Celtic word for horse

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>BMScott at stratos.net writes:

>Breton <ebeul> 'colt', NIr <each> 'a horse, a steed', and
>I assume Manx <eagh> 'riding horse, steed, racehorse'. >>

-- correct.  The point being that Proto-Celtic started out with two words for
horse; one derived from *ekwos and one from *markos (the latter also being
present in Germanic).

There can be no certainty in the matter, but the prevalence of
*ekwos-reflexes in the IE languages indicates that this was probably the
"default" word for "horse" and that *markos had some other, specialized
meaning.  Probably "wild horse".