07 October 2016

Celtic *marko- 'horse' (updated)

According to Gamkrelidze-Ivanov1, Celtic *marko- 'horse' (Old Irish marc, Middle Welsh march, Gaulish márkan [acc.])2 and Germanic *márxa-/*margá- 'horse, mare' (Old Icelandic marr 'horse', merr 'mare', Old High German marah- 'horse', meriha 'mare') is an Asian Wanderwort related to horseback riding in the Eurasian steppes before the first millenium BC.

The closest forms would be Sinitic *mrāʔ and Tibeto-Burman *mrāŋ 'horse', with Schwebeablaut. These words3 look as different formations from a lexeme found in Altaic *mórV 'horse' (Mongolian *mori, Tungusic *murin, Korean *màr). One of these derivations, with a nasal suffix (*mori-n), found in Mongol and Tungusic, would be the origin of the Tibeto-Burman word as well as North Caucasian *far-nē 'horse, mare'. The other would be a diminutive *mor-qa reflected in the Sinitic and Celto-Germanic words.
 
However, Sanskrit mṛga 'deer, antelope' would point to a possible origin of this Wanderwort in the domestication of wild horses by the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan (3,500-3,000 BCE). 
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1 T. Gamkrelidze & V. Ivanov (1995): Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, p. 472-473.
2 R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 257.
3 For which Sergei Starostin reconstructs a Sino-Tibetan protoform *mrāH / *mrāŋ.

5 comments:

  1. I think the Dravidian word is much more closely related to Afroasiatic.

    Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *mar-
    Meaning: cow, calf

    Semitic: *mVrVʔ- 'bull'
    Egyptian: mr.t 'cow' (Gr.)
    Western Chadic: *marir- 'oryx antelope'
    Central Chadic: *maray- '(sacrificial) bull' (?)
    Low East Cushitic: *mār- 'calf'
    High East Cushitic: *mV̄r- 'calf'
    Warazi (Dullay): *mār- 'heifer'
    Omotic: *marr- 'calf'
    Notes: Cf. HSED 1728: Eg.; CCh.: Mafa; Cush.: Arb.

    There are a number of words in Afroasiatic that have a shared meaning of different kinds of bovids, ie, cows, antelopes, bulls, gazelles, oxen, goats, deer, etc...

    There is also Meroitic: mre-ke supposedly meaning "horse" > supposedly related to Nubian: murta "horse". In my opinion, the Meroitic word is likely related to the Afroasiatic etymon above and is talking about cows not horses.

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    1. I'm afraid this is an incredible mess of wild and domestic animals, thus not a valid "etymon" properly speaking. As I said before, names of domesticated animals tend to become Wanderwörter spread among genetically unrelated languages, so I won't surprised if the Meroitic word you quoted is actually related to the Sinitic and Celtic 'horse' words.

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  2. Horses may have been domesticated in Arabia well before the Botai culture, Octavia.

    I learned of this some time ago...thought I would share it with you.

    Excavations in a new archaeological site in the southwestern Asir province in Saudi Arabia may reveal that horse domestication in Saudi Arabia, started 9,000 years ago – challenging previous theories that the practice started in the Arabian Peninsula 5,550 years ago only.

    Just to let you know, the Meroitic word is tentative - no one knows what it actually means. I believe Meroitic is Afroasiatic, not Nilo-Saharan. If it is not Afroasiatic...it certainly has a massive amount of borrowing from Afroasiatic and not just from the daughter languages, but from the proto-language itself which is impossible as you know. That means the words had to be inherited.

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    1. Regardless of the actual classification of Meroitic, the thing is mreke is much close to the Celtic and Germanic words than to Nubian murta 'horse', which has Afrasian parallels:

      *pard- ~ *parʒ/ǯ- 'an equid' (Militarev)
      *ba/irdˁ-awn- ~ *barz/dˁ- 'mule, horse' (Militarev)

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    2. Warning: the above proposals are highly tentative. What I'm sure of is there're dozens and possibly hundreds of words relative to 'horse' and other equids, most of which are actually Wanderwörter.

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