Domesticating the Horse

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Joat and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 5:43 AM

>> proto-language at email.msn.com writes:

>>> By the way, Pokorny lists *u.lkwi: for 'female wolf'.  Where do you get
>>> *ulkwiha?

<JS>
> -- Carl Darling Buck's _A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal
> Indo-European Languages_.  Old High German "mariha" is a reflex.

<PR>
Well, since I find no obvious reflexes of *ulkwiha in Pokorny, perhaps you
would share some examples from Buck (sorry, I do not have it myself) that he
believes are based on it.

OHG mariha is, I believe, does not exist in Pokorny, which has meriha from
*marko-. In any case, the usual derivation of OHG -ha would be IE -ko. Is
that not right?

<PRp>
>> Well, perhaps. But 'mustang' comes very close, does it not, to being a
>> 'wild horse'?

<JS>
> -- "feral horse", actually, rather than "wild".

> And it's a recent North American dialect term, borrowed from the Spanish
> "mestengo", meaning "a stray or ownerless beast".

<PR>
Actually, it is a term for "wild horse" according to AHD. And "feral" has
the principal meaning "existing in a wild or untamed state". Now, this *may*
but need not have the additional qualification "having reverted to such a
state from domestication" but that would only properly refer to the first
generation of horses. Subsequent generations would never have known
domestication.

The word is not restricted to any regional dialect in the United States
unless, of course, you consider American English a "dialect".

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
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