Celtic word for horse

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
>>>A number of Greek historians tell us the Celtic word for horse was <marka>,
>>>never mentioning <equus> or <hippos> or any other name.

Mr. Stirling replied:
>>-- wrong, and completely wrong at that.  Eg., the following Celtic words for
>>"horse", deriving from *ekwos:
>>Old Irish:  ech
>>Gaulish:    epo (plus "equos", as the name of a month)
>>Welsh       ebol (colt)
>>You really should be more careful... 8-).

(I take it that Mr. Stirling was correcting the Greek historians and asking
them to be more careful, since all I was doing was reporting what they said.)

In a message dated 3/1/2000 10:07:52 PM, Dr. Stefan Georg replied:
>Excuse me, but do the Greek historians mention the Old Irish and Welsh
>words ? I'd be surprised, if they did, so the statement above is not really
>touched by your assertion that it is "completely wrong"  ...

Thanks for trying to keep that straight.  If anyone recalls, this is about
Mr. Stirling's claim that <marko-> or something like it was "probably" the
word for wild horses.

With regard to *equus reflexes in Celtic, of course each of the languages
above also has a <marko-> word for horse.  But it make me wonder how
forgiving this analysis should be - since I see a complete absence of *ekwos
in Breton, NIr and Manx.

(And those words the author cites for Gaulish and Welsh - epo and ebol? - I
guess that pesky p/q thing can make a Latin-looking word for horse look like
a Greek-looking word for horse.)

Also I note that Buck has somehow failed to include in his book a rather
important OIr word for 'deer' - <ach>  (Gaelic - <each>).  Perhaps more on
that later.

But here's one quote if anyone's interested:

Pausanias Description of Greece (Loeb edition)
[10.19.11]
"The Persians used to wait until the battle was over before replacing
casualties, while the Gauls kept reinforcing the horsemen to their full
number during the height of the action. This organization is called in their
native speech trimarcisia; it is well known that marca is the Celtic name for
a horse."

[...Galatais de hup' autên tou ergou tên akmên ho arithmos apeplêrouto
tôn hippeôn. touto ônomazon to suntagma trimarkisian têi epichôriôi
phônêi: kai hippôi to onoma istô tis markan on ta hupo tôn Keltôn.]

Cf. Greek <margas> = <desmos> (band, bond, anything for tying and fastening,
as halter, Hom. Il. 6.507; yoke-strap, Xenophon. Anabases.) LS.

Regards,
Steve Long