). An example:
> >
> > þat greri svá illa, at hann bar jafnan hallt höfuðit
> > sÃðan, þvà var hann skakkr kallaðr
> >
> > that healed so poorly that he always carried his head to
> > one side afterwards, so he was called <skakkr>
> >
> > > and Grk. <skazo:> 'I limp' (from *skag-jo:).
> >
> > That would have to be *skn.g-jo: to match the ON, which is
> > from *skanka-.
> >
> > Note that ON has <skǫkull> 'a car-pole' from *skakull (OSw
> > <skakul> in <halmskaklar> plur.); formally this is a better
> > match for OE <sceacel> ~ <sceacol>.
>
> Perhaps three roots are needed then:
>
> 1. *sk(^)eh2/4g(^)- 'to bind, fetter' vel sim. for the ON and OSw
> words just above, and OE <sceacel> 'shackle'.
>
> 2. *(s)kh3eg- 'to shake, agitate' vel sim. for Skt. <khajati>
> 'agitates, churns' and its relatives, and the Gmc. words including
> OE <sceacan> 'to shake', <sceacel> 'plectrum'.
>
> 3. *sk(^)eng(^)- 'to list, be awry' vel sim. for ON <skakkr> and
> Grk. <skazo:>.
>
I don't think that's necessary; I imagine a set a words having to do with transport of slaves and cattle being bounced around especially Eastern Europe and the Eastern Meduterranean all having to do with subdueing the cargo, viz.:
1. *kYaN- (in some places -> *ksaN -> *skaN-) "to hobble; to handicap"
2. *kYan- etc. "being in the state of having been hobbled etc" ->
"walk with a limp, irregularly"
3. *kyaN-t- etc. "a creature (slave, animal) which has been hobbled, handicapped (permanently sometimes)"
And BTW, I noticed that the sense "castrated" suggested here
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62173?var=0&l=1
as the root of Slavic *skotU- "cattle", Germanic *skatta- "tax; treasure" would make sense then too.
cf.
Peter Heather
Empires and Barbarians
pp. 565-567
'The relative proliferation of sources also allows us to explore the operations of this trading network in more detail than was possible for its Roman-era counterparts. We have already come across some of the major waterborne routes that Scandinavian adventurers opened up in the ninth century: particularly, down the Volga and its tributaries to the Muslim world, and down the Dnieper and across the Black Sea to Constantinople. There were also land routes running through central Europe into the west, on which Prague was a major staging post. We can also, importantly, say something about where the slaves were generally being captured. The Arab geographers report that the Rus raided westwards for their victims, while the 'western Slavs' raided eastwards. Confirmation of this picture is provided by the distribution of the Muslim silver coins that came back north in return for all the slaves and furs. Striking concentrations emerge. Two are where you might expect: along the Volga and its tributaries, and in Scandinavia. A third, however, lay between the Oder and the" Vistula, right in the heartland of the Piast state. Even more arresting is the complete absence of coins in the immense tracts of territory east of the Vistula and north and west of the Dnieper. Pretty straightforwardly, then, the coin distributions confirm the reports of the Arab geographers. The areas without coins are precisely those from which the slaves were being extracted, caught between the rock of the Rus and hard place of the west Slavs.54
This suggests some further thoughts about how, precisely, the new dynasts were making money out of these international networks. All were busy extracting tolls, but the Rurikids, as we have seen, were doing much more than that. Active participants in the networks, they were also to be found developing markets, not just taxing them. And given that much of what was being traded was actually slaves, there might well have been an intimate link between the evolution of the new networks and those eminently important military retinues. Violence and terror are the order of the day with slave trading, not just because individuals resist capture, but also because the cowed and terrified are that much easier to transport. I remember as an undergraduate picking up the standard textbook on medieval slavery and glancing through it in an idle way because it was written in French and the subject was not absolutely central to that week's work. But my attention was attracted by a map that appeared to have a series of battle sites marked by the usual crossed-swords symbol. This seemed odd. On closer inspection, the symbols were not crossed swords, but scissors, and the legend read 'points de castration', This does not need translation. Nor did women fare much better. The Arab geographers certainly enjoyed the barbarous nature of the northern societies they were describing and deliberately underlined the total ghastliness of the Rus slave traders. Ibn Fadlan describes them as the filthiest of God's creatures, emphasizing the unpleasantness of their personal hygiene habits. He also refers only to females and children among the slaves being sold down the Volga, taking a voyeur's delight, too, in how much sex went on between the slavers and their victims.
It's hard to know quite what to make of this. The literary accounts could make you think that the trade with the Islamic world was entirely in women, but I don't know whether to believe this or not. Perhaps the huge distances involved meant that shipping males was just too dangerous, since, although moving on water, the potential refuge of riverbanks was never that far away, unlike in the later Atlantic slave trade. I don't have any doubt, however, that sexual exploitation was a major feature of the action. It always is, in the case of women and slavery, and you have to wonder where Vladimir obtained the three hundred concubines he kept at Vyshgorod, the three hundred at Belgorod and the two hundred at Berestovoe."
The real point, though, is that highly trained, well-equipped military retinues were an excellent tool not only for state-building, but for capturing slaves as well. Some of the raiding was done by intermediaries, but the Rus did a fair amount of their own dirty work, and there is every reason to suppose that this was also true of the west Slavs, probably the retainers of both Piasts and Premyslids. As we have seen, many Muslim coins have turned up on Piast territory, and their lands were conveniently near to the areas from which both texts and the absence of coins tell us that slaves were being taken. To my mind, it is not too much of a stretch to suppose that, like their Rurikid peers, the Piasts built up the military capacity of their retinues not only from toll revenues but also by actively participating in the international slave trade.'
And while we're at various kind of maiming to subdue slaves:
Check the story here on the Scythians blinding their slaves, for the same purpose of rendering them in a state where they can't rise up against their masters:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66820?var=0&l=1
*kaN- -> (I propose)
to
Ernout-Meillet:
'caecus, -a, -um: 1° aveugle, qui ne voit pas; 2° sens objectif "Invisible, où l'on ne voit pas", nox caeca, cubiculum ... caecum;
d'où "secret" et "bouché, sans issue":
caecum (intestÄ«num) = ÏoÏ
~ `ενÏÎÏoÏ
ÏÏ
ÏλÏν Ïι Arist. P.A., 3,14.
S'emploie, par image en poésie, de sensations autres que les sensations visuelles:
Vg., Ae.10,98, caeca uolubant murmura,
peut-être à l'imitation du gr. ÏÏ
ÏλÏÏ.
- Attesté de tout temps. M.L.1461
...
Adjectif à vocalisme radical a, et à suffixe -ko-, cf.cascus, luscus, etc., désignant une infirmité. Cf., mais seulement dans les langues les plus proches: irl. caech, gall. coeg et got. haihs, mais au sens de "borgne". Le nom propre Caecinα est étrusque (étr. Caicna): Tuscus Caecina (Tac).'
Torsten