Re: Haya (Horse)

At 4:40:23 PM on Tuesday, September 30, 2014,
richard.wordingham@... [cybalist] wrote:

> ---In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <eyunnis@...>
> wrote :

>> Unfortunately, I could not understand French to get into
>> details as how haya and Ji related. But I know that >
>> Armenia is also called Hayastan. But the information I
>> have is that Haya in hayastan is a non indoeuropean >
>> term. Probably something related to progeny of Noah or
>> Japhet which is a non indoeuropean theme. So got >
>> confused if Armenians were indoeuropeans!!

> Armenian _ji_ < PIE g^he:yos. Sanskrit _haya_ < PIE
> g^heyos. The discrepancy between a long vowel and a short
> vowel may not be significant, though I would not be
> surprised if it resulted from the word becoming an o-stem
> independently in the two branches. The Sanskrit evidence
> suggests derivation from a cry to encourage animals to
> move, and the derivation would be parallel to the English
> _gee_, _geegee_ 'horse'. (Actually, I'm not sure that the
> simplex noun _gee_ occurs outside the _Pirates of
> Penzance_ - 'You'll say a better Major-General has never
> sat a gee.')

The OED (still 2nd edition for this word) has the following
three citations:

1887 Punch 22 Oct. 192/3 Pray tell me why that frisky gee,
Called Pegasus, should harnessed be?

1890 Licensed Vict. Gaz. 8 Feb. (Farmer) The gees were all
broken to the stable.

1894 J. D. Astley Fifty Years of my Life I. 59, I was to
pay forty pounds in case either of the hired gees died.

Brian